I
commented last year that I believed that much of the involvement in Libya was
fuelled by the fact that Libya was an oil producing country. And now we're
seeing a former military dictatorship attempting to flex its muscles again.
In 1592,
an Englishman by the name of John Davis discovered a group of isolated islands,
but it wasn't until 1690 that another Englishman, John Strong, actually
explored these islands.
Then, in
1764, these islands were inhabited by a group of French sailors, who
established a colony, which lasted until 1766, when the Spanish deposed the
French and settled the islands themselves on the east side, not realising that
there was already an English colony on the west side that had been established
in 1765.
In 1774,
the English left the islands, the Spanish
also leaving in 1811 and they remained uninhabited until they were colonised by
Argentina in 1820, The Argentinians remaining until the British navy
recolonised the islands in 1833, sending the Argentinians packing.
And so
the Falkland Islands, for that is their correct name as they were named in
honour of Anthony Cary, 5th Viscount of Falkland, the man who had financed
Strong's expedition in 1690, remained a largely peaceful British Territory.
That is
until 1982, when the Argentinian junta, increasingly facing difficulties at home
decided to divert attention from domestic matters by launching a full scale
invasion of the Islands. Seventy-three days later, the invading force had
suffered ignominious defeat and the Argentinian junta, by their actions, was
responsible for the deaths of 907 British and Argentinian service personnel.
Now,
thirty years later, the sovereignty disagreement is being cranked up a notch
again, including the Argentinians burning Union Flags outside the British
Consulate in Buenos Aires. Why? I'm sure that it has nothing to do with the
fact that it is looking increasingly likely that there is oil in and around the
islands!
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