English Chess Forum

No doubt this is the correct decision but I am still curious to know the answers to Justin's question? and whether anyone actually tried to point out to the organisers the jurisdiction problem? It would be easier to understand this breaking a butterfly on a wheel business if it were known that such an attempt had first been made and had been ignored.

Isn't the FIDE response only likely to annoy the Argentine Federation? And perhaps quite rightly.

Given the clarification of the actual (measured and not inappropriate) ECF interest in chess in the overseas dependencies (which are not FIDE members), by an earlier (1 June) post by Angus French to the effect - that it extends only to the provision of possible assistance in the event that the overseas dependent party itself actually requests it - why should the body seeking to register the event for rating purposes even have thought that it 'ought' to contact the ECF in advance?

I assume that that the clarification (3.8 'in the Company's memorandum of Understanding') is actually correct and it hasn't been challenged by anyone, so I guess it must be. If so, FIDE's suggestion that 'no attempt to was made to seek permission or even inform the ECF under whose purview chess in the Falkland Islands comes ...', especially the latter apparently quite incorrect claim, seems prima facie wrong and borderline daft.

I do think that the Argentine Federation should probably in this case have approached the Falklands Government before seeking to register the events for FIDE rating (and I assume the events themselves must have been held lawfully on the Islands). That would have given the Falklands political representatives time either to request assistance from the ECF (or, if they felt the issue so critical, to ask for advice from the UK Foreign Office). Instead FIDE have left them completely off any real hook.

Maybe FIDE, the Falkland Islands, the Argentine Federation and (if requested by the Falklands Islands) the ECF should sit down, re-think and sort out properly for all time.

Gens Una Sumus, indeed!

Jonathan Rogers wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 03, 2019 2:45 pm

No doubt this is the correct decision but I am still curious to know the answers to Justin's question? and whether anyone actually tried to point out to the organisers the jurisdiction problem? It would be easier to understand this breaking a butterfly on a wheel business if it were known that such an attempt had first been made and had been ignored.

The tournaments were submitted for rating by Mario Petrucci, President of the Argentine Chess Federation. He was awarded his arbiting title by his federation, of which he is president. He has only ever arbited chess events in the Falklands.
There were no rated players in any of these events.
None of the these tournaments used the words Falklands or Malvinas. I would suggest that this subterfuge was to evade detection. The term that was used for the venue "Puerto Argentino" was, in my opinion, a deliberate deception to give FIDE the impression that these tournaments took place in Argentina, when in fact they took place in Stanley.
The Clarin article gives away the game when it says that "el torneo era una forma de ejercer soberania" ("The tournament was a way to exercise sovereignty").

Maybe FIDE's response was informed by how such questions would be applied in other areas of the world, such as, for example, Crimea? Maybe a better example would be Gibraltar?

I'm bemused by the criticisms being made of the UK, the Falklands, the ECF and FIDE.

Argentinians of various descriptions have organised a tournament on foreign soil and submitted the results for grading as if played on Argentinian soil "innocently?"

The Falkland, the ECF etc have drawn this to the attention of FIDE and said, "T'ain't on".

FIDE has said, "you shouldn't have done that so we're ignoring it".

Not a major world incident.
Not a major world complaint
Not a major FIDE over-reaction.

About right all round I'd say.

Jack, what a picture of a storm in a teacup?

Christopher Kreuzer wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 03, 2019 4:25 pm

Maybe a better example would be Gibraltar?

The parallel would be the Spanish Federation smuggled a few players and equipment into Gibraltar and registered a tournament under a Spanish name.

As well as Crimea, another example would have been the treatment of Kosovo.

The ECF represents Gibraltar (and the Isle of Man) in FIDE because they are not allowed to be members in their own right.

Nigel Short wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 03, 2019 3:57 pm

.
None of the these tournaments used the words Falklands or Malvinas. I would suggest that this subterfuge was to evade detection.

No doubt, but then again it's not usually a "provocation" if nobody notices. It kind of defeats your own objective, like trying to annoy the neighbours by playing 4' 33" on eleven.

JustinHorton wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 03, 2019 7:06 pm

Nigel Short wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 03, 2019 3:57 pm

.
None of the these tournaments used the words Falklands or Malvinas. I would suggest that this subterfuge was to evade detection.

No doubt, but then again it's not usually a "provocation" if nobody notices. It kind of defeats your own objective, like trying to annoy the neighbours by playing 4' 33" on eleven.

And it is even less of a "provocation" if they were trying not to be noticed, by pretending it was played in Argentina. I suppose my trouble with understanding this is that I don't really see what point Mr Petrucci was trying to achieve. Was he trying both to look daring and patriotic at home by hosting an event in the Falklands while at the same time hoping no one else would notice?! I guess I do understand the English position a bit better now, though.

Nigel Short wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 03, 2019 3:57 pm

Jonathan Rogers wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 03, 2019 2:45 pm

No doubt this is the correct decision but I am still curious to know the answers to Justin's question? and whether anyone actually tried to point out to the organisers the jurisdiction problem? It would be easier to understand this breaking a butterfly on a wheel business if it were known that such an attempt had first been made and had been ignored.

The tournaments were submitted for rating by Mario Petrucci, President of the Argentine Chess Federation. He was awarded his arbiting title by his federation, of which he is president. He has only ever arbited chess events in the Falklands.
There were no rated players in any of these events...

I have checked the latest arbiter list and Petrucci is indeed a National Arbiter for Argentina.
This is not only a matter for Argentina, as Nigel surely knows. His federation cannot just appoint him; a licence to FIDE has to be paid.
(Some inactive arbiters who got their titles long ago are shown on the list as not having licences.)

As far as FIDE is concerned, Petrucci is a licensed NA and that means his application was approved some time since the licence system was
introduced.
It would be open to FIDE to (threaten to) revoke that licence if he holds any more events in the Falklands/Malvinas.
It wouldn't have much effect probably but if his licence were revoked he could no longer be chief arbiter for FIDE-rated events anywhere.

A warning should be sufficient but I think if he goes for the higher title of Fide Arbiter the ECF should be ready to object.

As none of the players involved were FIDE-rated, he must have known the games could not be rated.
His objective must certainly have been to make a political point of some kind, or improve his profile at home.

I think the Gibraltar parallel could be apposite.

The article quoted earlier translates thus-

" A group of Argentines, secretly but not so much, moved the bishop in an unexpected place: the Malvinas Islands, where everything blue and white, after 37 years of the armed conflict with Great Britain, is still viewed with suspicion. They had the idea in the Villa Marteli Chess Circle, where they often play, to launch the International Islands of the South-Puerto Argentino / Stanley Tournament and traveled to the ends to make it happen. They had the support of the Argentine Federation. Clarín detected them by chance during the Chilean connection at Punta de Arenas, the last stop before the archipelago. They traveled in principle to run the marathon of the islands, the southernmost 42 kilometers of the planet. But behind his runner's clothes was the underlying intention. To lay the foundations, in a solemn ceremony and of knights, of a competition that will unite the peoples. They did not seek to go unnoticed. But yes be discreet. It was a night filled with emptiness. To get to Lafont House , the hostel chosen as the venue, you had to walk two kilometers in the middle of the rotund darkness. At 9:00 pm, all the participants had dined. They began to arrive one by one. They left their shoes in the hall and plunged into the fluffy carpet of the Andean-Patagonian hut. The house of a millionaire product of fishing royalties, a woman of the year split between Europe and the Falklands. Four chess boards waiting for each round of games were waiting in the main room. At one end of the table, the medals for the participants, linked by celestial and white ribbons .There was a discrepancy on the reading of the Founding Act. Nobody wanted to make mistakes. No one wanted to unleash a diplomatic scandal by using inappropriate words. The event should not be offensive because of excessive patriotism. Dr. Leandro Hidalgo was appointed Director of the Tournament. It was decided that he would be matched to the calendar of international matches. The engineer Mario Petrucci officiated as the main referee. To him it corresponded the reading of the founding act.And there they were finally, Argentines to the core and convinced that the tournament was a way to exercise sovereignty , the nine participants from Buenos Aires: Oscar Dante Alvarez, Jorge Brunazzo, Marcelo Enrique Debernardi, Eudardo Duarte, Lautaro José Jimenez Corbalán, Gustavo Parola, Facundo Reales, Víctor Manuel Santos and Daniel Ujhelly."

I've left some parts of this out but I hope everyone can get the general drift. The emboldened/underlined phrase was emboldened in the original text.

I would be reluctant to draw any conclusion from the bold though: there's several points in the text where bold is used, for reasons that absolutely escape me.

Even poor Justin, if he were honest with himself, might admit to himself privately (although obviously not here in a public forum - and certainly not when having the thrill of contradicting Nigel Short) that using the tournament as a way to exercise sovereignty might possibly count as a "provocation". But then again, knowing Justin, probably not...

Well, it's more that it's that I'm not interested in people yapping about "provocations", which may be thrilling for the kind of people who want to be provoked, but less so for anybody else.

JustinHorton wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 04, 2019 10:08 am

Well, it's more that it's that I'm not interested in people yapping about provocations, which may be thrilling for the kind of people who want to be provoked, but less so for anybody else.