Falklands referendum: The view from the island

"We hope, by voting overwhelmingly in favour of remaining British, the rest of the world will understand and support our right to self-determination."To say the Falklands War left a deep impression on John Fowler is perhaps an understatement.He witnessed the death of three women who were sheltering in his house during a botched British naval bombardment that was meant to help liberate his fellow islanders.Yet the 68-year-old deputy editor of the Penguin News, the territory’s main newspaper, is resolute about the islands remaining British."We Falkland Islanders know who we are and the kind of future we want - and it is definitely not as an Argentine colony,” he says defiantly, on the eve of this weekend’s historic first sovereignty referendum.
"We hope, by voting overwhelmingly in favour of remaining British, the rest of the world will understand and support our right to self-determination. The vote comes at a time when tensions between the UK and Argentina are becoming ever more heated.Since last year’s 30th anniversary of the 1982 war, Argentine protesters have repeatedly taken to the streets to demand the "return" of Las Malvinas – their name for the Falklands.Read More HERE

It wont matter to the Argentinians that it is inevitable that the Falkland Islanders will vote in favour of remaining a British territory but they simply have to respect the wishes of the Islanders, surely they are the ones that matter here. The Argentine s wont respect their wishes, but they can do nothing about it apart from frequent Nationalistic rhetoric, especially when the Country cant pay its debts and just shouts `Malvinas` louder. The fact is they are in a much worse position militarily to retake the Islands by force than they were in 1982, when the British Government gave the wrong impression about its hold on the Islands. They know that the UK will go to War to defend them and they cannot win any such War, they can keep on shouting Malvinas but it will forever be known as the Falklands.