ABSTRACT
The long-standing dispute between the United Kingdom and Argentina over the Falkland Islands has been in some sense before the United Nations since 1965, when the General Assembly passed a Resolution dealing with the matter. Argentine spokesmen invoked the analogy of Goa, which India had liberated from Portuguese colonial rule in 1961, and elaborated the theme in much the same way as India had done: the UN has outlawed colonialism; the retention of colonies is an act of continuous aggression; their liberation is therefore a defensive reaction to aggression and a service to the community, worthy of praise and support. In the case at hand, Argentina was freeing a portion of its national domain that Britain had illegally occupied in 1833 and now illegally persisted in occupying. Decolonization justifies violence only when it is a matter of freeing non-Europeans from European rule, so as to satisfy their presumed demand either for independence or for union with their non-European neighbors.
