Falkland Islands

Navigators of several countries have been credited with first sighting the Falklands but the earliest sighting that has been conclusively authenticated was by the Dutch sailor Sebald van Weert in 1600. The first known landing was made in 1690 by a British naval captain, John Strong. He named the Islands after Viscount Falkland, who was his patron at the time and who shortly afterwards became First Lord of the Admiralty. A few years later, the French called the Islands ’les Iles Malouines’ after the port of St Malo, and it was from this that the Spanish designation, las Islas Malvinas, originated. In 1764, a small French colony, Port Louis, was established on East Falkland. Three years later this was handed over to Spain on payment of £24,000. The Spanish renamed the settlement Puerto de la Soledad. A British expedition reached West Falkland in 1765, and anchored in a harbour which it named Port Egmont. It took formal possession of it and of ’all the neighbouring islands’ for King George III. The following year, another British expedition established a settlement of about 100 people at Port Egmont. This settlement was withdrawn on economic grounds in 1774, but British sovereignty was never relinquished or abandoned. The Spanish settlement on East Falkland was withdrawn in 1811, leaving the Islands without inhabitants or any form of government. In November 1820, Colonel David Jewett, an American national, visited the Islands and claimed formal possession of them in the name of the Government of Buenos Aires, but only stayed on the Islands for a few days. At the time, the Government of Buenos Aires, which had declared independence from Spain in 1816, was not recognised by Britain or any other foreign power. Jewett stayed on the Islands for a few months. No act of occupation followed Jewett’s visit and the Islands remained without effective government. On 10 June 1829, the Buenos Aires Government issued a decree setting forth its rights, purportedly derived from the Spanish Viceroyalty of La Plata, and purported to place the Islands under the control of a political and military commandant, Louis Vernet. Britain protested that the terms of the decree infringed British sovereignty over the Islands, which she had never relinquished. In 1831, a United States warship, the Lexington, broke up Louis Vernet’s tiny settlement at Puerto de la Soledad as a reprisal for the arrest of three American vessels by Vernet, who was attempting to establish control over sealing in the Islands. The captain of the Lexington declared the Falklands free from all government and they remained once again without visible authority until September 1832, when the Government of Buenos Aires appointed Juan Mestivier as Civil and Political Governor on an interim basis. The British Government once again protested to the Buenos Aires Government that this appointment infringed British sovereignty over the Islands. Mestivier sailed to the Falklands at the end of 1832 and was murdered shortly after his arrival by his own soldiers. In January 1833, after receiving instructions to visit the Islands to exercise British rights of sovereignty, the British warship HMS Clio arrived at Puerto de la Soledad and told the 24-man garrison that had arrived with Mestivier to leave. British occupation was therefore resumed and a naval officer arrived the following year to administer the Islands. In 1841, a civil Lieutenant Governor was appointed and, in 1843, the civil administration was put on a permanent footing by an Act of the British Parliament. The Lieutenant Governor’s title was changed to Governor and, in 1845, the first Executive and Legislative Councils were set up. Although there was a majority of official members in the Legislative Council until 1951, nominated members played an increasingly important part, and in 1949 members elected by universal adult suffrage were introduced into the Council. The Falklands were invaded and illegally occupied by Argentine military forces on 2 April 1982. A British task force was despatched immediately and, following a conflict in which over 900 British and Argentine lives were lost, the Argentine forces surrendered on 14 June 1982. Since then, the pace of development in the Islands has accelerated with the construction of a new hospital, a new senior school, port facilities and an international airport.

SOVEREIGNTY OF THE ISLANDS

The British Government has no doubt about Britain’s sovereignty over the Falkland Islands. With the exception of the 2 months of illegal occupation in 1982, the Falklands have been continuously, peacefully and effectively inhabited and administered by Britain since 1833. Argentina’s claim to the Falklands is based on the grounds that, at the time of British repossession of the Islands in 1833, Argentina had sovereignty over them thr