Celebrating Día de la Antártida Argentina
On February 22nd, President Alberto Fernández visited the Marambio Base within the framework of Argentina’s Antarctic Day, which commemorates the 119th anniversary of Argentina’s uninterrupted presence on that continent.
“Here, at the end of the world, one can assume the dimension of the Homeland,” The president of Argentina highlighted in a message on Argentina’s national chain.
Message from the President of the Argentina, Alberto Fernández, on national television from Antarctica
“Dear Argentine people, as President of the Nation I feel great pride in being here today, in Argentine’s Antarctica.
I must begin by thanking you, as an Argentine, you, men and women scientists, members of our armed forces, workers, each family that has settled here, for the effort, perseverance and patriotism that you show.
Happy Argentine Antarctic Day to the compatriots who are now working at the Marambio Base, in the other 12 Bases, in Antarctic camps and refuges, and on the Ships involved in the Antarctic campaign. You mark the continuity of 119 years of permanent and uninterrupted presence of Argentina in the Antarctic Continent.
From February 22, 1904, the Meteorological Observatory was established in the South Orkney Islands. Only 4 Presidents made it this far. I am the first to do so, after more than 20 years and for this reason, I confess, I am overwhelmed with deep emotion.
Here, under the southernmost skies of the world, I want to invite each Argentine to think about our country, to imagine it together, because here, at the end of the world, one can assume the dimension of the homeland. Here we note that our flag extends far beyond Tierra del Fuego, it extends across the sea, towards the South, and reaches this land, where light blue and white come together on the horizon.
Argentina is a homeland like no other and this is a unique landscape. It does not have the green of the Pampas region, always imagined as the economic engine of our country, nor does it keep the flavors, colors, and aromas of our wonderful North.
Here, where snow and ice cover everything and overwhelm the immensity of the sea and the skies, we discover that its geography is an indivisible part of our identity. The Andes, the backbone of our Latin American history of liberation, loom here and appear more Argentine than ever.
Argentina is a country that extends from Quiaca to this Antarctica, to these South Atlantic Islands. Why is it that our imagination does not notice the deep blue of the South Atlantic, the icy wind of the Patagonian Plateau, the cliffs or the southern ice?
This soil that I am treading on is part of Argentina; and that the State is here, is an act of justice, towards our history, towards our identity. Coming to this place is recognizing how great we are, much more than some champions of discouragement want us to believe.
Argentina is a huge country, due to its territory and its people. The millions of square kilometers on our map would be useless, without us, inhabiting them as an organized community. Here there are men and women who work daily, teachers who educate our children, health professionals who preserve us from diseases, scientists who do research to offer us better living conditions. They do everything under the common denominator of strengthening sovereignty where everything becomes inhospitable.
Antarctica must be part of our daily life, it must be integrated once and for all in our hearts. In 2020 we approved the Law of Maritime Spaces, our maps today show the Antarctic sector in its real proportion, suddenly turning Tierra del Fuego into the geographical center of our homeland.
Now, when we look towards the South, we will take a dimension of what that white needle that penetrates our sea represents. Now we know that this unknown land, as it was called in ancient times, preserves the force of nature and is part of our Argentina.
Since the 19th century, writers have talked about the great task of reuniting a land that they felt was fragmented. Sarmiento, Echeverría, José Hernández, Lugones, Scalabrini Ortiz, all spoke of the Pampa, real or mythical; others like Horacio Quiroga or Juan Ortiz showed us the letters of the beautiful coastal areas.
Finally poets and musicians of the stature of Atahualpa or Cuchi Leguizamón, captured with their art, the pain and joy of the Argentine North. However, our South hardly appears in traveler’s diaries, or in the stories of pioneers or naturalists. To the southernmost Argentina, there are many who look at it as a distant territory, subjected to the inclement weather. “The South also exists,” would say Mario Benedetti and that South is Argentina, it is an inseparable part of our homeland.
Orgullosa de ser parte de la comitiva que acompañó al presidente @alferdez este 22 de febrero a la #BaseMarambio. Celebramos el #DíaDeLaAntártidaArgentina y reafirmamos nuestro compromiso en seguir construyendo soberanía. pic.twitter.com/n8RHm2dc86
— Victoria Tolosa Paz (@vtolosapaz) February 22, 2023
This year, we Argentines celebrate 40 years of uninterrupted democracy. In the years of the dictatorship, we believed that a strong democracy was only a utopia that wandered among our dreams. Now that that utopia has become a reality, it is time to consider another utopia: the utopia of equality.
When I invite you to join me in trying to make that utopia a reality, I am also inviting you to promote territorial equality throughout the country. I invite you to give strength to our forgotten north, I invite you to strengthen our productive center, I invite you to deploy the energy that our south holds, I invite you to think about Antarctica, the South Islands, and the immense sea that surrounds it like a source of wealth that exists, but is still unexplored.
Since 2014, Argentina has been proud to carry out the Pampa Azul Program. A comprehensive research project and in which, during this government, we have invested more than 1,000 million pesos. From the beginning of the management we have carried out actions tending to strengthen our sovereign interests in Antarctica.
We created the Oceanographic Observatory on board the icebreaker ARA Almirante Irízar. None of this would be possible without the fundamental action of the Ministry of Defense of our Armed Forces and the Joint Antarctic Command for the transport of personnel and logistical support in the Antarctic bases.
Only in this way is it possible to carry out the scientific tasks of services and environmental management of the Annual Antarctic Plan; As part of the Build Science program, we are finalizing the installation of new multidisciplinary Antarctic laboratories. It is the first time in decades that a step of this magnitude has been taken. We are going to maintain the existing laboratories and promote the creation of more multidisciplinary Antarctic laboratories. We are going to preserve the 13 bases and guarantee the continuity of the summer campaigns.
We are working on the renovation of the Petrel Base, which was burned down in 1979; It will be a sustainable station, supported by alternative energies, suitable for landing logistics and will have a port. It is time, moreover, to cross science with culture and that is why we created a headquarters of the National Library.
In the Culture is Sovereignty cycle, we seek to bring art to Antarctica, and we are also going to create a traveling Antarctic correspondent for Agencia Télam; because Argentina has to care about knowing the news from our Antarctica. By doing everything I have detailed, we are building the future of our country. Let’s not wait for the future, let’s do it today.
Last year, we commemorated 40 years of the Malvinas War and it was very moving to hear millions of Argentines remember our fighters during the World Cup festivities. It’s time to look south again. Malvinas is a current cause and it is more than the memory of the war. Malvinas is a national cause because the South Atlantic, and without a doubt, our Antarctic territory are a vital anchor of our territorial and political sovereignty.
Touring the scientific stations located in Antarctica, observing the technology that they have deployed, seeing the activities that take place here every day, we can only think about the future; The future is in our southern seas and Antarctica seems to become that projection horizon where the future awaits us. We reaffirm the Argentine commitment to the conservation of the Antarctic ecosystem. Together with our sister Republic of Chile, we have presented the establishment of a marine protected area in the Antarctic Peninsula area.
The Argentine presence in Antarctica begins in 1902 and has never, ever been uninterrupted. The first scientific expedition to the Argentine Continental Antarctic, destined to create a permanent base, departed on February 12, 1951 from the Port of Buenos Aires. That day, the then president Juan Domingo Perón together with his wife María Eva Duarte, bid farewell to the expedition members. They were going to create the Antarctic Institute, it was the first scientific institution worldwide dedicated exclusively to Antarctic research. Perón knew that science is synonymous with sovereignty, there is no possible development without scientific-technological production.
Antarctica is a scientific research center of great importance for humanity and for our country. The growth of Argentina has a projection towards the south and a bicontinental vision and part of the national development depends on the defense of its strategic components.
Any citizen has the right to ask themselves a question, how do these investigations change my life so far away in Antarctica? The answer is simple, each advance contributes to the scientific and technological development of Argentina as a whole, each progress helps us to know ourselves more and better, that we can know our resources, above all, in a key area for regional and world peace. How is the South Atlantic?
Our country has a leading role that is the result of hard diplomatic, scientific and logistical work. We have been honored with the establishment of the headquarters of the Executive Secretariat of the Antarctic Treaty since 2004; It was and is indisputably an international recognition that Argentina is committed to the basic principles of peacekeeping, international scientific cooperation and environmental protection for our well-being and that of future generations. More and better science and environmental protection mean better knowledge of our spaces.
In the midst of the climate crisis, this ice, this sky is a promise for the planet; For this reason, we reaffirm the Argentine commitment to the conservation of the Antarctic ecosystem. Today’s world watches a war unleashed in Europe without knowing how far the damage it causes will go.
The nuclear threat returns to face a humanity that looks impassively as violence and death spread in a world that has just survived a pandemic; it seems that the dead in Hiroshima and Nagasaki do not weigh on the conscience of the aggressors. World peace for us an imperative; preserving peace depends on each and every one of us who inhabit our planet.
At a time when the world is pure uncertainty, Antarctica is a zone of peace, it is an image of the future; This once mythical land is now within the reach of our science and technology, our strategic planning and our ability to project. The tasks that are carried out today, in Antarctica, are vital for humanity and we are doing those tasks.
Argentina puts in the daily work. Argentina travels towards a future of freedom, Argentina has awakened. Argentina is on the move. Argentina is seen by the world as the symbol of everything we can achieve together; That is why today, from the end of the world, I come to speak to you about new beginnings, about principles; a tomorrow of peace and prosperity begins, and we can achieve it together and that is what we are doing. Thank you so much,” President of Argentina, Alberto Fernández.
Dr. Soledad Quartucci | Founder
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