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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, APRIL 9, 1982
PAGE 8
reports of the impending invasion eleven days before it occurred).
The
Argentine economy is in a terrible mess. Inflation lept 131 percent last
year; unemployment stands at 15%; the rate of business failures is high.
Only two days before the "liberation of the Malvinas" thousands of Argen
tines demonstrated in Buenos Aires and other major cities against the
military regime's economic policies. The scale and aggressiveness of the
demonstrators are said to have stunned the President, General Leopoldo F.
Galtien. Two days later, some of the same people were shouting jubiliantly
over their country's cleverly crafted victory. But now, skepticism is once
again setting in. What is there left for Galtien to do, now that he had
played his final patriotic trump card?
National Honor on the Line
Much is at stake in the Falklands dispute. The main issue on both sides is
national honor and prestige. Economic and strategic issues are secondary.
The potential for oil in the Argentine continental shelf extending out to
the Falklands remains just that. Geologists don't really know how much--or
how little--oil may be there. Drilling and producing oil in the windswept
South Atlantic is very risky anyway. Many believe worse conditions exist
there than in the North Sea or off Newfoundland, where a huge oil rig
recently capsized.
The Falklands are economically not that critical to Britain. However, the
island economy, based on the wool produced by 640,000 sheep, consistently
earns a profit for the absentee British-based landlords.
Thus it is a
profitable colony, as is Hong Kong. Strategically, the islands don't play
the role as a "seagate" that they once did. In the First World War, how
ever, they certainly were important. A critical victory--the Battle of the
Falkland Islands--occurred in 1914. Four large German warships were sunk,
ensuring British control of the South Atlantic.
What is really at stake for Britain now is her national honor and credi
bility. The TIMES of London, in an editorial entitled "We're all Falk
landers now," reported that "the whole structure of this country's standing
in the world, her credibility as an ally" is at stake. "When British ter
ritory is invaded, it is not just an invasion of our land, but of our whole
spirit."
A burly British telephone linesman perhaps said it best, seeming to echo
the 70% positive public response to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's
decision to set sail a 40-ship flotilla toward the Falklands: "We have no
choice. No one will ever listen to Britain again if we don't go in now. I
hope we don
I
t have to, but we must if necessary.
Yes, people will be
killed, but that's war, isn't it? We'll lose Gibraltar if we don't stand up
to people who push us around."
Negotiations with Spain over Gibraltar are also in a very delicate stage.
And the 1997 terminal lease date over much of Hong Kong is rapidly drawing
nigh.
Life or Death Issue Now for Military Rulers of Argentina
The Argentines also have a lot to lose.
The feeling is that President
Galtien and a very close circle of advisors acted impulsively, without