by Mark Hopkins

Created on: February 06, 2011

The Falkland Islands lie deep in the South Atlantic Ocean, about 300 miles off the coast of Argentina, which has claimed them as part of its territory ever since 1816, when it became independent from Spain. They are over 8000 miles from Britain. However, the population is overwhelmingly of British decent and has repeatedly opposed any suggestion of becoming 'Argentinian'. Under International Law and the United Nations Charter covering the self determination rights of small countries, Argentina has no right to the Falkland Isalnds.

It was in 1833 that a British naval force expelled a small number of Argentinians from the islands. They were replaced by Scottish sheep farmers. Britain's naval supremacy in the nineteenth century meant that Argentina was not in a position to challenge this action. By 1982, when Argentina mounted a surprise invasion of the Falklands, there were about 1,800 Falkland Islanders and about 400,000 sheep.

Britain, and the islanders themselves, were taken completely by surprise by the Argentinian action, which occurred on April 2nd. About a month earlier, a party of Argentinian scrap metal workers had landed without the necessary authorisation on the British island Dependency of South Georgia to dismantle a disused whaling station and had hoisted the Argentinian flag. Britain had sent a party of 20 Royal Marines to the usually uninhabited island to remove them. However, no one had foreseen an attack on the Falkands.

There were several reasons for the Argentinian invasion. Britain was gradually scaling down the size of the Royal Navy since there was no longer a massive British Empire, and her presence in the South Atlantic was now slight. A research vessel, HMS Endurance, was the only significant British presence in the area. The nearest sizable British military base was on Ascension Island 4000 miles away. When Britain announced in 1981 that HMS Endurance was to be withdrawn from the South Atlantic, as part of naval cutbacks, the Argentinian government seems to have misinterpreted this as a sign Britain was no longer interested in the area.

This was a mistake on the part of the Argentinians but also a mistake on the part of the British government, led by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. As recently as 1976, a previous British government had become alarmed at Argentinian 'sabre rattling' and had quietly sent a naval task force to the South Atlantic as a show of strength in 1977.

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>