Milei adviser says UK ‘colonised by Islam’ in Falklands row
A SENIOR adviser to Javier Milei has claimed that Argentina needs the Falkland Islands because Britain is being “colonised” by Islam.
Santiago Caputo, one of the Argentine president’s closest aides, said in a social media post that Britain had once been the “cradle of civilisation” but was now being colonised by Islam, posing “an imminent risk to the cause of the entire West”.
The post linked to a video showing Sagal Abdi-Wali, a newly elected Labour MP, swearing allegiance to the King in Parliament with her hand on a Quran.
Mr Caputo, a member of what has been described as Mr Milei’s “iron triangle” of closest advisers, said the video illustrated why Argentina needed control of the Falklands.
“Given the strategic geopolitical relevance that the South Atlantic will take on in the coming decades, the West cannot afford the interference of an Islamic state in that sphere of influence,” he wrote.
“Recovering the Malvinas is not solely a national cause. It is a cause of the West,” he added.
Ms Abdi-Wali, who came to the UK as a refugee from Somalia as a child, won the Holborn and St Pancras by-election earlier this month, defeating Zack Polanski, the Green Party leader.
Tensions over the Falklands, known as the Malvinas in Argentina, have risen in recent months amid renewed demands from Mr Milei for the islands to be “returned” to Argentina.
In a speech to the UN General Assembly last month, the Argentine president threatened to “take matters into his own hands” over British plans to drill for oil off the coast of the archipelago.
Mr Milei has also described the islands as under “illegal occupation” and vowed to act swiftly to “recover” them.
Buenos Aires is angered by plans to exploit the Sea Lion oilfield in the North Falkland Basin, which could produce 1.7 billion barrels of oil.
Argentina argues that the drilling plans contravene a 1976 UN resolution calling on both sides to refrain from unilateral actions on the archipelago, which lies about 300 miles off Argentina’s east coast.
Mr Milei has threatened to arrest executives at the oil companies licensed to drill.
Earlier this month, the British Government gave final approval for the project. Ed Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, condemned Argentina’s “attempts to intimidate businesses and individuals engaged in legitimate commercial activity”.
Buenos Aires subsequently launched legal proceedings against the decision at the Hamburg-based International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.
In 1982, Leopoldo Galtieri, the Argentine dictator, ordered an invasion of the islands, triggering a 74-day conflict that ended with Argentine forces surrendering to British troops.
The war cost the lives of 255 British servicemen, 649 Argentine soldiers and three Falkland Islanders.
Amid the renewed tensions, the British Army has resumed training exercises to defend the islands against a potential invasion.
Around 150 British paratroopers recently joined locally trained reservists in a simulated amphibious assault.
The six-day exercise sought to recreate elements of Operation Sutton, the landings that enabled British forces to retake the islands in 1982.
