Argentina: British Colonialism and BP Are One and the Same

June 29, 2010 (LPAC)—Speaking June 24 before the UN's Decolonization Committee, Argentine Foreign Minister Hector Timerman slammed the British government for refusing to hold talks on the Malvinas Islands, which Britain illegally seized from Argentina in 1833. Defying numerous UN resolutions calling on both sides to engage in dialogue, the British government arrogantly argues, as Prime Minister David Cameron did three days ago, that there is nothing to discuss.

The newly-named Foreign Minister also took aim at British Petroleum (BP), charging that what it has done in the Gulf of Mexico is no different from the British government's trampling on Argentina's rights in the South Atlantic. "At a time when one of the worst ecological catastrophes has occurred in the Gulf of Mexico, as a result of the spill caused by British Petroleum's oil rig," he warned, "we shouldn't minimize or downplay the risk implied for our entire region, from an environmental standpoint, by the United Kingdom's colonialist adventure in the South Atlantic, based on the plundering of non-renewable natural resources." He expressed concern that British oil companies operating elsewhere—i.e., the Malvinas—may be cutting corners on safety standards, just as BP did in the Gulf of Mexico.

Timerman also offered his government's "full solidarity" to those Americans who have suffered from the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, while Argentina's UN Ambassador Jorge Arguello reminded the British government that the U.S. had declared its "neutrality" in the British-Argentine dispute—much to London's distress—and that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had offered to serve as a mediator between the two governments, during her visit to Buenos Aires last March.

Argentina's sovereign rights to the Malvinas are "irrenounceable," the Foreign Minister stated, appropriately referencing his country's longstanding anti-British sentiment, which dates back to the pre-Independence era of the early 19th century. In this year of Argentina's Bicentennial celebration, he pointed out, it is remarkable that "we are still debating a colonial issue...We are still debating what our heroes, our founding fathers did. It is an anachronism that there are still colonial powers in the 21st century."