Falkland / Malvinas Islands

The Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas) are a group of islands in the south Atlantic. The two main islands, East Falkland and West Falkland, lie 300 miles [480 km] east of the Argentina coast. About 200 smaller islands form a total land area of approximately 4,700 square miles (12,200 square km). The capital and only town is (Port) Stanley (www.yendor.com).

The government of the Falkland Islands administers the British dependent territories of South Georgia, the South Sandwich Islands, and the Shag and Clerke rocks, lying from 700 to 2,000 miles (1,100 to 3,200 km) to the east and southeast of the Falklands. The total population of the islands was estimated at 2100 (in 1991) and 2967 in July 2003.

A consistent support to the right has come from leaders of military interventions. From the 1970s until 1982, the military promoted a “dirty war” and murdered some 40,000 Argentines suspected of opposing the government, the so-called disappeared (desaparecidos), and imposed a rigid authoritarian regime but squandered international loans (www.yendor.com). They finally experienced a humiliating defeat by the British in a war over the possession of the Falkland/Malvinas Islands. This defeat forced a democratization process, with the election of President Raul Alfonsin, but militarism continued to be associated with the extreme right. Thus, between 1987 and 1990, armed “military with painted faces” (carapintadas) opposed the democratic government and questioned the judicial processes against past military leaders (www.yendor.com). As a result, Carlos Menem, who was president during the 1990s, acquitted them from the charges of abuses committed against the Argentinean civilian population.

Thatcher has said her personal views of morality were transformed by World War II, which she says taught her “the failure of appeasement and the lesson that aggression must always be firmly resisted.” A key challenge that would symbolize her impact on the ...