United Kingdom launches new ordinance for the entry of people to the Sandwich Islands and South Georgia

The UK government announced that it wants to renew an ordinance to control the entry of people into South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands that are currently almost uninhabited. Both archipelagos have remained under British rule since the war with Argentina in 1982 and are part of our country's claim to sovereignty over the Falkland Islands since 1833.

A series of tweets published in the official account of those territories recorded the call for a public consultation “on the proposed new Entry Control Ordinance”. He adds that “this Ordinance will replace current immigration legislation to implement modern legislation to control the entry of people into South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (the “Territories”). Responses to the Consultation must be received by April 8, 2022.

The Argentine Foreign Ministry said that this is “a unilateral action by the United Kingdom, which does not seem particularly aimed at Argentina, but violates UN resolutions prohibiting unilateral acts of the parties until the sovereignty dispute is resolved within the framework of negotiations.”

When asked by Infobae, Guillermo Carmona, head of the Malvinas, Antarctic and South Atlantic Secretariat under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said: “We always prefer to talk about specific situations, but if this British intention is consolidated we will analyze what to do. These territories are included among those which Argentina claims sovereignty. They come under the United Nations regime, which since 1965 has been saying that there is a sovereignty dispute.” He also added that “it sounds strange that they want to do something for islands that are almost without population”.

Carmona argues that this is “a systematic failure by the United Kingdom to comply with what the UN mandated”. He added: “As early as January in the Decolonization Committee we insisted on questioning the restrictions that Argentine citizens suffer from entering and staying in the Malvinas”.

The decision taken by the British government acquires special significance in 2022, which marks the 40th anniversary of the Malvinas War. Both from Argentina and from Great Britain, a series of events were prepared to commemorate the event that lasted between April 2 and June 14, 1982 and left 655 Argentine soldiers and 255 English soldiers dead.

Both Argentina and Great Britain, four decades after the war, ordered that this year there will be commemorative events.

The South Sandwich are made up of a group of 11 islands of volcanic origin and with little land fauna and flora that are uninhabited. In 1976, Argentina established a scientific station on Thule/Morrell Island, which became the first permanent human settlement there. Then the Corbeta Uruguay Scientific Station was opened there and remained active until June 20, 1982, when the British Navy occupied it. A few months later, in December, the station (except for the Lieutenant Esquivel shelter that had been erected in 1955) was destroyed by British forces.

Cook Island, the southernmost of the Sandwich Islands, is located just 50 kilometers north of the 60° S parallel, the northern boundary of the Antarctic sector internationally agreed to in the Antarctic Treaty.

South Georgia, 1390 kilometers southeast of Malvinas, covers 3903 square kilometers. They had a whaling base called Grytviken on the largest of their islands, San Pedro Island, until 1965. On March 19, 1982, Argentine troops occupied an abandoned whaling station in Puerto Leith. The commander in charge of that mission, Luis Lagos, proclaimed Argentine authority on April 3, but on April 25, in Operation Paraquat, during the Malvinas conflict, the British recaptured them.

The British Antarctic Investigation in 1949 had installed another research station near Gritviken at King Edward Point, which for Argentina is called Punta Coronel Zelaya, which after the Malvinas became a small military garrison, which returned to civilians in 2001. About 40 British soldiers and scientists currently live there. The island is a stopover on tourist trips to Antarctica.

On Monday of this week, the British government announced that starting in July in the Falklands there will be a new governor, Alison Mary Blake, who will replace Nigel Phillips, who had taken office in September 2017. Blake had previously been an ambassador to Afghanistan and will also serve as Commissioner to South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, according to the official statement.

According to the Foreign Affairs Overseas Territories office, Blake takes office after two years as ambassador in Kabul, Afghanistan; another two in Dhaka as an official of the British High Commissioner, and other diplomatic functions in the service of Queen Elizabeth II.

According to the official website of the Malvinas Executive, the governor is appointed by the Queen on the proposal of her Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and the Commonwealth in the United Kingdom. “According to the Constitution, the governor has the authority of the Queen. However, the governor normally acts only on the advice of the (local) Executive Council. On the advice of the Executive Council, the governor has the power to convene that council, dissolve the Legislative Assembly, call general elections and give real sanction to laws.”

South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands lie about 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) north of Antarctica and 2,700 kilometers (nearly 1,700 miles) east of South America in the South Atlantic Ocean. In 2012, the United Kingdom established a marine protected area for sustainable use (MPA) around these largely uninhabited islands to manage the local fishery and protect wildlife of global relevance.

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