On 24 September, Foreign Ministers Mondino and Lammy simultaneously issued a statement in Buenos Aires and London, welcomed by the Legislative Assembly of the Malvina Islands, which stated that it had been involved throughout the negotiations.
It contains three elements: one relating to the completion of the identification of Argentine soldiers and the visit of relatives of the fallen to the Argentine Cemetery in Darwin, another agreeing to the resumption of weekly flights from San Pablo to the islands with a monthly stopover in Córdoba and the last on “specific measures in the area of fisheries”.
The objective of the economic-political elite of the islands is to deepen commercial, cultural and political ties with third South American countries, excluding Argentina. The Mondino-Lammy Agreement effectively excludes direct flights by Argentine companies between the Argentine mainland and the islands.
In addition to the weekly flight to Chile, there is now a flight to Brazil, which had been cancelled since the pandemic. Argentina had the opportunity to use one of the few pressure tools it has: without Argentine authorisation, there are no flights to any South American country. Once again, the United Kingdom got something for nothing.
The identification of the fallen and family visits are a purely humanitarian issue that should not even be considered a point of contention . Only formal discussions are possible regarding their implementation.
It is very worrying that there is also talk of cooperation in fisheries in the South Atlantic, when in practice the information provided by Argentina to the island's fisheries officials can only help - as has happened in the past - to exploit the fisheries controlled by the British in a vast region of the South Atlantic, the islands' main economic resource.
The United Kingdom continues to advance on the factual terrain while failing to comply with its obligation under International Law to decolonize the territory and negotiate the sovereignty dispute with Argentina.
All of this is taking place within the context of a general weakening of Argentina's international position in the face of the drastic departure from traditional positions held by governments of the most varied political stripes.
The aggression goes as far as disqualifying the United Nations, the organization that precisely made it possible to break 132 years of British refusal to negotiate the question of sovereignty and established the particular doctrine for the decolonization of the territory in its Resolution 2065(XX) of 1965.
If Malvinas is a “state policy”, the appropriate existing areas must be used before making decisions of capital importance that affect the present and future of the issue.
* Opinion note by Marcelo Kohen; Emeritus Professor of International Law, Geneva; published in the newspaper Clarín on Wednesday, September 25.
