I find it quite odd how there is so much controversy over the ownership of the Falkland Islands, there was a war over it after all and it remains one of the most important political issues in Argentina to this day, yet other similar territories in South America don't seem to be contested at all.
For example, Dutch islands like Aruba and Curacao are located much closer to the coast of Venezeula than the Falkland Islands are to the coast of Argentina, yet as far as I'm aware the Venezeulan government doesn't contest the sovereignty of those islands at all. They are simply accepted to be Dutch and it is not an issue.
Likewise as far as I'm aware no country contests the existance of French Guyana, despite the fact that this is literally a chunk of France situated right on the mainland of South America.
Can someone explain why the Falkland Islands gets so much scrutiny and generates so much controversy, while other European territories in South America are just accepted and appear to cause no controversy at all? I have to say it seems like double standards to me.
Okay, the most obvious reason, is of course that the Falklands war showed the other South American how terrible the idea would be if done aggressively like Argentina did. As for why 1980s Argentina thought it would be wise originally, I’ll get into the context below.
But the first question you’re likely to ask is why not attempt to claim them peacefully and diplomatically? It’s because the South American countries know they have little grounds to claim them. The European territories in question, similar to the Falklands, have no interest in joining with a Latin American country. A lot of those territories have a large percentage of population descended from the original Europeans and there is still a lot of loyalty. French Guyana was one of the biggest supporters of De Gaulle during WW2, for example.
Even if they wanted complete separation from the motherland, you’ve to remember that these territories speak French/Dutch/English etc. and have developed a separate culture to the Latin countries. Those European territories also tend to have the best economies in the region as well as generally being more stable, which also can be a major factor in separatism as seen in the relatively recent Catatonian attempts back in Europe.
Now to explain the context of how the Falkland Wars was brought about, to show why it was unlikely to be reattempted by other South American nations. Firstly the 80s was after most of the bigger waves of decolonisation had hit the old European empires. Even the more stubborn countries like Portugal and Spain (due to being the last dictatorships in Western Europe) had already been forced to give up most of their overseas territories by the 70s, but generally it was now heavily frowned upon to forcefully keep your colonies by the international community.
UK and France were no longer considered the world powers they once were. The Suez Crisis, in 1956, was arguably the last attempts of the two countries to influence on a great power scale. It was condemned and shut down by the US, UN and USSR, with both economic and nuclear threats from the two cold powers, showing the outdatedness of the old European great power model on the world stage post-WW2.
The Argentinian leadership in 1982 was Leopoldo Galtieri. He was only in charge 4 months and was immensely unpopular. He had inherited an economy in deep recession from his predecessor, who had caused Argentina’s possibly worst financial crisis only 5 years earlier and Galtieri was heavy involved in the “Dirty Wars”, which were state terrorism and war crimes by the Argentinean military junta (which he now lead) against any left-wing dissidents during the 70s.
His involvement in the Dirty Wars made him popular with the Reagan administration though, who saw his junta as a bulwark against communism in the region. The U.S was not opposed to influencing decolonisation if it suited its needs. It had forced the Dutch to decolonise Indonesia against its will and as seen earlier, the other Europeans were now generally seen to comply with the cold war powers.
As is common in dictatorships throughout history, Galtieri attempted to distract the population from the country’s internal woes with a new external target. That of the reclamation of the Falklands. This was successful at first, the protests previously against his regime was now protesting against the wrongful ownership of Argentinean land.
He invaded the Falklands assuming, as all the previous contexts should hopefully show, that the UK would not intervene militarily. The UK as you no doubt know, did intervene (arguably due to the conservative Thatcher administration in charge, but I don’t know enough about Thatcherism to comment). The US, divided between supporting a NATO ally and potentially undermining anti-communist efforts in the region, initially remained neutral.
Argentina was condemned by the UN during the war, requesting its withdrawal. As well as the argument that the Falkland Islanders had the right to their own self determination as mentioned earlier, many of the UN members were worried that unchallenged old claims to borders may lead to their own borders being threatened in similar fashion. Spurred by the popularity of his people, Galtieri rejected this request on backing down, leading to the US eventually siding with the UK.
The Falklands War backfired horribly for the Argentinean leadership. They became unpopular and were ousted soon after it, returning Argentina to a democratic government. However it was a heavy blow to Argentinean national pride that is still felt to this day, leading to the controversial modern bitterness over it. This would no doubt heavily discourage any modern autocratic or nationalist South American leader from attempting the same mistake.
I’ve decided to not focus on the specifics of the war or its aftermath as much as the lead up. I hoped explaining the context on why a Falklands style situation happened in the first place would suit the question better.
There are former European colonial territories in the Americas such that another local country contests their boundaries. Two notable examples:
A key thing to understand is that the territorial claims of Hispanic American countries tend to take as their starting point the territory of the Spanish provinces or viceroyalties that they succeeded. If you look at 19th and 20th century South American history, there were a number of territorial wars between based on states' differing interpretation of these boundaries. For example, the Colombia-Perú war of 1932 stemmed from differing interpretations of an 1802 decree by the king of Spain.
So an important place to look for answers for such questions is the historical treaties and territorial disputes between European colonial powers in the New World. The Guatelama/Belize dispute, the Venezuela/Guyana and the Argentina/UK one all can be tied to territorial disputes between Spain and either Britain or the Dutch. Whereas in the case of Aruba for example, the Dutch took it in 1636 and signed the Peace of Münster with Spain in 1648 that recognized Dutch control over the island (and the parts of Guyana that Venezuela does not dispute).