Argentine-Falklands conflict touches both to core

Since 1851, the Falkland Island Company dominated the colonial economy, employing sheep farmers at punishing wages and sending the profits back to its shareholders in Britain. Only in the 1980s did the FIC, as the company is known, begin selling its farms to the islanders. It wasn't until 2002 that the islands' government formally became an Independent Overseas Territory.
The Falkland Islands Government now runs a direct democracy. It has its own constitution, sets laws, raises taxes and pays for itself, apart from the $70 million pounds ($110 million) Britain spends annually on its defense.
Vestiges of colonial rule remain. The highest authority is a governor, appointed by the British Foreign Service to act as the queen's representative, but he "wouldn't dream of just trying to impose something on us," said Jan Cheek, one of eight members of the island's legislative assembly.

Argentina's constitution, meanwhile, was amended in the 1990s to make recovering the Malvinas through peaceful means a national priority.
President Cristina Fernandez has tried to pressure Britain into sovereignty talks by turning away British ships, encouraging Argentine companies to divest from Britain and raising other trade barriers. Now she's preparing to mark the April 2 anniversary of Argentina's 74-day occupation with fresh calls for Latin American unity against British colonialism.

Islanders say the Argentines have deliberately left them out of the equation, trying to pressure Britain into talks as if they have no say in their own future.
"Argentina has never said what it would do with us if it got us. The British have said it's up to us. But if we keep bleating on about being British, then the rest of the world can get on describing us as a colony," said Fowler, who has served as education superintendent and editor of the weekly Penguin News.
The Falkland Islands remain one of the world's most remote, underpopulated and unspoiled places. About the size of Northern Ireland or the U.S. state of Connecticut, it has mountain ranges and wide plains, meandering rivers and white-sand beaches, plentiful wetlands and an incredible variety of wildlife, including penguins, sea lions and the rare caracara bird.
Stanley still has just a handful of pubs and no stoplights, and the countryside remains little changed from how it was centuries ago.
"It's a very special country. We do experience some small hardships and there's an awful lot of isolation, but I love it," said Cheek, whose great-great-great grandfather James Biggs arrived from England in 1842 with his wife and four children and a collection of seeds. Now she's one of the matriarchs of a nine-generation family that has lived in the islands ever since. "Living, belonging. When you've lived here this long, it's in your DNA. It's home."