Prince William Lands for Falklands Mission
Prince William, the second in line to the British throne, arrived in the Falklands for a six-week stint as a military pilot that’s drawn condemnation from Argentina as the 30th anniversary approaches of the war between the countries over the South Atlantic archipelago.
“Flight Lieutenant Wales, as part of a four-man search- and-rescue crew, has arrived in the Falkland Islands on a routine operational deployment and will shortly take up SAR duties post a period of briefings and a familiarization flight,” the ministry in London said in an e-mailed statement today.
Argentina said two days ago that William was going to the islands, which it calls the Malvinas, as a “conqueror” and accused Prime Minister David Cameron’s government of “militarizing” the dispute. The U.K. is also sending one of its new destroyers, HMS Dauntless, to the South Atlantic to replace an older ship, the government said this week.
“The Argentine people regret that the royal heir lands on the soil of our fatherland with the uniform of a conqueror and not with the wisdom of a statesman who works to serve peace and dialogue between nations,” the Argentinian Foreign Ministry in Buenos Aires said in a statement. Governments should avoid a course that “transforms patriotism into jingoism with the aim of distracting attention from economic austerity in the context of structural crisis and high unemployment,” it said.
Argentina invaded the islands in 1982 before being expelled by British troops. Cameron stoked anger in Argentina on Jan. 18 when he said its claim to the islands is “like colonialism.”
“What the Argentinians are saying is far more like colonialism, because these people want to remain British and the Argentinians want them to do something different,” Cameron told lawmakers in the House of Commons in London. “The future of the Falkland Islands is a matter for the Falkland Islanders,” he said. “I’m determined we should make sure our defenses and everything else are in order.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Robert Hutton in London at rhutton1@bloomberg.net; Thomas Penny in London at tpenny@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Eddie Buckle at ebuckle@bloomberg.net
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