ARGENTINA’S DECISION TO release an Olympic promotional advert making pointed reference to its ongoing diplomatic conflict with the United Kingdom has drawn the ire of British Foreign Secretary William Hague.
President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner made Argentina’s claim to the Falkland Islands a centrepiece of her 2011 re-election campaign and has continued to highlight the issue in the months since.
Set to a rousing soundtrack bearing the message “To compete on English soil, we train on Argentinian soil,” the promotional video features images of national hockey captain Fernando Zylberberg jogging the streets of the archipelago’s capital, Port Stanley.
The footage was apparently filmed during a recent charity marathon to commemorate the 1982 Falklands conflict, during which Zylberberg posed as a combat veteran.
(YouTube credit: ITNNews)
Speaking to the Telegraph following the advertisement’s release, Hague described the film as “a rather sad stunt” unworthy of an official diplomatic response and indicative of the extent to which Kirchner’s Falklands-centric foreign policy had been met with failure.
“Argentina has had some diplomatic setbacks over the Falkland Islands in recent weeks. They failed at the Summit of the Americas to get other countries – from South America, North America – to join them in a declaration about the Falkland Islands. So I think they’re now resorting to one or two stunts. I don’t think they’ll win any support for that.”
This latest controversy follows a recent attempt by the Argentinian FA to rebrand its domestic league the Crucero General Belgrano First Division, in memory of the cruiser General Belgrano torpedoed by the HMS Conqueror in 1982 with the loss of 323 crew.
