Just Foreign Policy News
May 11, 2010
Call Congress today! Urge Support for Feingold-McGovern, ending the Afghan war
The Friends Committee for National Legislation has provided a toll-free number: 1-888-543-5234. This connects you to the Capitol Switchboard. Ask to be connected to your Representative or Senator, urge your Rep. or Senator to co-sponsor the Feingold-McGovern bill, and to oppose the war supplemental. More info and reportback:
http://noescalation.org/2010/05/05/withdrawal-timetable/
Will Obama Say Yes to Afghan Peace Talks?
On Wednesday, President Karzai is expected to ask President Obama to back Afghan peace talks to end the war. Together with Peace Action and FCNL, help us ask President Obama to say yes with an ad in the Politico. More than 50 JFP supporters have collectively contributed more than $1000; there’s still time to participate!
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/donate/peace-talks-ad
VIDEO: Urge Congress to End the War in Afghanistan
Just Foreign Policy has made a short video to help publicize the McGovern bill and the importance of a timetable for military withdrawal from Afghanistan. An unknown commenter on YouTube wrote: "This video is awesome! It should have millions of views. Spread it around!"
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/video/feingold-mcgovern
Seymour Hersh: only solution in Afghanistan is settlement with Taliban
"The only solution in Afghanistan is a settlement with the Taliban. And the only person to settle with is Mullah Omar."
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/must-read/seymour-hersh-obama-being-dominated-us-military
Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) A majority of Americans says the war in Afghanistan is not worth its costs, the Washington Post reports. 56 percent of independents say it is not worth fighting, up from 47 percent in December. Among Democrats, 66 percent say it’s not worth it, including half who feel that way strongly.
2) Shootings of Afghan civilians by US convoys and at military checkpoints have spiked sharply this year, becoming the leading cause of combined civilian deaths and injuries at the hands of Western forces, the New York Times reports. These shootings are a major reason civilian casualties in Afghanistan are soaring, the paper says. Since last summer, none of the Afghans killed or wounded in convoy and checkpoint shootings had weapons that would have posed a danger for troops who killed them. The rise in civilian deaths this year has outpaced the increase in the number of Western troops, the NYT notes.
3) More than two-thirds of the Senate is urging the Obama administration to consider signing the international treaty banning land mines, the Washington Post reports. "We want to show we have enough people to ratify a treaty," Senator Leahy said.
The treaty prohibits the manufacture, trade and stockpiling of land mines. About 5,000 people a year – the majority of them civilians – are killed or maimed by mines scattered across 70 countries. Human rights groups say there is little pressure for Russia and China to sign the treaty as long as the US doesn’t sign.
4) Writing in the New York Times, reporter David Sanger [usually a reliable friend of the empire – JFP] asks whether U.S. Predator drone strikes in Pakistan are making Americans less safe, and suggests that the answer is not obvious.
5) U.S. aid officials appear to be throwing in the towel on efforts to contain the AIDS epidemic in Africa, the New York Times reports. Uganda is the first country where major clinics routinely turn people away, but it will not be the last. A US-run program in Mozambique has been told to stop opening clinics. For most of Africa and countries like Haiti, Guyana and Cambodia, it seems inevitable that the 1990s will return: walking skeletons in the villages, stacks of bodies in morgues, mountains of newly turned earth in cemeteries, the NYT says.
6) The Obama administration announced that indirect, US -brokered talks had resumed between Israel and the Palestinians, the New York Times reports. A PLO official said the Palestinians had received assurances all the core issues would be broached in the indirect talks, including the future of Jerusalem, the fate of the Palestinian refugees of 1948 and their descendants, borders, and security. Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel said there would be no more construction at the Ramat Shlomo settlement in East Jerusalem for two years.
Afghanistan
7) Residents of Kandahar remain skeptical of the coming US/NATO Kandahar offensive – now being "rebranded" a "process" – and fear they will bear the brunt of any assault, Reuters reports.
Honduras
8) President Porfirio Lobo of Honduras will not attend an EU-Latin America summit this month, the BBC reports. Several South American presidents, including the President of Brazil, had threatened to shun the meeting in Madrid if Lobo attended.
Paraguay
9) A recent meeting of South American nations discussed the threat of a coup in Paraguay, Mercopress reports. The final statement of the summit repeatedly endorsed full support for the Paraguayan government and its efforts to stabilize the country and promote development and social inclusion. Paraguay is one of the poorest and most unequal countries in South America.
Mexico
10) Survivors of a recent attack that killed two human rights activists in Oaxaca say the gunmen identified themselves as members of a paramilitary organization founded in 1994 by members of Oaxaca’s ruling party, the PRI, Kristin Bricker reports for NACLA.
Argentina
11) Argentina said it "rejects the illegal" offshore oil exploration of the disputed Falkland Islands, after an oil discovery by Rockhopper Exploration, Bloomberg reports. The Argentine government doesn’t seem to have options to halt the oil exploration, Bloomberg says. [Britain has rejected demands to talk to Argentina about the dispute, demands that have even been supported rhetorically by Secretary of State Clinton – JFP.]
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) On Afghanistan, a negative shift
Jennifer Agiesta, Washington Post, May 9, 2010
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2010/05/on_afghanistan_a_negative_shif.html
Afghan president Hamid Karzai’s visit to the White House this week arrives as the public’s take on the war there has tilted back to negative, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
A majority says the war in Afghanistan is not worth its costs, marking a return to negative territory after a brief uptick in public support in the wake of the announcement of the administration’s new strategy for the conflict.
Despite the shift in views on the war, President Obama’s ratings for handling the conflict have remained positive since the unveiling of the new strategy – 56 percent approve, 36 percent disapprove.
Views on the war’s value have become more negative among both Democrats and independents. In the new poll, 56 percent of independents say it is not worth fighting, up from 47 percent in December. Among Democrats, 66 percent say it’s not worth it, including half who feel that way strongly.
Republicans are solidly behind the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, with 69 percent saying the war is worth its costs.
Q. All in all, considering the costs to the United States versus the benefits to the United States, do you think the war in Afghanistan has been worth fighting, or not? Do you feel that way strongly or somewhat?
– Worth it – -Not worth it-
NET Strongly NET Strongly
4/25/10 45 26 52 38
12/13/09 52 33 44 35
11/15/09 44 30 52 38
[…]
2) Shootings of Afghans on Rise at Checkpoints
Richard A. Oppel Jr., New York Times, May 8, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/world/asia/09afghan.html
Kabul, Afghanistan – Shootings of Afghan civilians by American and NATO convoys and at military checkpoints have spiked sharply this year, becoming the leading cause of combined civilian deaths and injuries at the hands of Western forces, American officials say.
The steep rise in these convoy and checkpoint attacks – which the military calls "escalation of force incidents" – has prompted military commanders to issue new troop guidelines in recent weeks that include soliciting local Afghan village and tribal elders and other leaders for help preventing convoy and checkpoint shootings.
These shootings are a major reason civilian casualties in Afghanistan are soaring after a much-publicized period of decline.
[…] At least 28 Afghans have been killed and 43 wounded in convoy and checkpoint shootings this year – 42 percent of total civilian deaths and injuries and the largest overall source of casualties at the hands of American and NATO troops, according to statistics kept by the military.
In the same period last year, 8 Afghans were killed and 29 wounded in similar episodes. For all of 2009, 36 Afghan civilians were killed in the so-called escalation of force incidents by Western and Afghan troops, according to the United Nations. Over all, the Taliban and other militants account for a much larger number of civilian casualties than Western forces do, the United Nations found.
Since last summer, none of the Afghans killed or wounded in convoy and checkpoint shootings had weapons that would have posed a danger for troops who killed them, commanders said.
[…] Ninety Afghan civilians were killed by American and NATO troops during the first four months of the year – almost two and a half times the number during the same period last year – while 100 others were wounded. The deadliest episode occurred in February when 27 civilians who were mistaken for Taliban fighters were killed by American attack helicopters.
That has abruptly reversed the downward trend that, according to United Nations researchers, began last year after Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the overall commander of American and NATO forces, put in place measures to reduce civilian casualties.
Some of the increase can be explained by heightened military operations, but the rise in civilian deaths this year has outpaced the increase in the number of Western troops.
The shootings inflame Afghans, who see them as proof that Western forces operate with impunity. President Hamid Karzai has been harshly critical of civilian deaths caused by the American military, saying they jeopardize any progress that the military offensive might be making.
[…] A recent military-commissioned survey of almost 2,000 residents of Kandahar Province found that American and NATO convoys were perceived as equally as dangerous as roadside bombs and more dangerous than Taliban checkpoints.
[…]
3) Senate Pushes White House To Sign Treaty On Land Mines
Craig Whitlock and Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, Saturday, May 8, 2010; A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/07/AR2010050705089.html
More than two-thirds of the Senate is urging the Obama administration to consider signing an international treaty that bans land mines, reviving a dormant campaign from the 1990s that left the United States divided from its closest allies.
Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) said in an interview Friday that 68 senators had signed a letter to President Obama to support a "comprehensive review" of U.S. policy on land mines. The letter is an indication that there are enough votes in the Senate to ratify the treaty – at least 67 would be required – if Obama signs the measure, which has languished in Washington for a decade. "We want to show we have enough people to ratify a treaty," Leahy said. "I think there’s an excellent opportunity that we’ll finally do it."
The pressure from Congress leaves the White House in an awkward position as it tries to navigate between Obama’s desire to work closely with allies on security issues such as nuclear disarmament, while at the same time listening to advisers at the Pentagon, many of whom are leery of such campaigns.
The mine ban treaty was the result of a grass-roots movement championed by celebrities, including Princess Diana, and ordinary citizens such as Jody Williams, a Vermont native who won the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for her role as founding coordinator of the International Campaign to Ban Land Mines. About 5,000 people a year – the majority of them civilians – are killed or maimed by mines scattered across 70 countries.
Neither President Bill Clinton nor President George W. Bush signed the treaty, which was negotiated in 1997 and took effect in 1999. Their rejections left the United States at odds with more than 150 countries that embraced the accord, including every member of NATO.
The treaty prohibits the manufacture, trade and stockpiling of land mines. The United States has not used anti-personnel mines since the Persian Gulf War in 1991 and stopped producing them in 1997, but the military keeps about 10 million of them in reserve.
In November, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly announced that the Obama administration had decided against signing the treaty, saying, "We would not be able to meet our national defense needs nor our security commitments to our friends and allies." But after Leahy and human-rights groups condemned the decision, the State Department said it would revisit the issue and conduct a broader policy review.
[…] Leahy, who has fought for a land-mine ban for many years, said there was bipartisan support in Congress for ratifying the treaty. Ten Republicans have signed the letter to Obama, which Leahy said will be delivered to the White House next week. The lead Republican co-sponsor is Sen. George V. Voinovich (Ohio), Leahy aides said.
In November, Leahy criticized the Obama administration’s initial decision to reject the treaty as "a default of U.S. leadership." Since then, he said, White House and State Department officials have left him with the impression that they are seriously considering adopting the treaty, especially if he can help deliver the votes in a Senate that is usually sharply divided along partisan lines.
[…] Neither China nor Russia has ratified the international mine ban treaty. Human rights groups say there is little pressure for them to do so as long as the United States doesn’t sign.
4) U.S. Pressure Helps Militants Overseas Focus Efforts
David E. Sanger, New York Times, May 7, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/weekinreview/09sanger.html
Washington – When President Obama decided last year to narrow the scope of the nine-year war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, he and his aides settled on a formulation that sounded simple: Eviscerate Al Qaeda, but just "degrade" the Taliban, reversing that movement’s momentum.
Now, after the bungled car-bombing attempt in Times Square with suspected links to the Pakistani Taliban, a new, and disturbing, question is being raised in Washington: Have the stepped-up attacks in Pakistan – notably the Predator drone strikes – actually made Americans less safe? Have they had the perverse consequence of driving lesser insurgencies to think of targeting Times Square and American airliners, not just Kabul and Islamabad? In short, are they inspiring more attacks on America than they prevent?
It is a hard question.
[…]
5) At Front Lines, AIDS War Is Falling Apart
Donald G. McNeil Jr., New York Times, May 9, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/10/world/africa/10aids.html
Kampala, Uganda – On the grounds of Uganda’s biggest AIDS clinic, Dinavance Kamukama sits under a tree and weeps.
Her disease is probably quite advanced: her kidneys are failing and she is so weak she can barely walk. Leaving her young daughter with family, she rode a bus four hours to the hospital where her cousin Allen Bamurekye, born infected, both works and gets the drugs that keep her alive.
But there are no drugs for Ms. Kamukama. As is happening in other clinics in Kampala, all new patients go on a waiting list. A slot opens when a patient dies. "So many people are being supported by America," Ms. Kamukama, 28, says mournfully. "Can they not help me as well?"
The answer increasingly is no. Uganda is the first and most obvious example of how the war on global AIDS is falling apart.
The last decade has been what some doctors call a "golden window" for treatment. Drugs that once cost $12,000 a year fell to less than $100, and the world was willing to pay.
In Uganda, where fewer than 10,000 were on drugs a decade ago, nearly 200,000 now are, largely as a result of American generosity. But the golden window is closing.
Uganda is the first country where major clinics routinely turn people away, but it will not be the last. In Kenya next door, grants to keep 200,000 on drugs will expire soon. An American-run program in Mozambique has been told to stop opening clinics. There have been drug shortages in Nigeria and Swaziland. Tanzania and Botswana are trimming treatment slots, according to a report by the medical charity Doctors Without Borders.
The collapse was set off by the global recession’s effect on donors, and by a growing sense that more lives would be saved by fighting other, cheaper diseases. Even as the number of people infected by AIDS grows by a million a year, money for treatment has stopped growing.
[…] Worldwide, even though two million people with the disease die each year, the total keeps growing because nearly three million adults and children become infected.
Even now, the fight is falling short. Of the 33 million people infected, 14 million are immuno-compromised enough to need drugs now, under the latest World Health Organization guidelines. (W.H.O. guidelines are conservative; if all 33 million were Americans, most clinicians would treat them at once.)
Instead, despite a superhuman effort by donors, fewer than four million are on treatment. Just to meet the minimal W.H.O. guidelines, donations would have to treble instead of going flat.
[…] Middle-income countries with limited epidemics, like India, Brazil and Russia, can probably treat all their patients without outside help. China almost certainly can. South Africa might; it has a raging epidemic but is rich by African standards.
But for most of Africa and scattered other countries like Haiti, Guyana and Cambodia, it seems inevitable that the 1990s will return: walking skeletons in the villages, stacks of bodies in morgues, mountains of newly turned earth in cemeteries.
As he tours world capitals seeking donations, Dr. Michel D. Kazatchkine, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, said he had become "hugely frustrated."
"The consistent answer I hear is: ‘We love you, we hear you, we acknowledge the fund’s good results, but our budget is tight, our budget is cut, it’s the economic crisis.’ "
No commander in the global fight openly concedes that the war is over, but all admit to deep pessimism. "I don’t see the cavalry riding to the rescue," said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, an AIDS researcher who leads one of the National Institutes of Health. "I’m worried we’ll be in a ‘Kampala situation’ in other countries soon," said Ambassador Eric Goosby, the Obama administration’s new global AIDS coordinator.
"What I see is making me very scared," agreed Michel Sidibé, executive director of Unaids. Without a change of heart among donors, Mr. Sidibé said, "the whole hope I’ve had for the last 10 years will disappear."
Donors give about $10 billion a year, while controlling the epidemic would cost $27 billion a year, he estimated.
[…]
6) U.S.-Brokered Mideast Shuttle Talks Begin Again
Isabel Kershner, New York Times, May 9, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/10/world/middleeast/10mideast.html
Jerusalem – The Obama administration announced Sunday that indirect, American-brokered talks had resumed between Israel and the Palestinians, capping a year of efforts by Washington to revive the peace process.
The American special envoy to the region, George J. Mitchell, is expected to shuttle between the two sides over the next four months as mediator of the so-called proximity talks. They are aimed at forging a joint vision of the outlines of a solution based on the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
The State Department spokesman, Philip J. Crowley, released a statement warning both sides that "if either takes significant actions during the proximity talks that we judge would seriously undermine trust, we will respond to hold them accountable and ensure that negotiations continue."
But he praised recent steps by both Israel and the Palestinians to help ensure that the talks could take place. Those included a statement from the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, that he would work to keep factions from trying to scuttle the talks through attacks or incitement, and from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel that there would be no more construction at the Ramat Shlomo settlement in East Jerusalem for two years. "They are both trying to move forward in difficult circumstances, and we commend them for that," Mr. Crowley said.
Mr. Mitchell left the Middle East on Sunday after completing what the State Department characterized as the first round of talks, and was to return next week.
Expectations of an early breakthrough are low. Mr. Netanyahu, a conservative, has repeatedly stated his preference for direct talks, and had been hoping to limit the proximity talks to procedural matters. The Palestinians want the indirect talks to deal with the substantive issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and have refused to engage in direct talks unless Israel declares a halt to all settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Yasser Abed Rabbo, a Palestine Liberation Organization official and adviser to Mr. Abbas, said Saturday that the Palestinians had received assurances that all the core issues would be broached in the indirect talks, including the future of Jerusalem, the fate of the Palestinian refugees of 1948 and their descendants, borders, and security.
[…]
Afghanistan
7) Afghans wary as NATO rebrands Kandahar "process"
Jonathon Burch and Ismail Sameem, Reuters, Fri, May 7 2010
http://www.reuters.com/article/homepageCrisis/idUSSGE6460J9._CH_.2400
Kandahar, Afghanistan – While military commanders in Afghanistan try to play down an upcoming offensive in Kandahar, many residents in the southern province remain sceptical and fear they will bear the brunt of any assault.
Afghan leader Hamid Karzai is due to meet U.S. President Barack Obama next week and the Kandahar offensive will be high on the agenda after a spate of civilian deaths caused a rift between Kabul and Washington.
On the outskirts of southern Afghanistan’s largest city, thousands of U.S. troops have been preparing to drive the Taliban from their spiritual home next month in what is being billed as the biggest military offensive of the 9-year-old war. The operation, involving at least 23,000 NATO and Afghan troops, is the central objective of U.S. and NATO commander General Stanley McChrystal’s counter-insurgency plan to turn the tide using reinforcements pledged by Obama in December.
It’s an objective lost on many Kandahar residents. "We don’t know if this operation brings any advantages, but something we know for sure is innocent people will be killed, harmed and displaced," said Kaka Shirin, a Kandahar shopkeeper.
Commanders are playing down the possibility of heavy fighting in the city, stressing the political aims of extending the reach of the Afghan state into an area of growing Taliban influence.
Even the language adopted by military officials has changed, with words like "operation" or "offensive" no longer used. "We would like to call it a process that is encompassing military and non-military instruments," Brigadier General Josef Blotz, the spokesman for NATO forces, told reporters this week.
Ominously, there has been a surge in attacks and political assassinations in Kandahar city recently. Residents fear more bloodshed as some 10,000 troops move into their neighbourhoods.
[…]
Honduras
8) Honduran president shuns EU summit after boycott threat
BBC, 7 May 2010 11:30 UK
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8667405.stm
President Porfirio Lobo of Honduras will not attend an EU-Latin America summit later this month, to avoid a boycott by South American leaders. Several presidents had threatened to shun the meeting in Madrid if Mr Lobo attended.
They consider his government illegitimate because of the way his predecessor, Manuel Zelaya, was ousted.
[…] Leaders including Luis Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela had urged Spain to revoke Mr Lobo’s invitation because of the way Mr Zelaya was removed from office.
[…]
Paraguay
9) Unasur will address "coup attempt Honduras model" in Paraguay.
Mercopress, Friday, May 7th 2010 – 01:41 UTC
http://en.mercopress.com/2010/05/07/unasur-will-address-coup-attempt-honduras-model-in-paraguay
An imminent coup in Paraguay, Honduras-model, with the purpose of ousting President Fernando Lugo was analyzed by UNASUR (Union of South American Nations) leaders during the recent summit held in Buenos Aires, according to press reports from Argentina and Brazil.
Apparently Paraguay President Fernando Lugo requested a closed door meeting with his UNASUR peers to expose his concerns and discuss the issue, which was never made public in Paraguay.
Lugo took office August 15, 2008 for a five year period, with the support of a catch-all alliance which has currently dismembered leaving him with a minority support in Congress and growing difficulties to have legislation passed, one of them the naming of new magistrates for the Supreme Court of Paraguay.
Press reports from Brazil, Argentina and in Paraguay indicate that it is not known what evidence or information President Lugo presented or shared with his peers regarding a possible coup that would remove him from office.
What is a fact is that no UNASUR leader-including Lugo-revealed details of the situation but the final statement of the summit repeatedly endorsed full support for the Paraguayan government and its efforts to stabilize the country and promote development and social inclusion. Paraguay is one of the poorest and most unequal countries in South America.
Actually, the Paraguayan situation was slipped into UNASUR agenda at last moment. Argentina’s financial newspaper Ámbito Financiero published that one of the first tasks of the newly elected UNASUR Secretary General, former president Néstor Kirchner, would be to address the coup attempts in the region. "For this reason he will consider Paraguay as a direct involvement, where Fernando Lugo lives in permanent and serious conflict with his vice-president Federico Franco," writes Ámbito.
The daily-which now belongs to a group with close ties to Mr. Kirchner-reveals that the UNASUR Secretary General believes the situation is very similar to that of Honduras and ousted President Manuel Zelaya, who was deposed and flown out of the country at gun point by the military, in combination with Congress, in June 2009. Zelaya never managed to return to office, in spite of having been democratically and legitimately elected.
Mexico
10) Oaxaca Caravan Attack: The Paramilitarization of Mexico
Kristin Bricker, NACLA, May 6 2010
https://nacla.org/node/6563
On April 27, gunmen killed two activists on their way to the autonomous municipality of San Juan Copala, Oaxaca, as a part of an international aid caravan. Oaxacan indigenous leader and media organizer Alberta "Bety" Cariño and Finnish observer Jyri Antero Jaakkola died, and three other Oaxacans were injured. The caravan’s goal was to break a paramilitary siege that has left San Juan Copala, in the indigenous Triqui region of southern Mexico, cut off from the outside world since January, and to deliver food, clothing, and medicine.
Survivors of the attack, which took place at the blockade near the community of La Sabana, said the gunmen identified themselves as members of the Union for the Social Well-being of the Triqui Region (UBISORT), an organization founded in 1994 by local members of Oaxaca’s ruling party, the Institutional Revolution Party (PRI), and classified by the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees as a paramilitary organization. San Juan Copala authorities blame UBISORT for much of the violence that has plagued the municipality since 2006, when their popular leadership declared their municipality autonomous after the uprising that almost threw out Oaxaca’s governor, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz.
Jorge Albino, a spokesperson for the autonomous municipality, said he believed the paramilitaries deliberately targeted Cariño, a key player in the ongoing Triqui peace process. "People from La Sabana who don’t agree with UBISORT say that she was well-known and that they shot at her directly," Albino said. "The coroners report says that the body only had one shot in the head, but that that the shot was true. It was a well-placed shot from up close." Attack survivor Gabriela Jiménez also said the shooters were aiming at head-level.
The attack was the latest in a series of killings in a region of Mexico where shootouts are frequent. Although the caravan ambush attracted international media attention, other killings in the region (at least 23 since 2007) have been lost in the wave of drug war violence that is gripping the country. Almost all killings in Mexico have been chalked up to the drug war, providing an all too convenient cover for the country’s pervasive political violence.
[…]
Argentina
11) Argentina Rejects ‘Illegal’ Falklands Islands Oil Discovery
Rodrigo Orihuela, Bloomberg, May 06, 2010
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-05-06/argentina-rejects-illegal-falklands-islands-oil-discovery.html
Argentina said it "rejects the illegal" offshore oil exploration of the U.K.-controlled Falkland Islands, over which the two countries went to war in 1982, after today’s discovery by Rockhopper Exploration Plc.
Rockhopper, based in Salisbury, England, said earlier today initial data at its Sea Lion prospect indicates an oil discovery. Rockhopper had its biggest gain in London trading after reporting the find.
Drilling in the Falklands, which Argentines call Malvinas, started in February amid a renewed diplomatic dispute between the U.K. and Argentina over control of the archipelago. "Argentina warns London and the private company that it will take all the necessary measures within International Law to stop these illegal actions," Argentina’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said today in an e-mailed statement.
Argentina is forbidding vessels that stop at the Falklands to load cargoes at its ports for the 8,000-mile (13,000- kilometer) return journey to Europe, driving up costs for U.K. companies. The Latin American country has repeatedly protested efforts to explore for energy deposits off the islands.
The government doesn’t seem to have options to halt exploration, Daniel Kerner, a Latin American analyst at Eurasia Group, said in a telephone interview from New York. "It has already put restrictions on ships travelling" between the islands and Argentina, he said.
[…]
–
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
Just Foreign Policy is a membership organization devoted to reforming US foreign policy so it reflects the values and interests of the majority of Americans.