South America & Falklands - part eighteen

I'm on the Falklands for three days. With a treaty never signed, the United Kingdom is still technically at war with Argentina. Mine is not a stunningly original observation, but they're so British here it's beyond imagining they would ever voluntarily accept Argentine rule.

The Falklands is wealthy from commercial fishing licenses and oil exploration permits. Why would they prefer an inept government in Buenos Aires administering an Argentine economy in shambles? More to the point, why would Falklanders want to be under a foreign thumb? Why would they want their empty, beautiful islands swamped with mainland migrants? Why would they want to drive on the wrong side of the road?

In 1833, Darwin found the islands ‘desolate and wretched’. Perhaps not now, although, to be fair, the South Atlantic weather's not always this glorious.

Port Stanley's Anglican cathedral is the world's most southernly.

Perhaps Darwin would enjoy the Globe Tavern. I certainly do. Here are some of my drinking buddies.

History - especially military history - is never far. Near the Cross of Sacrifice at the old town cemetery are four dead from HMS Exeter's encounter with the German pocket battleship Graf Spee in the Battle of the River Plate. The German ship was scuttled. Sixty-one of Exeter's crew were killed. 

Their eternal view is Port Stanley's harbour. In 1982, Port Stanley residents could watch war from their houses.

Out in the countryside - 'camp' from Spanish campo - the war is easy to find. There are still ninety-six minefields to clear. Here's the waterlogged terrain across which British soldiers crossed - for miles - under fire.

Much of their route was over stone.

This is what remains of an Argentine Chinook helicopter.

In Port Stanley are Jubilee Villas, built in 1887, year of Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee. They're the only buildings of their type in town.

I'm reminded of a photo at the war monument back in Ushuaia. It shows a squad of Argentine soldiers passing the villas. One face reveals futility. The conquerors of seventy British troops - the garrison when Argentina invaded - have become the defeated.

The English caption reads: 'The end is near. Rather resigned, these soldiers march to defend a position in Puerto Argentina [Port Stanley]. There is little they can do'.

In front of the building where the Argentines surrendered is the Falklands Liberation Monument. It's surmounted by - to me - an anachronistic Britannia, but I didn't fight here and I wasn't liberated here. The statue is understandably indicative of strongly felt emotions.

Many of us gather as one of Minerva's lecturers, Rear Admiral John Lippiett, who fought here as a young naval officer, lays a wreath.

We sing 'For those in peril on the sea', listen as the admiral recites 'at the going down of the sun', have a moment of silence and prayer - for all who died.

Twelve hundred British Army soldiers now garrison the islands. As well, there's a significant RAF and Royal Navy presence. There's a resident population of twenty-five hundred and, give or take, half a million sheep.