Reflections from our visit to the Falkland Islands and next steps

This is a guest blog from Eduardo Smith, our Political Officer, and Bruce Callow from our Embassy in Costa Rica, about their recent visit with Central American journalists to the Falkland Islands.

We are now back in our home countries after an exhausting 24 hour journey from the Falklands. Our group split up in Panama to catch our final flights home. As we sleepily said goodbye we felt a great satisfaction in the way things had gone over of the past week and the cooperative spirit that our diverse group of journalists had brought to the trip.

During our second last day our journalists were interviewed by Falklands Radio and Falkland Islands Television. It was interesting to listen to their commentaries about what they had experienced and they all shared the view that there is so much more to life on the Islands than the conflict with Argentina. The journalists came away from the visit appreciating that the people of the Falklands have their own identity and have the right to choose the path they take.  Luis Alberto Velasquez of the Prensa Libre in Guatemala said, “The only news that we hear about the Falklands is about the conflict with Argentina. This trip opened a door for us to learn about the human side of life here and get a fuller perspective.”

The future of the Falkland Islands looks promising indeed. The tourism industry here is about to enter a new phase of development and it was exciting to learn how the scientific research in the British South Atlantic territories is being expanded by the Environmental Research Institute.

We also had the chance to know more about the presence of the British Military Forces in the islands,  and the important role that they play to guarantee the freedom of the islanders and their wish to determine their own future.  They live peacefully with the islanders and the people in the islands value all the efforts these men and women are making to keep their home safe. Military forces are not politicians and they don’t get into the details of a conflict or take sides at any argument, they follow orders to protect the basic principles of life, freedom and democracy. Our journalists cherished this message.

We are now looking forward to the reporting the journalists will do on the trip in Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Guatemala. The main purpose of organising this trip was to give the people of Central America a chance to learn about life on the Falkland Islands through the words of the people who live there. But a secondary benefit was that Falkland Islanders also had the opportunity to learn a little bit more about Central America. We hope that this visit will be the beginning of a lot more contact between our parts of the world.