"The sovereign claim to the Malvinas Islands is inalienable.This claim was made in a speech marking the 26th anniversary of Argentina's ill-fated invasion of the islands, located 300 miles off the Argentine shore.
The April 2, 1982 invasion prompted then British prime minister Margaret Thatcher to deploy naval forces to retake the Falklands, known as the Malvinas in Spanish. The short, bloody conflict led to Argentina's surrender on June 14, 1982 after the death of 649 Argentines and 255 Britons, a conflict that cost the Brits a major ship of the line and damn near bankrupted England in the process.
In her speech Kirchner called for Argentina to strengthen its representation in international bodies to denounce "this shameful colonial enclave in the 21st century."
She has a point. England is about halfway around the world away from the Falklands/Malvinas, a place of absolutely no economic, military or strategic value to England, just one of the very last remnants of England's long-dead empire.
What with all the hot spots we have bubbling away in the world today, the last thing we need is another military confrontation over a nothing place, miles and miles from nowhere.
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