Argentine Ambassador to the UK, Alicia Castro, has arrived and wasted no time in upsetting readers of the Daily Telegraph with her attack on Britain in an article headed "Warmongering won't settle this old dispute". In the article she claims that she is 'facing a campaign that “celebrates” a war that took place 30 years ago and warmongering, disrespectful and aggressive language that obstructs dialogue'. I assume she means Britain by this remark which has commemorated, not celebrated, the 30th Anniversary of the Falklands Conflict, war was never declared by either side. Or perhaps she means the celebrations that took place in Argentina, the violent attack on the British Embassy in Buenos Aires and the disrespectful and aggressive language of President Cristina Elisabet Fernández de Kirchner when talking about the Falkland Islanders and the British Government. Judging by the 500 plus on line comments on the article her readers are not impressed by her attempts to 'to rebuild and strengthen bilateral relations.'

Her biased and error ridden account of the history of the Falkland Islands is capped with the denial of self determination for the Falkland Islanders under the United Nations Charter.

The statement that ' We are not willing to take away the Britishness and the way of life of the 3,000 inhabitants of the islands.' sounds rather hollow. In the last 74 days of Argentine rule in the Islands in 1982 the official language became Spanish, residents were required to drive on the opposite side of the road, the laws administering the population were replaced with rules in Spanish. Falkland Islanders were rounded up, imprisoned and in many cases evicted from the Islands. Ambassador Castro blames the Military Junta that was in power at that time for the invasion and its effects but the Junta were the Government at that time and the crowds in front of the Casa Rosada seemed very happy with their actions.

Sadly any chance of negotiations to bring about peaceful relations between the peoples of the Falkland Islands and Argentina are pushed further into the background by this aggressive attack on the Falkland Islanders and the Great Britain which closely follows the party line of the present Argentine President.

Easter Monday and its raining! Nine days into the month and still no confirmation that all the material for the Newsletter is at the printers. It seems most unlikely that it will be out in time to pick up a few more guests for the trip to Kew on 25th.

Steve Hawkshaw has emailed to say that the British Forces weekend in SOUTHPORT will run on 30th June/1st July at Princes Park from 11:00 to 17:30 with free entry. Participants are as follows:

Saturday, 30th, Southport Veterans Day Carnival 13:00 Lead by the Royton ATC Band and RAF Woodvale University Squadron

Sunday 1st July Southport Falkland 30th Anniversary and BAFD Parade
10:30 Lead by the Welsh Guards Band (not confirmed)
RBL Riders Branch to take part.

Bar and Entertainment in the Town Hall Gardens
Royal Signals Motorbike Display on the park

In addition there will be a Falklands Display in Southport Town Hall From June 25th.

Press coverage is declining now that the anniversary of the invasion is over but I expect coverage will continue and then pick up again in June. 

One of our faithful US members has just renewed his subscription and ordered one of the new lapel badges - this will be the first badge to wing its way across the pond to the US. He will know that it is on its way as he tells me that he has been reading this blog which is reassuring as sometimes you wonder if anyone reads it although the statistics say that there are more hits from the US than the UK! So thank you - you will know who you are. The package was posted today.

It is good to know that we have supporters in both the USA and Canada. The visit to the Falkland Islands by US Congressman Jim Sessenbrenner a few weeks ago was encouraging - he thought he was the first sitting member of the US Congress to visit the Islands and hoped that he would not be the last. When he addressed the Legislative Council in Stanley he said that the United States has always stood for the principle of self determination saying "we let the British Crown know that about 230 years ago and we haven't changed our viewpoint that the people should be allowed to direct able to choose their system of government and make whatever alliances and determinations that are necessary" Let us hope he takes his experiences back to Congress and convinces a few other members of the importance of self determination to the Falkland Islanders.

Michael Probin brought ten copies of Lisa Watson's book back from the Falkland Islands. Lisa was just eleven years old when the Argentine troops invaded Stanley in 1982 and this 40 page booklet describes her evacuation from Stanley to her parents farm at Long Island Farm and the various adventures that followed. Initially written for young Falkland Islanders to learn something of what it was like to be a child during the conflict it will be of interest to children in the UK and elsewhere. 

Priced at £10, copies are available from me although it may be some time before we get any further copies - just seven left (19/3)



The Newsletter is going through the proof reading stage but has yet to go to the printer so it looks as if the publication date of 1st April will slip a bit this year. One problem is the visit to Kew which takes place on Wednesday 25th April but bookings have to be in by 3rd April so most members wont know about the event until too late. As it is a follow up to last years visit to Wakehust Place we have tried to contact all who came to that event and we have 18 booked so far.

Our meeting with MLA Barry Elsby went well and we had an interesting exchange of views. It was good to hear that the MLA's regard the FIA as a worthwhile organisation.

Several calls from the press all looking for a fresh angle on a relatively simple problem - Argentina wants to take over the Falkland Islands and the other South Atlantic Islands right down into Antarctica and the Falkland Islanders do not want to be part of Argentina but remain an Overseas Territory of the UK. The rest of the South Atlantic Islands are in possession of the UK with a good title so far as we can see.

Discussions would seem pointless for, although there are many aspects that could be discussed - fisheries, tourism, travel, even oil exploration, Argentina only wants to discuss one thing - when are we going to give the Islands back to them - end of.

Lots of new books coming out - mainly related to the 1982 conflict. The Silent Listener by D J Thorp is a good read about the role of electronic warfare units in the conflict.

It has been a busy time with all the fuss over the coming 30th Anniversary of the Falklands Conflict. The arrival of Facebook and Twitter since the 25th Anniversary, especially the latter, has enabled anyone and everyone to offer their views and opinions on the situation with the result that if you get into the line of fire the twitter traffic becomes heavy, sometimes aggressive, often rude, often ill-informed and, just occasionally, amusing.

I feel sorry for Lisa, our Newsletter Editor and Editor of Penguin News in the Falkland Islands, who is having to cope with journalists and TV crews from around the world trying to say something original and often getting 'the wrong end of the stick'. As we have seen with the rioting in London last year the advent of the mobile phone has given fast and efficient communication to the masses, a double edged weapon for good and bad. Language can still be a barrier although Google Translate sometimes manages to make sense of some tweets.

Sales of 'Diddle Dee and Wire Gates' has been a trickle but, apart from a small ad in the Penguin News alerting UK readers that we had copies, hardly anybody knows we have got them to sell and the main ad will go out with the Spring Newsletter.

Whether we will get the Newsletter out early is anybody's guess as Lisa is overloaded with other duties so I am not too hopeful. Even if we got it out on time it will probably be too late to pick up many takers for the visit to Kew on 25 April - I have managed to gather 17 visitors so far so still have 8 places to fill.

At least I know that all my material for the Newsletter is with Lisa so it will not be my fault if we are late getting it out. We are adding to our number of proof readers this time which might help us to pick up any errors before it is published.

Taking a three day break to celebrate my sister's 70th birthday but I expect I will be watching twitter if nothing else! One good spin off of all the press coverage has been an increase in the number of new members joining us - all via the website which is proving its worth and on which we hope to increase the material we have on view, we are clearly not using it to its full potential.

Two items of note arose from my visit to the London Office on 25th January.

 

I found the boxes of the book 'Diddle Dee to Wire Gates' had arrived thanks to MLA's Roger Edwards and Sharon Halford who had brought them north on their way to meetings with the EU in Brussels. I was able to post off the first two copies to be ordered from us and managed to sell ten copies to members of ExCo and FIGO staff. I still have 118 copies left but a promotion in the Spring Newsletter may encourage sales. Full details are given below in an earlier post. 

The other item was news of our proposed visit to Kew to see their work in relation to plants from the Falkland Islands. The date has now been chosen as Wednesday 25th April 2012. The programme will commence at 2.00pm in the Jodrell Laboratory at Kew with a tour of the areas with Falkland plants. There will be a tea break from 4.00pm to 5.00pm followed by lectures on the Conservation of Falkland Plants. The visit will end about 7.00pm. There will be an opportunity to meet Rebecca Upson (Falklands Conservation Native Plants Project Officer), Richard Lewis (Falklands Conservation Invasive Plants Associate), Cynthia Williams (Stanley Growers Nursery Staff), Kit Strange (Kew Alpine Nursery Specialist), Tom Heller (Kew UKOT Seed Bank Officer), Martin Hamilton (Kew UKOT's Programme Co-ordinator), Sara Barrios (Kew UKOT's  Programme GSPC Officer), Marcella Corcoran (Kew UKOT's Programme Horticultural Officer) plus other staff and volunteers involved in the programme. Numbers are limited and priority will be given to those who attended our visit to the Millenium Seed Bank at Wakehurst Place last year - this is a ticket only event.