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Color me naive, but I do not view the attempted coup orchestrated by former President Trump and executed by his most rabid supporters last January 6 as a serious threat to democracy in the United States. I think it was an extremely serious crime and expect the House Select Committee will have little trouble establishing Trumps legal and moral responsibility for the assault on the U.S. Capitol. And I do not for a moment minimize the severity of what took place. It was horrific. It was criminal. It was anti-democratic in its aim.

Its just that it never had any chance of overturning the result of the 2020 election. It caused great damage and ruined far too many lives. Indeed, it couldve been even worse. But it never wouldve made a difference. It would not have thwarted the will of the electorate or kept Trump in power. Even if the horde had succeeded in preventing the House from certifying the vote that day, the Representatives would have certified it the day after. And, God forbid, if the mob had reached and killed Vice President Pence or other elected officials, it wouldve been a capital crime but Joe Biden would still be President.

Like many people ensnared in their own delusions, Trump and his fanatical supporters may have thought their attack would lead the people to rise up, throw their weight behind the madness and somehow bend the entire machinery of state and federal government to their will. But this is a common fantasy; fanatics routinely believe that others secretly see the world as they do. It is an especially common psychosis among some white supremacists, who imagine that all Whites see the world just like they do and that they just need a martyr to lead the way and ignite a race war. But like so much of their toxic ideology, this is just a castle in the air.

I am not particularly surprised by the coverage of January 6. It is customary, at least in the United States, to construct crises in three steps: cast events as an existential threat to dearly held values; trace the threat to the perfidy of an identifiable person or group; and present a solution that relies on readily available levers. The first step is obviously meant to grab our attention, the second to pinpoint a villain, and the third to specify a fix. The whole dance is easy to learn and impossible to forget, which makes it the staple of political persuasion and media propaganda. Partisans on the political right have always been especially fond of this script; Tucker Carlson, with his interminable and catholic attacks on practically all things Black and Brown, is merely the most recent champion of a White nationalism that was already old when Father Coughlin came along.

Recognizing that January 6 could not have changed the result of the election, some people say the threat to democracy was not in the day itself, but in the culture of violence it promotes. They point to various polls that appear to show alarming levels of support among Republicans for violence as a way of achieving political goals. In a poll by the American Enterprise Institute, nearly 40 percent of Republicans agreed that if elected leaders will not protect America, the people must do it themselves, even if it requires violent actions. Likewise, a September 2021 poll by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 30 percent of Republicans agreed that, Because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.

These are indeed extraordinary results, and if they reliably predicted the risk of political violence, wed all be in a great deal of trouble. Fortunately for us, however, what they probably reveal is the danger of inartful polling. As political scientist Sean Westwood and his co-authors have shown, various design flaws and definitional problems in these polls likely inflated the support for violence. When a subsequent group of political scientists corrected for these flaws and conducted a more careful poll, support for violence plummeted. Mind you, it is still surprisingly high4 percent of respondents indicated that it could be justified for members of their party to commit a violent felony to advance their political goals. Though a far cry from earlier numbers, thats still millions of people.

But even this number probably overstates the risk of violence. The pollsters asked, How much do you feel it is justified for members of your own party (Democrats or Republicans) to use various forms of violence, ranging from non-violent misdemeanors to violent felonies, in advancing their political goals these days? In other words, the pollsters did not ask, and probably could not have asked, whether someone would themselves be violent, but whether they thought it might be justified for some nameless other to be violent, which is a very different thing. I do not doubt that some people and groups support the violent overthrow of democracy, but we dont know how large that number is. All we know is that its probably much lower than people have been led to believe.

Finally, when many people talk about threats to democracy coming out of the Trump presidency, they point to the states that imposed restrictions on voting after the 2020 elections. Most of these restrictions were passed in Republican states and I do not doubt that they were adopted for partisan purposes. I will even grant that some unknown number of Republican legislators hoped and expected the new laws would suppress Black votes; there is a folk-wisdom among many Whites that conservative White voters will exercise the franchise come hell or high water but that Blacks will stay home when the going gets tough. I have always thought that this myth was the direct descendant of hoary racist lie that Blacks are lazy and unfit for the demands of citizenship. It was a lie then and its a lie now.

To that point, there is very little evidence that voting restrictions of the sort adopted by states in 2020 suppress turnout. On the contrary, careful academic research consistently shows they have little to no effect. Indeed, because minority voters might suspect the true purpose is to strip them of their vote, there is some evidence these restrictions can increase turnout; no right is more precious than the one under attack, and there is no voter like a motivated voter. In fairness, some protest that academics have not yet studied the effect of the bills passed after the 2020 election. Thats true, the legislation is simply too new. But as Sarah Isgur recently explained in Politico, the new laws are not nearly as far from the mainstream as some irresponsible hyperbole has suggested. In any case, last months election in Georgia showed that the laws may not suppress turnout at all. In fact, turnout was high and Trumps handpicked candidates lost.

I accept that at least one purpose of the 2020 legislation was to suppress minority voting. The aim, in other words, at least among some legislators, is anti-democratic. In that respect, Im confident that some legislators hoped to accomplish by lawful means what Trump hoped to accomplish January 6 by unlawful meansto subvert democracy. They do not really believe in democracy and are more than happy to throw it out the window if doing so keeps them in power. But this is hardly a new impulse in American life. On the contrary, the impulse has never been absent, and we ought not fear for democracy simply because we detect it again. Indeed, as one scholar put it in a comprehensive review of the literature, voting restrictions imposed in the 21st century are quite tame compared to those of earlier eras.

Nothing I have written should be taken to suggest that democracy is secure. I dont believe that for a minute. I believe, for instance, that climate change is likely to trigger global migrations on an unprecedented scale that will destabilize economies and encourage nativist populism. In the chaos that follows, many insecure nations will be tempted to follow an anti-democratic path. And that is just one of democracys looming challenges.

But overblown partisan rhetoric, by either side, does not equip us to confront these challenges. On the contrary, it makes our task all the more difficult in ways I will explain in my next essay.

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Was It Really a Threat to Democracy? - Justia Verdict

The prevalence of social media and support from right-wing politicians have enabled white supremacist, anti-government and other domestic extremist groups to become much greater threats to American security than foreign terrorist movements ever have been, according to a panel of security experts.

The threat presented by jihadist extremism is always going to be infitesimally small compared to the threat presented by white nationalist extremism in this country where you have a much, much bigger pool of potential adherents. And when that giant mass of people starts to mobilize, then youre starting to deal with a complicated problem, said J.M. Berger, an extremism expert, author and research fellow at VOX-Pol. He spoke during a June 10 Brookings Institution webinar.

While American extremist groups often are at odds with each other and lack coherent vision and coordination, they are benefitting from social media use and from increasing mainstream political support from Republican politicians and candidates, panelists said.

What they have right now is a mainstream figure Donald Trump who is willing to elevate these concepts, these arguments and is careless, or careful enough, with his language that he can mobilize a lot of people who have a lot of different views in the same direction of nativism and hate and fearmongering. You cant underestimate the power of a charismatic leader in this context, Berger said.

He was joined on the panel by Heidi Beirich, chief strategy officer and co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, and Daniel Byman, senior fellow at the Brookings Center for Middle East Policy. Vanda Felbab-Brown, senior fellow and director of the Initiative on Nonstate Armed Actors for Brookings, moderated the event.

Byman noted that endless conspiracy theories around race and national identity are nothing new in the U.S. or worldwide.

What were seeing is what people are calling the great replacement, a set of ideas about the white community being replaced by immigrants and others. There is a whole range of variations about birth rates, about deliberate intermarriage, or the problem with the gay community that is decreasing white birth rates, on and on and on, he said. The specifics are all variations on old themes that the white race is under attack, and you can find echoes going back decades and centuries.

Although ancient, these notions are now spreading wider and faster than ever before and, thanks to social media, can be seen inspiring high-visibility acts of violence such as the May 14 shooting in Buffalo, N.Y., which mostly targeted Black shoppers, the 2019 El Paso, Texas, Walmart shooting that targeted Hispanics, as well as numerous synagogue and mosque shootings in the U.S. and around the world, he said.

What has changed, though, is there is more connectivity due to social media. You see ideas that are ricocheting around the world from Europe to the United States to New Zealand and show up in numerous different contexts. And social media is providing a lot of interaction.

But Byman said his main concern isnt the violence of individual and uncoordinated acts of violence but the overlap with politics. We see in the United States, for example, real concern about demographic change. There is a strong sense of white grievance, that its a very difficult place to be a white man. There is a tremendous concern over immigration. There is tremendous bias and hatred toward immigrants.

That context creates an environment in which right-wing ideas flourish and nurture things like white supremacy, he added. This is the kind of thing that can shape politics and can shape the lives of millions or even hundreds of millions of people.

Plenty of evidence exists globally that those detrimental changes already have been happening, Beirich said.

We have now, through the actions of Trump and other far-right populist leaders in other countries, activated these disengaged, disparate movements, into politics.

We have now, through the actions of Trump and other far-right populist leaders in other countries, activated these disengaged, disparate movements, into politics. And they all agree and we can thank social media for spreading things that they face the same kind of threat, which is a threat of demographic change thats going to displace them from their place of pride and displace white people. And as a result of that, they are being activated into politics in some cases, as in Hungary, where an entire regime has arisen that has targeted populations like immigrants, the LGBTQ community, women and literally undone the kinds of civil rights and other liberal protections that were put in place after the fall of communism.

While stripping those populations of their rights, authoritarian leaders like Viktor Orbn in Hungary and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil are elevating extremist elements in their societies to solidify their own power as heads of state, she said.

The biggest threat we have today when it comes to these movements is the possibility of an illiberal society like that evolving here in the United States, the possibility of extremist groups having a huge impact on the elections coming up.

In many cases, such negative transformation may occur from the inside-out with conspiracy theorists, anti-government extremists and white supremacists if their political candidates win elections, Beirich said.

We have people running for office who are members of groups like the Proud Boys and others. We have many, many people who are running for office on the conservative side who are using the great replacement language that we saw from the Buffalo shooter and the El Paso shooter. That shift in politics is related to this invasion of these extremist ideas into the mainstream and the way that Donald Trump activated people into the political system.

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Social media and right-wing politicians are fueling threat to democracy, panelists warn - Baptist News Global

Say what you like about America, it knows how to produce good TV drama.

Last weeks blockbuster show lets call it Insurrection was the first in a six-part mini-series brought to you live by the House of Representatives panel investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.

Having spent a year picking through evidence and interviewing more than 1,000 people, the committee on Thursday laid out its findings in a compelling prime-time hearing.

Over two hours, we heard how former president Donald Trump, knowing he had lost the election, orchestrated nothing less than an attempted coup to try to block the peaceful transfer of power.

For a political hearing at least, it was gripping stuff. The carefully scripted, fast-moving drama kept millions of Americans glued to their televisions.

A former president at ABC News advised the panel of nine congressmen and women on how best to present their findings and boost viewership numbers, leading to a slick presentation.

Harrowing, tearful witness accounts were punctuated with footage of the deadly violence on the day thousands of Trump loyalists raided the Capitol.

Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney recounted how Mr Trump told his aides that protesters, who literally wanted to hang then-vice president Mike Pence for certifying Joe Biden's 2020 election win, maybe had the right idea.

The departing presidents enraged cry of We fight like hell during a speech outside the White House was shown along with footage of protesters closing in on the seat of American democracy.

Yet the question that came to mind as I watched Insurrection was this: Does any of it matter?

The hearing was a must-see for at least 20 million Americans who tuned in, but for millions more it was must-miss.

Fox News, Americas most popular cable network and the go-to for right-wing-slanted information, was the only major news channel that did not air the hearing live.

Instead, two of its favourite agents provocateurs Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity hosted their shows without any commercial breaks.

Presumably, this was to prevent channel hoppers from stumbling across Insurrection and watching Ms Cheney describe how the committee would detail plots to commit seditious conspiracy on January 6".

Hannity described the panels findings as a made-for-TV smear campaign against President Trump and lambasted the committee, comprising seven Democrats and two Republicans, for a partisan witch hunt.

He then turned to the headline issues facing America today and the perceived failings of the Biden administration.

Record inflation, rising crime, a shortage of baby formula, sky-high petrol prices and what some Fox commentators describe as an open border with Mexico.

These are the real problems we should be focusing on, the argument seemed to be, not the the Capitol being attacked by scores of militiamen in combat fatigues.

For many Americans, it is a fair point. After all, people here are in a foul mood, with three quarters of those recently surveyed saying the country is headed in the wrong direction.

You can hear it at the supermarket and at petrol station: gasps of horror at the checkout or as a family car gobbles up $100 and is still hungry.

But by studiously avoiding the elephant in the room the fact that January 6 was almost an American coup Fox News is doing the country and its viewers a disservice.

It seems obvious that less than five months from now, barring some unforeseen turnaround, the Democrats will forfeit control of the House and probably the Senate too.

At that point the January 6 committee will either be disbanded or taken in an entirely new direction with Republicans at the helm.

Instead of hearing about Mr Trumps plans to subvert democracy, the panel would focus on security and police failings at the Capitol building, and Speaker Nancy Pelosis actions around that.

We also will be hearing a lot more about Hunter Biden's laptop, Mr Biden's atrocious handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal, and Covid vaccine "misinformation" from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and Dr Antony Fauci.

Season 2 of Insurrection, if it is renewed, will probably look very different.

Published: June 13, 2022, 6:18 AM

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Tuning into 'Insurrection': a vivid vision of democracy in trouble - The National

Its not really a coincidence that, the morning after the first, explosive public hearing by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman the man appointed by Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos to lead the partisan probe of the 2020 election in Wisconsin was held in contempt of court.

Gablemans contempt for the rule of law and the institutions of our democracy, which he demonstrated in his bombastic, sarcastic performance in Dane County circuit court on Friday, is the same style of demagoguery practiced by Donald Trump.

Like Trump, Gableman is a narcissist and a bully whose taboo-breaking nastiness posturing as an injured hero of a popular movement who is somehow standing up for the little guy by displaying sneering disrespect for public officials and the courts is part of a more general, dangerous trend.

Trump, according to House investigators, encouraged a murderous mob to attack the U.S. Capitol to try to prevent the certification of the 2020 presidential election. Gableman has furthered Trumps efforts with his baseless investigation, pushing the discredited idea that there was massive voter fraud in Wisconsin. While leading his publicly funded probe that has cost Wisconsin taxpayers almost a million dollars, he has refused to turn over records the issue for which Judge Frank Remington held him in contempt.

Even aside from the mounting evidence that Wisconsin Republicans played a major role in the conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 election, the coarsening of civic dialogue that Gableman represents is, in itself, a threat. That threat was already evident long before Trump was elected, when Gableman, the most overturned judge in the state, was elected to the Wisconsin Supreme Court after a scandalous, racist campaign and brought his disdainful, know-nothing style to an institution led by the late Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson, one of the most respected jurists in the nation. Gablemans rude treatment of Abrahamson was stomach-turning, as was his successful drive to erect a veil of secrecy around court business which conveniently cloaked discussions of his conflicts in not recusing himself from cases involving his donors. Gablemans only defense of the policy change was to say the open meetings were an experiment whose time has passed. Things have gone downhill ever since.

The footage of mayhem at the Capitol aired Thursday night during prime time by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6th attack is a natural outgrowth of the dangerous demagoguery practiced by Trump and Gableman.

Contempt is the right word for it: Contempt for the truth, contempt for democracy, contempt for due process, and, finally, contempt for civility and common decency and even the physical safety of citizens, legislators and public servants, including the Capitol police who were attacked and killed.

House investigators are seeking to show that Trump was at the center of a far-reaching conspiracy to overturn election results. Wisconsins fake electors and the fake Gableman investigation are an important part of that conspiracy.

Its a short road from the assault on civil society launched by Gableman and Trump to mayhem. Their rhetoric encourages the destruction of peaceful civic life.

Consider Gablemans appearance Friday, when, after 45 minutes of argument by his lawyers that he should not have to testify at all, he finally took the stand. He proceeded to deliver a bombastic speech, refused to answer questions and denounced the judge, who, he declared, without evidence, has abandoned his role as a neutral magistrate and is acting as an advocate.

Dane County Circuit Court Judge Frank Remington directed Gableman to stop his filibuster. Youve had a long and storied career, serving the public as let me finish please, he said, as Gableman interrupted him.

Sure, if youll let me finish, Gableman shot back.

Thats not how it works. Remington reminded him, I do not need to tell you how I expect you to control yourself and the behavior that I expect of a witness on this stand.

After a brief further exchange, Gableman said, You have a right to conduct and control your courtroom, judge, but you dont have a right to act as an advocate for one party over the other. I want a personal counsel if you are putting jail on the table. I want a personal attorney to represent me personally. I will not answer any more questions. I see you have a jail officer here. You want to put me in jail, Judge Remington, Im not going to be railroaded.

All of this talk of putting Gableman in jail was precipitated by Remingtons instruction in an earlier hearing about the legal consequences of willfully withholding evidence in contempt of court, which includes, he explained Friday, reading from the Wisconsin Judicial Bench Book, imprisonment six months or as long as contempt continues, whichever is shorter in addition to payment to compensate loss or injury suffered by a party not to exceed $2,000 per day for each day a contempt continues.

Despite Gablemans histrionics, At no time did I suggest that that was a sanction that I intended to impose, Remington added.

The irony, of course, is that Gableman himself filed a petition in the Waukesha County court asking that city staff, election workers and the mayors of Green Bay Madison and Racine be thrown in jail if they dont comply with his subpoenas, including demands that they give testimony in secret, closed-door sessions the mayors said were improper.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that the city administrator of Kenosha, upon answering Gablemans subpoena, appeared only to find that he was to be deposed by a lawyer who was not licensed to practice in Wisconsin, upon which he left.

This kind of bumbling is par for the course in Gablemans Office of Special Counsel.

As the Examiners Henry Redman reports, Gableman has repeatedly disregarded open records requests and his lawyer has said that he regularly deletes records he deems irrelevant to his review which so far has turned up nothing more than baseless accusations of election fraud.

In a separate lawsuit seeking records he has so far refused to release, Dane County Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn said he had run amok and gone rogue as he continued to disregard the states open records laws.

What is Gableman hiding? Keystone Kops-style incompetence, wasting money and coming up with nothing are the hallmarks of his ridiculous probe, which he and Vos justify as an effort to increase transparency and public confidence in Wisconsin elections. We already know Gableman used the taxpayers funds to attend a conspiracy theory conference hosted by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and to visit Arizona to inspect its discredited audit.

After throwing his tantrum on the stand Friday Gableman invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself and swept out of the courtroom. No one arrested him. His gambit worked he was able to continue withholding information. Later, Remington issued an order holding him in contempt.

American Oversight, the group that has been suing Gableman for information, issued a statement: Mr. Gablemans outrageous and disrespectful conduct in court today removed any last shred of credibility from this partisan charade. Far from increasing transparency and instilling greater confidence in the 2020 elections, by repeatedly flouting Wisconsin transparency laws, Mr. Gableman and Speaker Vos have shamed their offices and undermined their own investigation.

Undermining public trust in democratic institutions and sowing chaos and distrust is actually what the investigation is all about. And thats a growing problem for all of us.

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Gableman's contempt and the destruction of democracy - Wisconsin Examiner

Monday, June 13th 2022 - 10:45 UTC General Jeremy Moore take the surrender of Brigadier General Mario Benjamin Menendez

On 02nd April 1982 Argentine Forces invaded the Falkland Islands. Patrick Watts, who was Head of Falklands Radio, broadcast a marathon 11 hours non-stop description of the events as they unfolded. He maintained a British presence in the Radio Station for most of the 74 days of Argentine occupation. In this article, he provides a personal account of his recollections of the day that British Forces liberated the Falklands.

At around 1100 on the morning of 14th June 1982 the Falklands War unofficially ended. Argentine guns which had been inflicting considerable casualties on British Troops on Mount Longdon ceased firing while British artillery which for the previous 3 days and nights had incessantly bombarded the outskirts of Stanley in their attempts to silence the Argentine weaponry suddenly closed down as well. It was as if someone somewhere had flicked a switch at a pre-appointed time!

Snowflakes were gently falling; the roads were icy and it was bitterly cold as thousands of young Argentine soldiers abandoned the mountains, ridges, hills and valleys which they had occupied for the preceding 73 days, and walked disconsolately and dispiritedly into Stanley, resigned to their defeat and looking for shelter, warmth and food. Still fully armed they proceeded to occupy public buildings such as the Town Hall, Post Office and Gymnasium and commercial warehouses in an effort to escape from the cold. They were all very hungry despite the fact that many food containers, brought to the Islands by Argentine freighters, were languishing fully laden on grass verges and in paddocks and gardens. For some inexplicable reason there appeared to have been no attempts made to distribute the food to the hungry troops.

I climbed onto the roof of my house at the Police Cottages and saw the blue and white Argentine flag still flying on the 3 primary flag poles at Government House, Secretariat and Falkland Islands Defence Force Head Quarters. There were no white flags anywhere, despite the announcement made by the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in Parliament later in the day that white flags were flying over Stanley. She had been misled by the inappropriate words of a British Military Officer Major Bill Dawson of the Gurkha Regiment who at the time was stationed some 10 miles west of Stanley on Two Sisters mountain. He was filmed emerging from a bivouac uttering the infamous words: bloody marvellous white flags are flying over Stanley. 25 years later in 2007 Major Dawson returned to the Falklands and openly admitted to me that he did not see 1 white flag anywhere but that he had been encouraged, by a television crew, to exaggerate a report by a soldier who was positioned further forward on Mount William, and who had radioed him to say that he thought that there could be a white flag flying as he saw something fluttering in the wind. It was most probably a piece of ladys white underwear on a clothes line suggested Major Dawson. He was later reprimanded by General Moore for his indiscretion. But the myth of white flags flying over Stanley lingers on to this day.

At 3:00 in the afternoon I walked to the Government Secretariat/Treasury building and spoke with Air Commodore Carlos Bloomer-Reeve who had been brought back from Bonn where he was Military Attach and installed as Chief of Civil Affairs. He had previously spent 2 years in the Islands in charge of the state airline L.A.D.E. which since 1971 had operated a weekly service between Comodoro Rivadavia and the Falklands. Bloomer-Reeve was respected by all who knew him and he was most attentive to the concerns of the civilian population despite the belligerent attitude of an Argentine Intelligence Officer the feared Major Patrico Dowling. Bloomer-Reeve conveniently told me that there was a cease fire and took me to a window from where I could see the dark outline of British Paratroopers standing next to the 1914 War Memorial and just 400 yards distant. I knew then, as the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had promised, that the British were back in my beloved Islands. It was an emotional moment for me.

At 8:00 in the evening I returned to the Secretariat building as I had been advised that Major General Jeremy Moore who commanded the British Land Forces would be arriving to take the surrender of Brigadier General Mario Benjamin Menendez who in early April had been sworn-in as Governor of the Islands. It was a short reign. In the passage way on the top floor stood Menendez looking resplendent and immaculate in his dress uniform complete with medals and decorations. His shoes shone so brightly that I could almost see my reflection in the polished toe-caps. Flanking him I recognized Commodore Bloomer-Reeve and Captain Melbourne Hussey, an Argentine Naval officer who was the official translator and had been appointed Head of Education during his short stay in the Falklands. The 4th person was Vice-Commodore Eugenio J. Miari of the Argentine Air Force who was their Senior Legal Advisor.

Major General Moore and his considerable entourage arrived a little later than expected. He was much shorter than I had imagined a slight figure compared to Menendez - wearing combat type green clothing and a peaked desert type hat while his face was covered with camouflage. He looked more the vanquished than the victor! After the surrender had been signed the Argentine delegation departed and as he walked past General Menendez looked directly at me and uttered one solitary word sorry. Perhaps he recognized my face from the official tour of Government Departments which he undertook in early April?

The document that he had signed ended: The surrender to be effective from 2359 GMT (2059 local time) on 14th June and include those Argentine Forces presently deployed in and around Port Stanley and those others on East Falklands, West Falklands and outlying Islands.

General Moore later sent a telegram to London which concluded with the words: The Falkland Islands are once more under the Government desired by their inhabitants. GOD SAVE THE QUEEN. The General asked: where are the locals? and as I looked around I proudly realized that I was the only civilian inhabitant of the Falklands actually present at this historic and memorable occasion.

I profusely thanked him, on behalf of the population of the Falklands, for the swift and decisive liberation from unwanted Argentine Military occupation. He wanted to know where the civilians were and I quickly replied that I was aware that more than 120 inhabitants were sheltering within the safety of the stone-walled West Store building. He demanded to visit them and seemed totally oblivious to the possible danger posed by the thousands of armed Argentines who still occupied the dark and snow-covered town. Shells had earlier knocked out a power generator and most of the town was without electricity or street lighting. They know its all over so lets go was his blithe response. In the dimly lit store-room, where people had laid out their mattresses between the cheeses and hams, he was cheered with much acclaim, lifted onto shoulders and paraded between the sleeping bags, photographed shaking hands with a young child and congratulated on the success of the land forces. The West Store Manager David Castle gallantly invited the incarcerated civilians to help themselves from the liquor shelves and bottles of alcohol were soon being consumed in the appropriate celebratory manner. Many toasts were proposed, firstly to the General himself, then to the Task Force and finally to Mrs. Thatcher.

Typical of an Englishman Major General Moore later asked me where could he get a good cup of tea so I took him to my home at the Police Cottages, along with his fellow senior Officers, his bodyguard, a few journalists and a photographer, and he ate cakes and scones that my mother had made. Coincidentally she was celebrating her 66th birthday on that very day. At that moment I struggled to comprehend the total significance of this momentous occasion. The leader of the British Land Forces was sitting in my small kitchen drinking tea and we had been liberated. Was it just a dream or was it reality I asked myself. As he departed for Government House he profusely thanked my mother and added the immortal words: Best damned cuppa Ive had since we sat out.

Later that night the defeated Argentines sought revenge and we became aware that private dwellings, public buildings and a sports hall which had all been previously occupied by Argentine soldiers and contained considerable amounts of ammunition had been set on fire. The local Fire Brigade assisted by many volunteers and some Argentine Military Police provided by Captain Romero prevented the fires from spreading and destroying the town. Romero, a decent man, was a reservist who had been sent across by the Junta to supervise the Military Police during the 74 days of occupation. He took appropriate action against conscripts caught stealing from unoccupied dwellings and tried to help the civilian community as far as his rank would allow. Thankfully the fires were eventually contained and the small town survived. The disarming of Argentine soldiers and their repatriation back to Argentina on British Merchant ships began on the following day. DEMOCRACY had returned to the Falklands.

By Patrick Watts - Stanley

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Timeline: 14th June 1982 Democracy restored to the Falkland Islands - MercoPress