![\"\"](\"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/0\/08\/2386116148_1de2537b92.jpg\/170px-2386116148_1de2537b92.jpg\")
\u00a0.<\/p>\n\u00a0.<\/p>\n
No one would ever go to the Falklands for either the weather or the view<\/strong>.\u00a0 That at least has been the traditional opinion ever since Darwin commented on his first arrival, \u2018scarcely any views can be more dismal than that from the heights: moorland and black bog extend as far as the eye can discern, intersected by innumerable streams, and pools of yellowish water….. These islands have a miserable appearance.\u2019<\/p>\n Like the Hebrides though, catch them on a good day with a bit of sun and they have their own wild beauty.\u00a0 Throw in some accessible colonies of penguins and you have the beginnings of a tourist trade;\u00a0 a surprising amount of passenger boats now stop there for a combined \u2018Penguin and Battlefield\u2019 tour, with fish and chips in one of the pubs in Port Stanley afterwards.<\/p>\n One reason for the bitterness the islanders feel towards Argentina is apparent as soon as you drive out of Stanley \u2013 the amount of land that is still uninhabitable because of landmines, including many of the beaches which they used to play on as children. The cost, both human and economic, of trying to clear such large areas has proved too much.<\/p>\n Having just come from Argentina, I know that no one has ever lost votes there by making bellicose noises about the Falklands. Christina Kirchner, fired up by her recent success in the Presidential elections, is beating a very large drum as a distraction from the high inflation and low growth\u00a0the country is currently experiencing.\u00a0 Every Argentinean, whatever their politics, believes the islands to be theirs. Which is not to say that they want to see them retaken by military action. Memories of the military debacle are still too fresh – as they are on the Falklands themselves. At the memorial in central Buenos Aires to the 649 Argentineans killed in the conflict, which faces directly across to \u2018The English Tower\u2019, built a hundred years ago when relationships between the two countries were better, a flame still burns.\u00a0 Left-wing critics of the government have asked when a similar memorial will be erected to the estimated 30,000 who \u2018disappeared\u2019 during the military dictatorship leading up to the invasion.<\/p>\n Some Porte\u00f1os suggested to me that perhaps the two main islands could be divided, with the western, less populated one administered by Argentina;\u00a0 one of those ideas that sounds like a sensible compromise but in practice, like so many partitions, would be difficult to administer, even if the islanders would remotely contemplate surrendering any of their sovereignty, which from the reactions I encountered in Stanley seems highly unlikely.<\/p>\n \u2018Widow Kirchner\u2019, as the islanders call her, can thunder all she like from the pulpit, and persuade other South American countries to follow suit. The islanders are in no mood for compromise, and given that oil may soon supplement the lucrative fishing and burgeoning tourism, there are good economic reasons for Britain to hang onto the islands, as well as sentiment.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0. No one would ever go to the Falklands for either the weather or the view.\u00a0 That at least has been the traditional opinion ever since Darwin commented on his first arrival, \u2018scarcely any views can be more dismal than that from the heights: moorland and black bog extend as far as the eye can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1,3],"tags":[100],"class_list":["post-1770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-uncategorized","category-travel","tag-falklands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1770"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1770"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1770\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1775,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1770\/revisions\/1775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}