Originally Posted by
Agaricus bisporus
There is no more need for a UN referendum in the Falklands than there is for one on the Isle of Wight. The legal ownership of the Islands is not in any doubt as the Argentine claim is utterly without merit. None whatever, and it's a tragedy and a shame that some British people here seem bizarely to take an opposite view and rant on about the "evils" of "colonialism", whatever they are. The evils of success I suppose.
If you are suggesting that I "bizarely ...take an opposite view and rant on about the "evils" of "colonialism" since I suggested the referendum of self-determination, then you couldn't be more wrong. In a previous life I was proud to be branded 'an apologist for British imperialism' in a post-module validation by the class student socialist worker activist, who objected to my contention that the Falklands were British and that the Argentines could be said to have embarked upon a war of aggression in 1982...
The point I'm making about a referendum is that despite your contention that
The legal ownership of the Islands is not in any doubt
It quite clearly is in doubt, otherwise the Argentines would not enjoy the level of support that they do from certain of their neighbours and some other states and the matter would go away. The sad fact is that simply drawing upon the outline history (once again) does nothing to deny the Argentines the ability to garner a level of support for their claim, even if it is based upon the egregious decision to downplay the fundamental right of self-determination by those supporting it.
The referendum I (hyopthetically) mooted above (which is less likely to happen than Sharkey Ward's next book is to praise Op Blackbuck), if it went the way we'd expect, would present a clear, unambiguous, UN-sponsored verdict on the Argentine claim.
Unless the UN went against its own basic premise, then a 'We're British, thanks' outcome would go a long way towards settling the matter because of what it represents (which, as Ken notes, is why the Argentines would reject any such move), removing the crutch of whatever the Spanish for 'it's colonialism, inn'it?' from the Argentines once and for all...