‘The principles we are defending are fundamental to everything that this Parliament and this country stand for. They are the principles of democracy and the rule of law.’
Mr. Speaker, seven weeks ago today, the Argentine Foreign Minister summoned the British Ambassador in Buenos Aires and informed him that the diplomatic channel was now closed.
Later on that same day, President Reagan appealed to President Galtieri not to invade the Falkland Islands. That appeal was rejected.
Ever since 2 April, Argentina has continued to defy the mandatory resolution of the Security Council. During the past 24 hours, the crisis over the Falkland Islands has moved into a new and even more serious phase. On Monday of this week our Ambassador to the United Nations handed to the Secretary General our proposals for a peaceful settlement of the dispute. These proposals represented the limit to which the Government believed it was right to go. We made it clear to Senor Perez de Cuellar that we expected the Argentine Government to give us a very rapid response to them.
Argentine Response
By yesterday morning, we had had a first indication of the Argentinian reaction. It was not encouraging. By evening we received their full response in writing. Mr. Speaker, it was in effect a total rejection of the British proposals.
Indeed, in many respects the Argentinian reply went back to their position when they rejected Mr. Haig’s second set of proposals on 29 April. It retracted virtually all the movement their representative had shown during the Secretary General’s efforts to find a negotiated settlement. I shall have more to say about his efforts later.
The implications of the Argentinian response are of the utmost gravity. This is why the Government decided to publish immediately the proposals we had put to the Secretary General and to give the House the easliest opportunity to consider them. These proposals were placed in the Vote Office earlier today.
The Government believes that they represented a truly responsible effort to find a peaceful solution which both preserved the fundamental principles of our position and offered the opportunity to stop further loss of life in the South Atlantic.
We have reached this very serious situation because the Argentines clearly decided at the outset of the negotiations that they would cling to the spoils of invasion and occupation by thwarting at every turn all the attempts that have been made to solve the conflict by peaceful means. Ever since 2 April they have responded to the efforts to find a negotiated solution with obduracy and delay, deception and bad faith. The Haig Mission
We have now been negotiating for six weeks. The House will recall the strenuous efforts made over an extended period by Secretary of State Haig. During that period my ministerial colleagues and I considered no less than four sets of proposals. Although these presented substantial difficulties, we did our best to help Mr. Haig continue his mission until Argentine rejection of his last proposals left him no alternative but to abandon his efforts.
The next stage of negotiations was based on proposals originally advanced by President Belaunde of Peru and modified in consultations between him and Mr. Haig. As my right honorable friend informed the House on 7 May, Britain was willing to accept these, the fifth set of proposals for an interim settlement. They could have led to an almost immediate cease-fire. But again it was Argentina who rejected them.
I shall not take up the time of the House with a detailed description of these earlier proposals, partly because they belong to those who devised them but, more importantly, because they are no longer on the negotiating table. Britain is not now committed to them.
United Nations Negotiations
Since 6 May, when it became clear that the United States/Peruvian proposals were not acceptable to Argentina, the United Nations Secretary General, Senor Perez de Cuellar, has been conducting negotiations with Britain and Argentina. Following several rounds of discussions, the United Kingdom representative at the United Nations was summoned to London for consultation last Sunday. On Monday Sir Anthony Parsons returned to New York and presented to the Secretary General a draft interim agreement between Britain and Argentina which set out he British position in full. He made clear that the text represented the furthest that Britain could go in the negotiations. He requested that the draft should be transmitted to the Argentine representative and that he should be asked to convey his Government’s response within two days.
Yesterday we received the Argentine Government’s reply. It amounted to a rejection of our proposals, and we have so informed the Secretary General.
This morning we have received proposals from the Secretary General himself. It will help the House to understand the present position if I now describe briefly these three sets of proposals. I deal first with our own proposals. These preserve the fundamental principles which are the basis of the Government’s position:
– Aggression must not be allowed to succeed.
– International law must be upheld.
– Sovereignty cannot be changed by invasion. The liberty of the Falkland Islanders must be restored. For years they have been free to express their own wishes about how they want to be governed. They have had institutions of their own choosing. They have enjoyed self-determination. Why should they lose that freedom and exchange it for dictatorship?
Mr. Speaker, our proposals are contained in two documents. First and mainly, there is a draft interim agreement between ourselves and Argentina. Second, a letter to the Secretary General which makes it clear that the British Government does not regard the draft interim agreement as covering the dependencies of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. I deal with the dependencies first.
Position on Dependencies
South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands are geographically distant from the Falkland Islands themselves. They have no settled population. British title to them does not derive from the Falkland Islands but is separate. These territories have been treated as dependencies of the Falkland Islands only for reasons of administrative convenience. For these reasons they are outside the draft agreement.
The House has before it the draft agreement, and I turn now to its main features. Article 2 provides for the cessation of hostilities and the withdrawal of Argentine and British forces from the islands and their surrounding waters within 14 days. At the end of the withdrawal British ships would be at least 150 nautical miles from the islands. Withdrawal much beyond this would not have been reasonable because the proximity of the Argentinian mainland would have given their forces undue advantage.
Mr. Speaker, withdrawal of the Argentinian forces would be the most immediate and explicit sign that their Government’s aggression had failed and that they were being made to give up what they had gained by force. It is the essential beginning of a peaceful settlement and the imperative of Resolution 502.
The Interim Arrangements
Article 6 sets out the interim arrangements under which the Islands would be administered in the period between the cessation of hostilities and the conclusion of negotiations on the long-term future of the islands.
Under Clause 3 of this article he would exercise his powers in conformity with the laws and the practices traditionally obtaining in the islands. He would consult the islands’ representative institutions that is the Legislative and Executive Councils through which the islanders were governed until 2 April.
There would be an addition to each of the two councils of one representative of the 20 or 30 Argentines normally resident in the islands. These representatives would be nominated by the administrator.
This clause has been carefully drawn so that the interim administration cannot make changes in the law and customs of the islands that would prejudge the outcome of the negotiations on a long-term settlement.
This provision would not only go a long way to giving back to the Falklanders the way of life they have always enjoyed but would prevent an influx of Argentine settlers in the interim period whose residence would change the nature of society there and radically affect the future of the islands. That would not have been a true interim administration. It would have been an instrument of change.
Clause 3 of this article thus fully safeguards the future of the islands. Nothing in this interim administration would compromise the eventual status of the Falklands or the freedom which they have enjoyed for so long.
Issue of Verification
Clause 4 of Article 6 would require the Administrator to verify the withdrawal of all forces from the islands and to prevent their reintroduction. We think it likely that he would need to call upon the help of three or four countries other than ourselves and the Argentine to provide him with the necessary equipment and a small but effective force.
Articles 8 and 9 deal with negotiations between Britain and Argentina on the long-term future of the islands. The key sentence is the one which reads, ”These negotiations shall be initiated without prejudice to the rights, claims and positions of the parties and without prejudgment of the outcome.” We should thus be free to take fully into account the wishes of the islanders themselves. And Argentina would not be able to claim that the negotiations had to end with a conclusion that suited her.
But we have to recognize that the negotiations might be lengthy. That is why Article 9 provides that until the final Agreement had been reached and implemented, the interim agreement would remain in force.
Mr. Speaker, although this interim agreement does not restore things fully to what they were before the Argentinian invasion, it is faithful to the fundamental principles I outlined earlier. Had the Argentines accepted our proposals, we should have achieved the great prize of preventing further loss of life. It was with this in mind we were prepared to make practical changes that were reasonable. But we were not prepared to compromise on principle.
Argentine Proposals
I turn now to the Argentinian response. This revived once again all the points which had been obstacles in earlier negotiations. Their draft interim agreement applied not only to the Falklands but included South Georgia and the Sandwich Islands as well. They demanded that all forces should withdraw, including our forces on South Georgia, and return to their normal bases and areas of operation. This was plainly calculated to put us at an enormous disadvantage.
They required that the interim administration should be the exclusive responsibility of the United Nations which should take over all executive, legislative, judicial and security functions in the islands. They rejected any role for the islands’ democratic institutions. They envisaged that the interim administration would appoint as advisers equal numbers of British and Argentine residents of the islands, despite their huge disparity.
They required freedom of movement and equality of access with regard to residence, work and property for Argentine nationals on an equal basis with the Falkland Islanders. The junta’s clear aim was to flood the islands with their own nationals during the interim period and thereby change the nature of Falklands society and so prejudice the future of the islands.
With regard to negotiations for a long-term settlement, while pretending not to prejudice the outcome, they stipulated that the object was to comply not only with the charter of the United Nations but with various resolutions of the General Assembly, from some of which the United Kingdom dissented on the grounds that they favored Argentine sovereignty.
And if the period provided for the completion of the negotiations expired, they demanded that the General Assembly should determine the lines to which the final agreement should conform.
Outlook for More Talks
I believe that if we had a dozen more negotiations the tactics and results would be the same. From the course of these negotiations and Argentina’s persistent refusal to accept Resolution 502, we are bound to conclude that her objective is procrastination and continuing occupation leading eventually to sovereignty.
As I said earlier, the Secretary General has this morning put to us and to Argentina an aide-memoire describing those issues where, in his opinion, agreement seems to exist and those on which differences remain.
The first group of issues – those where he believes there is a measure of agreement – will require further clarification in New York, for on some points our interpretation would be different. The aide-memoire states, for example, that Argentina would accept longterm negotiations without prejudgment of the outcome. This important phrase was, however, omitted from the Argentine response to our own proposals and is belied by a succession of statements from Buenos Aires.
Points in Dispute
Those points where, in the Secretary General’s judgment, differences remain include:
1. Aspects of the interim administration.
2. The timetable for completion of negotiations and the related duration of the interim administration. 3. Aspects of the mutual withdrawl of forces.
4. The geographic area to be covered Senor Perez de Cuellar has proposed formulations to cover some of these points.
Mr. Speaker, the Secretary General, to whose efforts I pay tribute, has a duty to continue to seek agreement. But as our representative is telling him in New York, his paper differs in certain important respects from our position as presented to him on 17 May and which we then described as the furthest we could go. Moreover, it differs fundamentally from the present Argentine position as communicated to us yesterday.
It is not a draft agreement but as the Secretary General himself puts it, a number of formulations and suggestions. Some of his suggestions are the very ones which have already been rejected by the Argentine response to our own proposals. Even if it were acceptable to both parties as a basis for negotiation, that negotiation would take many days if not weeks to reach either success or failure. We have been trough this often before, and each time have been met with Argentine obduracy and procrastination.
Argentina rejected our proposals. It is inconceivable that they would now come genuinely to accept those of the Secretary General’s ideas which closely resemble our own. Even if we were prepared to negotiate on the basis of his paper, we should first wish to see substantive Argentine comments on it, going beyond mere acceptance of it as a basis for negotiation. These are the points we are making in our reply to the Secretary General. At the same time we are reminding him – as my right honorable friends and I have repeatedly said to the House – the negotiations do not close any military options. The Days Ahead
Mr. Speaker, the gravity of the situation will be apparent to the House and the nation. Difficult days lie ahead, but Britain will face them in the conviction that our case is just, and in the knowledge that we have been doing everything reasonable to secure a negotiated settlement.
The principles we are defending are fundamental to everything that this Parliament and this country stand for. They are the principles of democracy and the rule of law. Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands in violation of the rights of peoples to determine by whom and in what way they are governed. Its aggression was committed against a people who are used to enjoying full human rights and freedom. It was executed by a Government with a notorious record in suspending and violating those same rights.
Britain has the responsibility towards the Islanders to restore their democratic way of life. She has a duty to the whole world to show that aggression will not succeed and to uphold the cause of freedom.
