White House Chronicle

News Analysis With a Sense of Humor

The Falklands: From Obscurity to Prosperity

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By Llewellyn King

PORT STANLEY, Falkland Islands — These islands, where the weather in summer is as bleak as it is in winter and where the only constant is the wind, aren’t easy to love. It’s a climate so perverse that it can rain, turn sunny, rain again, turn cold and rain all over again in the same day. Also, they’re very remote — almost 1,000 miles from Argentina, which hardly makes them any kind of offshore island, as Argentina insists.

No one much wanted the Falklands down through history. The British were there in 1765, and so were the French, but on separate islands and unbeknown to each other. The British were pushed out when Spain got possessive, but came back in 1833 and stayed.

When the British Empire included swathes of Africa and much of Asia, islands here and there didn’t rate a lot of concern in London. It’s doubtful whether experienced officers in the colonial service even knew where they were.

Yet there were rugged British settlers who made a living for generations out of ship servicing, fishing, cattle and, big time, sheep farming from 1870 to the present. Now there are just over 2,000 Falklanders, making a robust living out of farming and tourism, mostly from cruise ships.

In 1953, Britain rejected Argentine President Juan Peron’s bid to buy the Islas Malvinas (Falkland Islands). But in the 1970s, Britain wanted to hand them over to Argentina. The downsizing of the empire was well along. Only Rhodesia was a problem, where stubborn colonials held out for the right to perpetuate their rule over or alongside the indigenous inhabitants. In 1980, under newly elected Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Britain handed over Rhodesia to Robert Mugabe and his band of former guerillas. The Thatcher government stripped the citizenship of 240,000 white settlers, telling them they were now citizens of Zimbabwe – which is ironic, considering the high value that was placed on the ancestry of the Falklanders.

So while this fire sale of colonies was in progress in the 1970s, the Falklands, with only 2,000 British citizens and 800,000 sheep, was of no account. The handover to Argentina looked like a done deal.

But, as so often in history, things fell apart largely because Argentina was consumed with internal problems, after the seizure of power by the military junta headed by Leopoldo Galtieri. Thatcher was more occupied with the sagging British economy than handing over islands far off the coast of Argentina. And while the Dirty War, in which Argentine security forces and allied thugs were responsible for the disappearance of tens of thousands of people, was raging, Argentina wasn’t to be rewarded with a gift of islands on which Britons farmed.

Then, to boost his own shaky position, Galtieri whipped up a cause and invaded the Falklands on April 2, 1982. The dictator must have thought that Britain would roll over and accept the forcible seizure of the Falklands, much as it had abandoned the British settlers in Zimbabwe two years earlier.

But for Thatcher, the Iron Lady, the Falklands seizure was simple aggression. War fever gripped Britain and much of its ally, the United States. Columnist George Will wrote about the ending of diplomatic efforts by the Reagan administration: time for the diplomats to “come north and cold steel to go south.”

So we watched a British fleet steaming south, while the Argentine forces dug in on the Falklands.

It took a month for the British forces to reach the Falklands and the counter invasion to begin. The fighting lasted 74 days with 649 Argentine military personnel, 255 British military personnel, and three female islanders killed.

The Falklands War did wonders for Thatcher, sweeping her Conservative Party back into power in 1983. For her, it was the seminal act of her premiership, the last roar of the Imperial Lion. In its way, it did for her what firing the air traffic controllers the previous year did for President Ronald Reagan. It showed just how tough they could be.

At the time of the war, the Falklands were a drain on the British Treasury. Now, thanks to that war, this is a tourist destination with behemoth cruise ships — sometimes three at once — anchored here.

But Argentina still lays claim to the islands — a claim now as constant as the wind. — For InsideSources

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mugabe, the Jeweled Raptor

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Diamonds are a dictator's best friend. Just ask Robert Mugabe, president
and dictator of Zimbabwe.

When things seemed to be at their worst for Mugabe, diamonds were
discovered at Marange, in eastern Zimbabwe. The old monster was saved
because he got enough money to pay his thugs. One of the first lessons of
dictatorship: Keep the thugs happy.

Mugabe, who had destroyed his currency, starved his people and turned the
breadbasket of Africa into yet another begging bowl, looked as though he
was through, when in 2006 diamonds were found in an unexpected place.

Thousands of itinerants flooded into Marange to lay claim to the riches,
under the colonial-era mining laws. They had few tools, but they had hope.

Sadly, they also had Mugabe.

He sent in his military to evict the miners. They used helicopter
gunships; at least 200 miners were slaughtered and the rest were driven
off. The army took over the diamond fields and Mugabe was renewed in
power.

There has been enough money (about $1.7 billion a year), through official
and unofficial diamond sales, not only to keep the thugs in power and their
Mercedes-Benzes fueled. But there also may have been enough money quiet
Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic
Change and impotent prime minister.

When I asked two very brave women, who have cycled in and out of jail
because they tried to do something about the pitiful condition of
women in Zimbabwe, whether they were hopeful about Tsvangirai and the
opposition, one of them snorted: “Government in Zimbabwe is about who gets
a Mercedes-Benz.”

Peter Godwin, who was born in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in 1957 and who has
been a fearless chronicler of the decline and fall of his homeland in
books and articles, has pointed out the evil of these “coalition”
governments. It is, he has said, a spoils system where elections are
negated when the contestants decide they both won; and in a united
government, they can just divide up the spoils instead of fighting over
them.

In Zimbabwe the fear is that Tsvangirai, rather than resolving to get rid
of the Mugabe government apparatus, if he ever becomes president, will
keep it and perfect it. Mugagbe preserved the most repressive colonial 
laws to use at will himself, while blaming the white settlers for them.

One of Mugabe's gambits, detailed by Godwin, is particularly cruel: How you
appear to win elections fairly when you have coerced the electorate
cruelly. Suspected opposition supporters are seized by the police and the
military in the rural areas and then are taken to torture centers -- located in
schools -- where they are beaten and maimed. Often, their feet and legs are
pulped. The children of dictatorships learn their lessons early. The victims 
are sent back to their villages as a perpetual reminder of
what happens if you vote against the “Big Man.” 

Even so, it should be noted the Mugabe lost the last election and simply
stayed. His concession to the winner, Tsvangirai, was to stop bringing 
treason charges against him and to make him prime minister. Not so much 
power-sharing as loot-sharing.

Watch for more of it as faux democracy continues in Africa, south of the
Sahara and possibly north of it.

Like Godwin, I was born in Rhodesia. Like many young people at the
time, inside and outside of the country, we dreamed of a free,
multi-ethnic Africa -- the whole continent a kind of Garden of Eden. Our
template for that was Rhodesia of the time: peaceful, prosperous, idyllic,
but in need of extending the franchise genuinely to all the people -- de
facto ensuring black government.

Instead, we got Ian Smith: a brave fool who tried to extend the status quo
and brought on a race war which brought Mugabe to power.

In his first days as president, while Mugabe was feted around the world
and showered with honors, he sent his dreaded 5th Brigade into
Matabeleland; the stronghold of his opponent Joshua Nkomo, later to be
incorporated into the Mugabe system of government, but not before 20,000
of his Ndbele people had been killed by the Mugabe men.

For 31 years, the government of Mugabe and his “security” men has reduced
Zimbabwe to ruin, driving maybe as many as 3 million people into refugee
status in neighboring countries, starving and beating the people of my
childhood.

The tears of Africa, like diamonds, seem to be forever. 
-- For the Hearst-New York Times Syndicate

Happy Birthday, America; Take That, Europe!

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Happy birthday, America—really happy birthday.

 

As an immigrant, I can say that with an authenticity and sincerity I would not have if I had been born on this blessed piece of real estate with its spirit of possibility. I came here because I am of the last generation that was, perhaps globally, pro-American.

 

Yes, after World War II, the United States was admired the world over. I grew up in Africa where American education, American technology and American goods–from cars to radios–were venerated.

 

When Coca-Cola was introduced into Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), there was practically a national holiday. The company’s employees–with the blessing of the authorities and government departments—flooded the schools with vending machines. This was not because local soft drinks were not refreshing. No, it was a kind of homage to the United States: We wanted a sip of the American magic. As a colony, we wanted less of London and more of New York. We believed Americans were invincible. In our eyes Americans were superior because they had smarter government, better laws and more entrepreneurial people.

 

Of course, in that faraway place, we idealized all things American and sometimes we were wishfully wrong. For example, we believed that the United States had solved its race problems (hardly in the 1950s) and that the more we followed America and broke with our mother country, Britain, the better. It was the American example that led Prime Minister Ian Smith to unilaterally–and disastrously, as it turned out–declare independence from Britain on Nov. 11, 1965.

 

In 1959, I moved to Britain where there was a much greater sense of competition across the Atlantic, more resentment of America climbing as Britain was sinking. Also, there was resentment of America’s abandonment of the Anglo-French invasion of the Suez Canal in 1956. It was a period of adjustment.

 

It was also a wrenching time in European intellectual life. The Hungarian uprising of 1956 and the Prague Spring of 1968, both followed by brutal Soviet repression, undermined European intellectuals’ faith in communism; but they did not switch to untrammeled support of capitalism. Wary of the politics of the right, they were looking for kindness, gentleness and an indigenous way forward.

 

Europeans wanted a future that would allow for their historical experiences, but would not sweep them into the sphere of influence of the Soviet Union or the United States. That way forward was democratic socialism, embraced by all European political parties except the extreme nationalistic ones of the right and the communists, who are still found on the extreme left in France, Italy and other countries.

 

As Europe moved into its democratic socialist future, anti-Americanism grew. It was based on economic resentment, fear of U.S. foreign policy and anger over the difficulty of penetrating the U.S. market. Appreciation of American sacrifice in World War II was laced with resentment that America did not join the war until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

 

Some blame for anti-Americanism lies with the European newspapers of the time. They seized on crime; the oddities of American life (like the shoe-shaped house); the size of American automobiles; and, of course, the cavorting of Hollywood stars. While American media portrayed Europe as Disneyland for grownups, Europeans were led to believe that American life was brutal and freakish.

 

Serious chroniclers like Alastair Cooke–an Englishman who dedicated a good part of his life telling Britain, on the BBC and in The Manchester Guardian, that America was a wondrous place–failed to arrest the rising tide of anti-Americanism.

 

That had to come later, after the Vietnam and Iraq wars, and with the election of Barack Obama to the presidency. None of our carping European friends could pull off such an historical first in their own countries.

 

No matter what you think of the man, Obama’s election as the first African-American president is a very American triumph. The world has applauded the system that could produce this result and the people who made it possible. Only in America. Happy birthday.  –For North Star Writers Group