Several speakers questioned Russia’s credibility in presenting it given its invasion of Ukraine. Brazil, Uruguay and Mexico were among the countries that voted in favour Argentina abstained on Thursday in a vote by the UN General Assembly’s Fourth Committee on a Russian-sponsored draft on “contemporary forms of colonialism”, a decision that Buenos Aires province’s government minister, opposition figure Carlos Bianco, linked to President Javier Milei’s alignment with the United States and to Argentina’s strategy over the Falklands.
The text was approved by 85 votes to 49, with 23 abstentions, and will go to the full Assembly. According to the UN statement, it recognises that colonialism persists in contemporary forms that may be expressed through unilateral economic, financial or trade measures not in accordance with international law, a point aimed at sanctions applied by the United States and its allies. Several speakers questioned Russia’s credibility in presenting it given its invasion of Ukraine. Brazil, Uruguay and Mexico were among the countries that voted in favour.
The vote did not concern the question of the islands. Bianco argued, however, that the draft reaffirmed the 1960 Resolution 1514 on decolonisation, on which Argentina bases its sovereignty claim. “The Malvinas Question deserves a diplomacy that is not on its knees,” he wrote. “Abstaining on colonialism is not just an embarrassment. It is an act of irresponsibility.” He also asked whether it was “necessary to point out that abstaining so as not to upset Washington weakens the coherence of our position”.
The Argentine government has not explained its vote. On October 1, at the opening of the debate on eradicating colonialism in the same committee, the Argentine delegation reaffirmed its commitment to its elimination “in all its forms and manifestations” and described the case of the South Atlantic islands as a “special and particular” colonial situation.
The abstention comes amid an escalating dispute with the United Kingdom over the Sea Lion oil project, which Argentina took this week to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. Milei called at the General Assembly in September for the resumption of sovereignty negotiations, in the same speech in which he reaffirmed his alliance with the United States.