CAUTIOUSLY, as is the case with most things they do, the 2,200 inhabitants of the Falkland Islands are moving towards independence from Britain, whose forces ejected Argentine invaders in 1982.
At the end of a long and expensively produced document entitled "The Future for the Falkland Islands" just published here, the islands' eight elected councillors who sit in the Legislative Council propose that "The Falkland Islands' government and Her Majesty's government will work together to move towards even greater self government for the islands with the ultimate goal of `secure independence'. It is anticipated that this will be a very gradual process."
The idea of independence has been discussed by the councillors in private conversations and documents, but the latest paper is the first time the idea has been aired in public print.
It reflects the new optimism that is being generated by the prospects of possible immense wealth arriving here as the islands' government invites international interest in what could be very large deposits of oil and gas in the surrounding waters. Offshore drilling could start next year; it would take only one reasonable find to bring riches to this tiny population.
The once depressed and self absorbed islanders, most of whom lived for more than a century as virtual retainers of the London based Falkland Islands Company, or FIC, which owned half the land in an area the size of Wales, are shedding old ways and becoming more entrepreneurial.
A chamber of commerce, which was founded three years ago with 38 members, now has 66; the islands claim to have the highest number of fax machines per head of population anywhere in the world. A new Chilean air service takes off from here in the morning twice a week and gets you to Santiago just after lunch, thus ending the sense of isolation. The only other service is to Britain on a Royal Air Force Tristar via Ascension Island in the mid Atlantic.
The islands' government has waxed comparatively prosperous on the proceeds of the sale of fishing licences, and has an investment fund which contains around £120 million, equivalent to more than £55,000 per head of population. The councillors have promised to pay Britain back the defence costs it has incurred here since the end of the 1982 war.
Today the FIC, which once used to earn a difficult living raising sheep for their wool, is a shadow of its former self, shorn of its estates. As the figure of the Falklands yuppie is beginning to take its place beside the sheep grower, the chronic drinking in which many tried to find solace in a lonely life is beginning to pass. "More people are drinking orange juice at lunchtime," says Phyllis Rendell, director of education.
The large village of Port Stanley has since the 1982 war acquired a modern hospital and a new school with 310 pupils. The school has a sports centre, with pool, sports hall, badminton courts and squash courts, which opens to the public. It houses the public library.
The better students have their advanced secondary education at a state school at Winchester in England and university and post graduate studies in Britain paid by the government. And now they want to make their own way in the world.