Falklands again? Why Argentina's Kirchner keeps pushing the issue with Britain.
(Read article summary)Kirchner's populist platform targets debt reduction, social inclusion, unorthodox economic policies, and repeatedly pressing Britain over the South Atlantic archipelago.
Buenos Aires
Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner relaunched her offensive over the Falkland Islands today, a move that coincides with the 180th anniversary of Britain’s allegedly illegal usurpation of the South Atlantic archipelago.
Ms. Kirchner published an open letter to British Prime Minister David Cameron in British newspapers imploring him to respect a United Nations resolution that calls on the two countries to negotiate sovereignty of the Malvinas, the name for the islands in Spanish.
Britain has repeatedly refused to enter into talks, and a spokesman for Mr. Cameron responded by saying he will “do everything to protect the interests of the islanders.”
But Kirchner's move forms part of a broader leadership pattern that has seen the nationalist president take on so-called vulture funds, demonize the International Monetary Fund, and echo Hugo Chávez’s anti-neocolonial discourse.
'National and Popular'
Though Britain may take the view that Kirchner is beating a dead horse, the Falklands are a longstanding national cause for Argentina and are written into its Constitution. Today's letter represents what are described here in Argentina as "Nac & Pop" policies.
"Nac & Pop" stands for national and popular, the way Kirchner defines her government. She casts reclaiming the Falklands, over which Britain and Argentina fought a short war in 1982, as a South American struggle against neocolonialism.
Britain recently named a slice of Antarctica over which Argentina also has a claim "Queen Elizabeth Land," a move branded by a source at the Argentine presidential palace as “provocative and childish.”
