Argentine President Resumes Her Duties with a Blast at the British

After a 20-day absence following her Jan. 4 surgery, Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner resumed her official duties yesterday, with a big public event, whose highlight was a well-deserved blast at the British insanity over the Malvinas islands.

After gratefully acknowledging the many messages of support and concern she had received while recovering from her surgery, and then announcing several infrastructure projects her administration would be launching, President Fernandez pointed to the "Upsidedown Kingdom" reflected in recent deranged remarks by British Prime Minister David Cameron accusing Argentina of being "colonialist" or preparing a military assault on the Malvinas.

"These remarks collapse of their own weight," Fernandez said. "They have no rhyme or reason. We are not, nor have we ever been, an invading force." The United Nations Decolonization Committee has 16 cases of places that are still colonies, of which 10 belong to England, "the most emblematic of which is our Malvinas Islands." In a pointed reference to Cameron, she said that on the upcoming 30th anniversary of the Malvinas war, "don't expect to hear from us any out-of-control screaming or xenophobic gestures. We leave that to others." (She noted, by the way, that there are more Englishmen living in Buenos Aires than on the Malvinas.)

Fernandez stated that Argentina will continue with its calm, deliberate, rigorous diplomatic campaign of demanding enforcement of the several UN resolutions mandating negotiations between the UK and Argentina to resolve the issue peacefully. In March of 2010, Hillary Clinton's call for such negotiations drove the Brits berzerk, and the State Department's Jan. 19 reiteration of that call, while taking "no position" on the issue of sovereignty, provoked charges from London that the U.S. had once again "knifed" Britain.

The Argentine President also pointed out that the Green movement hasn't been protesting UK oil exploration around the Malvinas. Please, she stated ironically, "let's see a defense of the squid!" That swipe forced the local Greenpeace chapter to answer the next day, that they had, really truly, protested this back in ... 1998.