Speech by the Hon Mr Mike Summers, MLA

Speech by the Hon Mr Mike Summers, MLA [Member of the Falkland Islands Legislative Assembly],falklandnews.com

Excerpt:

I hadn’t, in fact, intended to talk about Washington and New York this time but I thank the Honourable Gavin Short for his comments about Washington. I think we do have a number of very good friends from Parliament to Parliament, if you like but we have a lot of people in Congress we can call upon if we need some help and assistance and who will willingly provide it.

And that comes about as a result of regular work with those people, regular visits, going to see them again and again and again and the people who are around them and the people who support them so it is easy for them to support us. It is the same process that we undertake in the United Kingdom to make it easy for parliamentarians to provide you their support.

And indeed it is the same in Canada. Canada, again, supported the Falkland Islands’ right to Self-determination in the OAS this year. It is a new Government and wasn’t so easy for them because they have a different approach but they did it and we are extremely grateful for that.

And I did write to the Foreign Minister of Canada after their support in the OAS to thank them for that. So in terms of our public diplomacy activity [.] I know that people view it as MLAs going overseas and not worrying about one-way systems and the price of rock but actually it is important for our long-term future because we need our friends around the world to support our right to self-determination and we do need other people in this Western Hemisphere from the Caribbean and Latin America who are prepared at certain points to stand up saying when things are not right. ...