By The Los Angeles Times

Published: Thursday, January 3, 2013, 9:50 p.m.
Updated: Tuesday, February 19, 2013

LONDON — In an open letter to Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron, published as an advertisement on Thursday in the Guardian and other newspapers, Argentina's president demanded the return of the British-ruled Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic.

In the letter, copied to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner called for a U.N. resolution to return the Malvinas, as they are known in Argentina, to her South American country.

“One hundred and eighty years ago on this same date, January 3rd, in a blatant exercise of 19th-century colonialism, Argentina was forcibly stripped of the Malvinas Islands,” her letter begins.

She accused Britain of “a population process similar to that applied to other territories under colonial rule,” and demanded that a 1960 U.N. resolution “bringing an end to colonialism in all its forms and manifestations” be put into practice through a negotiated solution to the dispute over the islands.

Britain has ignored or countered Argentina's claims with an outright refusal to negotiate, citing the Falkland islanders' right to self-determination.

It has called a referendum for March 10 and 11 in which the 3,000 or so islanders, most of whom are of British descent, could choose their government.

1. Sacre bleu! French in uproar over plan for courses in English
2. Algerian transition concerns U.S.
3. Syria’s Assad says he’ll ‘face storm’
4. N. Korea fires 3 guided missiles
5. Pontiff dips into politics
6. 6 Americans die in suicide blast in Afghanistan
7. Afghan women’s rights suffer setback
8. Afghanistan: Iranian guards killed migrants
9. British fugitive caught sunbathing in Spain
10. 2 new viruses could both spark global outbreaks
11. Pakistan’s Sharif sends mixed message to U.S.

There are currently no comments for this story.
Subscribe today! Click here for our subscription offers.