Diana Mondino
By María Josefina Arce
Argentina claims sovereignty over the Malvinas Islands, illegally occupied since 1833 by the United Kingdom. It is a just and legitimate claim supported by Latin America and the Caribbean and most nations in other latitudes.
The UN has qualified the Malvinas question as a special and particular case of decolonization. In 1965 the General Assembly passed resolution 2065, which recognizes a sovereignty dispute between Buenos Aires and London and invites the two parties to enter into negotiations.
Since then, more than 40 resolutions have been adopted by the General Assembly and the Special Committee on Decolonization.
The Malvinas question is undoubtedly an important and sensitive issue for Argentines, who have reacted immediately to the ill-advised and dangerous statements made by a member of the ultra-right-wing La Libertad Avanza, party of the controversial presidential candidate Javier Milei, to a British media on this matter.
To the "self-determination" of the inhabitants of those islands referred the economist and candidate to deputy Diana Mondino, ignoring an essential element: the population of that territory does not constitute a people victim of colonialism.
Mondino's words are serious, especially when her name is heard as Milei's chancellor, in the hypothetical case of Milei winning the general elections of next October in the South American nation.
The alarm has been raised. There are already many who wonder where the country's foreign policy would end up with Mondino as possible Foreign Minister, if her position means a support to the imperialist aggressor and a threat to Argentina's sovereignty.
She leaves aside an important aspect; the presence in the usurped territory of military bases and the carrying out of war exercises, which injures Argentina's sovereignty rights and contravenes the Proclamation of Latin America as a Zone of Peace, adopted in Havana in 2014 at the Second Summit of CELAC, Community of Latin American and Caribbean States.
It also evidences a profound disregard of the Constitution, which through its First Transitory Provision ratifies its sovereignty over the Malvinas, South Georgias and South Sandwich Islands and the corresponding maritime spaces for being part of the national territory.
Mondino's words also ignore all the efforts made by Buenos Aires between 1966 and 1982 to negotiate with the United Kingdom in order to find a peaceful solution to the sovereignty dispute.
Mondino's statements, aligned with the United Kingdom, have aroused rejection in Argentine society, both from the government and opposition sectors, with total disregard for the feelings of the Argentine people and a threat to the sovereignty of the nation.
