Falklanders have right to govern themselves

The Falklanders' right to self-determination cannot be invalidated by their desire to adhere to Britain. That desire would only be significant if it resulted in direct colonial consequences for the people of Argentina and no-one, including President Cristina Kirchner, has been able demonstrate any practical (as opposed to demogogic) way in which that is the case.

Mike Starke at least acknowledges that Argentina's claim to be an "anti-colonial" force in this situation is somewhat incredible, given the fact that it only exists as a result of European settlers having vitually wiped out the native population.

Argentina's "claim" to the Falklands rests on a few years of formal possession in the 1830's by a garrison sent to establish a penal settlement. There never was an indigenous population there.

Galtieri's 1982 invasion did not liberate anyone from colonialism or imperialism. It did not lessen the burden of imperialist exploitation or improve the conditions for the fight against it - for a single Argentinian worker.

Kirchner's government may be somewhat less reactionary than the fascistic Galtieri regime but her posturing over the Fallkands is just as contrived - a cynical ploy to divert the Argentinian masses at a time of economic crisis at home.

Argentina is a developed bourgeois state and possesses political independence. It also occupies a subordinate rank within the imperialist world economy.

That subordination, however, in no way gives any progressive character to the Argentinian ruling class and their mini-imperialist designs on the Falklands and its harmless population.

John Wight, like too many British leftists, is engaging in a fantasy "anti-imperialism" that in fact makes him an apologist for the regime and a vicarius Argentinian chauvinist.

Jim Denham

Bournville