Malvinas: anthem at Messi's farewell and diplomatic protest over HMS Medway

Two events centered on the Malvinas issue occurred in recent days, according to two sources of different nature. On the one hand, a former combatant performed the National Anthem at the Monumental stadium before Lionel Messi’s farewell match. On the other, the Argentine Foreign Ministry filed a formal protest with the Embassy of the United Kingdom over the movements of a military vessel in waters it considers under its jurisdiction. The sources do not contradict each other, but neither do they confirm each other: they address different planes and share no verifiable data in common.

The anthem at the Monumental

Crónica reported that Fabio Santana, a musician and former combatant of the Malvinas War, sang the verses of the Argentine National Anthem before the start of the match against Benin at the Monumental stadium. According to that source, he did so alongside a flag bearing the inscription «Las Malvinas son argentinas,» the same one that the national team players displayed after the victory against England in the World Cup semifinal.

The chronicle notes that the scene moved more than 80,000 spectators and that Lionel Scaloni and several members of the squad were visibly emotional during the performance. It quotes Santana before taking the field: «I’m going to sing with that flag. I loved the idea, but I didn’t want to propose it. I’m already getting emotional.» The text reconstructs his connection to music since school events, his interruption by mandatory military service and his participation in the Malvinas War, and his later return to music.

The diplomatic protest

The Argentine Foreign Ministry reported that, on the instructions of Foreign Minister Quirno, a formal note of protest was submitted to the Embassy of the United Kingdom on July 13. The reason: movements of the HMS Medway, which the note describes as «illegally deployed in the Malvinas Islands,» not notified in accordance with existing bilateral agreements and which involved transit through the Argentine Territorial Sea.

The statement maintains that the unilateral action violates the Joint Declaration of September 25, 1991, which replaces annexes of the Madrid Declaration of February 15, 1990, in its section I.2 on confidence-building measures, point «b,» according to the text of the Buenos Aires and London Joint Declaration of July 12, 1993. It also mentions UN General Assembly Resolution 31/49, which urges both parties to refrain from unilateral modifications while the sovereignty dispute remains pending.

The Foreign Ministry reaffirms sovereignty rights over the Malvinas, South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands and the surrounding maritime areas. The material does not report whether the United Kingdom responded to the note or whether there were any subsequent actions.

Documented chronology

1. February 15, 1990: Madrid Joint Declaration, whose annexes are replaced by the 1991 declaration, according to the Foreign Ministry.
2. September 25, 1991: Joint Declaration that replaces annexes of the Madrid one and establishes confidence-building measures, invoked in the protest.
3. July 12, 1993: Buenos Aires and London Joint Declaration, whose text updates point «b» of section I.2, according to the Foreign Ministry.
4. July 13 (year not specified in the source): Submission of the formal note of protest to the Embassy of the United Kingdom over the movements of the HMS Medway.
5. Date not specified: Performance of the anthem by Fabio Santana at the Monumental, before Messi’s farewell match against Benin.

Between the first milestone and the last, what changes is the plane: the bilateral agreements of the 1990s set a framework of military confidence; the July protest invokes it to reject a specific action; and the anthem episode occurs in a sports context, with no documentary relation to the protest. The sources do not establish a connection between the two events.

What can be verified and what cannot

The Foreign Ministry source is primary: it is an official statement that reports a diplomatic note and cites bilateral instruments. The chronicle is a secondary source: it recounts an event that occurred in a stadium, with testimonies and descriptions, but provides no documents. There is no coincidence of data between the two: one speaks of a vessel and a protest; the other, of an anthem and a flag.

It cannot be confirmed with this material whether the HMS Medway actually transited the Argentine Territorial Sea beyond what the note claims, nor whether the United Kingdom notified the movements or not. Nor can the exact number of spectators or the reactions attributed to Scaloni and the players be verified, since they come from a single secondary source. The flag mentioned by Crónica is the same one that, according to that source, was displayed after the World Cup semifinal, but no additional documentation is provided.

Value module: comparative chronology

Document: Joint Declaration of September 25, 1991 and Buenos Aires and London Joint Declaration of July 12, 1993, cited by the Argentine Foreign Ministry. Body and date: Argentine Foreign Ministry, statement without an explicit date in the material, which mentions a note of July 13. Unit: not applicable; these are diplomatic instruments. Values used: dates of declarations and date of the protest note. Operation: sequential ordering of milestones according to the dates provided. No differences or percentages are calculated because the material does not offer comparable quantitative data.

What to follow

The data to follow is the United Kingdom’s response to the protest note and whether or not the transit of the HMS Medway through the Argentine Territorial Sea is confirmed, an extreme that the Foreign Ministry asserts but that is not corroborated by a second source in this material. On the sports plane, it remains to be seen whether the flag displayed at the Monumental has any institutional continuity or whether it was a gesture limited to the event. Neither of the two sources allows anticipating consequences.