Forging ahead after the Falklands war

NOW THAT the hostilities in the Falkland Islands are thankfully over, the way ahead is going to be fraught with difficulties and pressures. I believe that without our present Prime Minister they might prove almost overwhelming, but with the solid support of the majority in Britain, Mrs Thatcher appears well able to keep her head and hold the position until the dust has settled and calm and objective opinions can be expressed, both nationally and internationally.
First, the left-wing lobby at home are going to get cracking about the British right to sovereignty. Paul Foot is already at it in the Daily Mirror. The fairest and most sober view is that none of the parties, France, Spain, Britain, or the Buenos Aires Province of the day, had any absolute right to sovereignty over East or West Falkland up till about 1832.
The parties landed, withdrew, did a deal, landed again, had squabbles, withdrew, and so on. Finally, before Argentina ever existed, Britain, with the support of the United States, established peaceful Government in 1833 and has administered and protected the British settlers there ever since. There were never any local inhabitants.
If that is not an acceptable basis for sovereignty in the last quarter of the 20th century, then Governments and subjects in countless parts of the world had better start moving around right now. The chaos that would ensue defies the imagina'tion.
And the first to pack their bags should be the Argentines, with a record of the most cruel and outrageous colonisation in all history,
involving the systematic extermination of the peaceful indigenous inhabitants of a vast part of South America, from Buenos Aires right down to the tip of Tierra del Fuego.
In Argentina today there is not a face to be seen that is not European, whereas in Brazil there is a stimulating mixed community of all shades as in the USA and most Latin American countries.
The next lobby at home is going to be that we cannot afford to protect the Falklands. I do not profess to be a defence expert, but I experienced seven years of war and I am the only member of either House of Parliament who knows the area fairly well, and has visited South Georgia and the Antarctic.
All this talk about "Fortress Falklands", and maintaining a large garrison, and costs of £250m to £500m a year is frankly totally uninformed and derives from no knowledge of the local circumstances.
All that will be required in the future is deterrence, not a massive presence. What is needed is what has not been available at all, before April 2, and that is deterrence in the form of sophisticated early warning and detection equipment, the presence or even the rumour of a killer sub between the Falklands and the mainland, a small contingent of marines, a roving presence of aircraft and above all the lengthened runway at Port Stanley to ensure immediate reinforcement from the UK.
Finally we must have HMS Endurance or a modernised successor, with a comparable sister ship, to guard the sea lanes and the passage round Cape Horn, and most particularly to protect the gateway to the Antarctic and all its future opportunities not only for Britain but for the rest of the Free World. By comparison with the total defence budget, the cost will be marginal.
The other big pressure now will be from the USA and our own Foreign Office, no doubt with the best of intentions, and the argument is that we cannot afford to offend Argentina and especially the other Latin American countries. Naturally nobody wants to cause offence.
But the fact has to be faced that the only characteristic that those peoples respect is firmness and resolution, and the one thing they despise and take advantage of is weakness and uncertainty.
It may be sad, but compromise and conciliation, especially where Argentina is concerned, is instantly interpreted as weakness. So the best if not the only hope for an ultimate solution is to adhere firmly to our rightful position.
Given all that, the situation in the South Atlantic can be stablised and then we can turn our attention to mending all the fences and rebuilding relations with new Argentine friends. I have many myself, and it seems strange to think that among them is Costa Mendez, and several others of influence in government service, but not in the forces.
Individually there are no more cultured, delightful and affectionate people than the Argentines. They just have this fatal knack of picking the most ghastly regimes, and suffering grievously for it. My heart bleeds for those I know, but I pray and frankly believe that the Falklands catastrophe may prove a turning point in their history, and lead to the transformation of the recent ghastly regimes into tolerable, civilized forms of government with which we can deal in a constitutional manner and seek reconciliation.
Because they have been indoctrinated in school for several generations abou the "Malvinas", with warped and distorted propaganda, the Argentine public is not going to come off that hobbyhorse in a hurry. The prospects are daunting and difficult.
But I have an instinct, if not faith, that a way can be found in due course, probably within the context of the Antarctic Treaty which is due for renewal in 1991. There are many possibilities and options by which the Argentines could be got off the hook and a meeting point ultimately discovered.
In this the Catholic Church must play a proper role. As a very ecumenical Catholic myself, I have been frankly disconcerted, if not shocked, by the apparent disposition adopted by the Church in Argentina during the Falklands affair.
Can they seriously stand shoulder to shoulder with the junta, knowing that thousands of their own communities have been wiped out and have disappeared without trace? One wonders what the Holy Father was thinking during his visit to Buenos Aires, and how he saw in his mind the contrast between the posture of the bishops in Argentina, and the fearless, courageous clergy in Poland.