Rio gallegos and the Falkland Islands history
Trip Start
Oct 10, 2006
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Trip End
Ongoing
Rio Gallegos, ***, Argentina
Monday, June 18, 2007
Most people heading south to Tierra del Fuego come to Rio Gallegos but rarely by choice. One generally has to make an obligatory stop in order to catch a connecting bus. In winter, the stop translates into an obligatory overnight stop due to the dearth in buses.
I didn`t dread the stop as much as most as I had been looking forward to visiting the museum on the Falklands war and Brit Argentine Relations for ages.
Typically, it was closed for renovation but all was not lost: The city isn`t actually as dreary as its reputation-it was quite lively, it had some nice cafes and Collins and I ate in a delicious "Tenedor Libre" (Free Fork) which is the Argentine version of an "All you can eat." Interestingly enough, these Tenedor Libres are often ran by Chinese immigrants which means there`s generally a nice selection of Chinese food on top of everything else
sign at every border of Argentina
. Collins finally got to sample some of the Argentine beef that he`s heard so much about and I enjoyed my greasy fried food until the pains set in...for the night!Well although I didn`t get to the museum, I`m gonna jst note down a few bits and pieces on the Falklands for those of you who are interested...considering Rio Gallegos is the Argentine spot from where you can fly to them....
THE FACTS
The Falkland Islands, or Islas Malvinas as they are known as in Argentina, are located 12, 500 km from Britain and just 550km from the coast of Argentina.
The language spoken there is a type of English, they use the Sterling and the Queen appears on the postal stamps. The majority of the islands`inhabitants want their own identity and regard themselves as neither Argentine nor British.
The Falklands are a great deal more expensive than the rest of South American gringo trail with the cheapest type of accommodation costing a salty 40 yoyos a night. Flights leave regularly from Chile, mainly Punta Arenas, with one flight per month stopping over in Rio Gallegos in Argentina.
The Islas Malvinas/Falklands are a wonderful place to see wildlife (it`s not just sheep there!) with an estimated 494, 500 breeding pairs of five types of penguins breeding there...that`s 415 birds per person! Other than that, there isn`t a whole lot to do there and most tourists stick to Mainland South America and pop over to better-marketed islands such as the Galapogos islands off Ecuadorīs coast or Easter island off Chile.
SO WHO WAS THERE FIRST?
The first recorded sighting of the islands came from a DUTCH sailor Seebold de Weert in 1600 when he sailed past the islands. Captain John Strong christened the archipelago the "Falkland Islands" in 1690 after the Commissioner of the BRITISH Admirality at the time.
FRENCH sailors from St Malo started to make numerous expeditions to the islands from 1698, naming them Malouines after their home port. This is where the Argentine name "Islas Malvinas" comes from.
The FRENCH established the base of St Louis in 1764. One year later, claiming ignorance of the French settlement, BRITISH sailors founded Port Egmont nearby and claimed the islands for George III.
The SPANISH believed they had legal title to the area at the time due to the agreement contained in the famous Treaty of Toidesillas arranged by the Papacy that divided the Americas between Portugal and Spain. The BRITS later claimed that the treaty was invalid as it rested on papal authority that they no longer recognized.
The SPANISH paid off the FRENCH in 1767 to surrender St Louis and in 1774, the BRITS abandoned their colony (although not sovereigty as they later would claim) when Spain agreed to concede control of Florida.
The SPANISH maintained presence up until 1811 when the garrison was withdrawn in order to combat pro-independence fighting in mainland South America. In 1820, the newly independent ARGENTINA asserted its right to inherit Spanish Sovereignty of the islands.
This was initially not contested by the BRITS but they began to make their voices heard as their desire to establish a marine base to carry out trade with its Australian colony and to prevent "piracy" and sealing/whaling rights ruled all.
No invasion would be complete without the UNITED STATES poking their noses in, of course, and in 1833, the US colluded with the BRITS to expel the ARGENTINIANS after restrictions had been placed on US and BRIT sealers.
BRITAIN established a base which developed significantly in 1851 after the founding of the Falkland Islands commercial. From 1860 onwards, sheep farming and animal oils (mainly penguins and elephant seals) added to the development and by 1871, there were already 800 peeps living in Port Stanley.
ENTER GALTIERI
The Islas Malvinas/Falkland Islands has been a bone of contention with many Argentinians for most of the twentieth century and in 1982, Prez General Leopold Galtieri decided to use this as a means of swaying attention away from the severe economic crisis that Argentina was suffering under his leadership.
He invaded the Islas Malvinas/Falkland Islands in April, 1982 but the Argentinians never had a chance. Galtieri had been endorsed by the Reagan administration in the States and he stupidly thought that the Yanks would support his feeble effort. He was unlucky in his opposition as he was up against the Iron lady herself, Mags Thatcher, who was none too pleased at this unpredictable turn of affairs, particularly considering that she, herself, was also suffering quite a lot of domestic problems at the time.
She sent in Britain`s task force and they weren`t long disposing of the young, inexperienced, poorly equipped Argentine side. The war lasted 74 days and more than a thousand died.
THE "WHAT IF" SCENARIO
Before the Argentine invasion, Britain had began to make plans to scrap the HMS Endurance, the UK`s only naval presence on the South Atlantic. A lot of the infrastructure, including the airport, had been built by the Argentinians and so the process of gradually integrating into the islands`economic sphere had began. Foreign affairs documents from the 1930s show that the Brits secretly recognized that their legal claims to the island were shaky and there had been attempts in the early 1960s to return the island to Argentina but this was put on hold when the plan was leaked prematurely to the press.
It was still being discussed during Thatcher`s term in the 1980s and it was thought that a lease agreement similar to that of Hong Kong would be put in place. All this was lost after the war. Argentinians could no longer fly to the island, they still need a visa and relations with the Brits were strained to say the least.
THE ARGENTINE STANCE
At virtually every point of entry into Argentina, visitors are greeted with the sign "Las Malvinas Son Argentinas" -The Malvinas are Argentina`s. (see Photo) and in 1999, a poll conducted by Newspaper "Clarin" showed that a mere 14 percent of the Argentine population considered the Falklands issue as being unimportant.
While it would be very rare for an Argentinian to be racist towards a Brit, they have, on many occasions, tried to empathize with me upon discovering that I was Irish. Although they are not very outright about their feelings on the Malvinas, their concern with the issue is shown in their graffitti which can be seen everywhere in the south of the country. It is also interesting to note that when I lived in Eldorado for four months, a town of 60, 000 people in the Northern province of Misiones, it was not possible to ring Scotland from any public phone.
The further south you go, the more possessive people become of the islands: There is a plaza in Ushuaia, the Southern most city in the world, dedicated to the islands with two heartbreaking poems and all. The Ushuaians also consider their city to be the capital of the islands....due to the fact that in 1991, the region was granted full provincial status and is now known as the province of Tierra del Fuego, the Antartic and the South Atlantic islands which include the Falklands/Islas Malvinas..of which Ushuaia is the capital
It is also now possible to fly to the island via Rio Gallegos where flights from Punta Arenas stop over on one Saturday in the month. Following the war, flights for the islands only left from Chile. A new agreement had to be reached, however, after the arrest of former Chilean dictator Pinochet as Chilean flights were stopped in protest (crazy to think how much so many Chileans still adore the man after all he did to some factions of their people)
Personally, I think that the islands technically "belong" to Argentina but the peeps on the islands are more English that Argentine (although I`ve only ever met one man from there so I`m no expert) and even the majority of Argentinians would admit this. It is just crazy to think that a tiny group of islands off the coast of Argentina use the sterling and are encouraged to regard Queen Liz and, in two weeks time, Gordon Brown to be their leaders.
But it all comes down to economics at the end of the day and as most Argentinians would have to admit, the Argentine govt. has enough to contend with in trying to provide for the actual Argentianians rather than adopting an archipelago of islands that would surely put an even greater strain on its resources
