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The Falklands: Pope Francis, what fresh hell can this be? UPDATED

After the pontiff took home the Communist crucifix, I borrow Dorothy Parker’s question to ask him, Pope Francis, what fresh hell can this be?

Pope Francis poses with ‘dialogue for Malvinas’ sign
Pope Francis poses with a propaganda sign calling for “dialogue” between Britain and Argentina

“It is time for dialogue between Argentina and the United Kingdom about the Falkland Islands“

Argentina’s rulers for decades have used the Falklands as a propaganda tool by which they can distract from the dictatorship, the economic situation, the poverty, the corruption, the “silence is health” mentality. The Falklanders have confirmed their right to self-determination by overwhelmingly voting to remain British in a March 2013 referendum.

Cristina Fernandez, whom the pope has hosted at least five times since his ascension to the papacy, is particularly fervid on the Falklands (a subject dear to Hugo Chavez, her 21st Century Socialism compadre) also because of new oil findings on Falklands territory. There’s even a Twitter hashtag,

Gustavo Hoyo, director of the “dialogue” movement, has been tweeting pictures of ordinary Argentines and well-known faces holding the placard.

By holding the sign, Francis has now joined in the propaganda, on the 50th anniversary of the UN’s Decolonization Committe resolution asking for dialogue, just as Cristina ramps up the rhetoric as the October 25 election looms.

Sure enough, Cristina tweeted it,

What a tool you are, Francis.

UPDATE:
Mercopress says the pope’s not a tool, but a clueless fool,

“The Holy Father did not even realise he had this object in his hands. He has discovered this just now after seeing the photograph,” Father Ciro Benedettini said in a phone interview on Wednesday.

Interesting how so many have to explain “what Francis really meant” after the fact.

“Nobody takes Francis by surprise”, tweets Cristina:

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Comments

  1. An irony about Evita III doing the “Malvinas Argentinas” thing is that it was the Junta that went to war to make the Falklands the “Malvinas Argentinas.” I would think that Evita II, given the justifiable dislike that she has for the the Junta, would not follow the Junta into the Malvinas/Falklands folly.

  2. would not follow the Junta into the Malvinas/Falklands folly.
    The Malvinas are useful domestically:
    It’s a convenient distraction from her disastrous economic policy, and the corruption scandals. Plus, the more fevered the nationalistic media coverage, the sooner the Nisman murder is forgotten.

    Internationally, it feeds into the chavista propaganda and anti-Anglo sentiment at the UN.

  3. Fausta
    The Malvinas are useful domestically:
    It’s a convenient distraction from her disastrous economic policy..

    Agreed. But Galtieri could have said the same. (I do not recall any corruption scandals being bandied about in the press at the time, which probably says more about changes in freedom of the press than it does about changes in honesty in government.)

    My point is that while Evita III abhorred the Junta, she has more in common with the Junta than she would like to believe. Recall my comment which quoted Naipaul’s 1972 article on Argentina in the New York Review of Books.

    http://faustasblog.com/2015/05/argentina-silence-is-health/