Alejandro Betts

Alejandro Betts
Alejandro Betts at the meeting of the UN Special Committee on Decolonization in 2011.
Born	Alexander Jacob Betts (1947-10-28) October 28, 1947 (age 69) Stanley, Falkland Islands
Nationality	Argentine
Known for	Campaigning for Argentine sovereignty over the Falkland Islands

Alexander Jacob Betts Goss (also known as Alejandro Betts; born 28 October 1947 in Stanley, Falkland Islands) is a Falklands-born Argentine air-traffic controller and historian who currently works with the Argentine government as a Technical Advisor on the Tierra del Fuego Malvinas Question Provincial Observatory Advisory Council. Betts is notable for being the only Falkland Islander to support Argentina's claim to the Falkland Islands and is a controversial figure in the Falklands as a result. Betts also is the older brother of Terry Betts, who served as a member of the Falkland Islands Legislative Council and assisted British forces in the Falklands War. His younger brother Peter served in the British Task Force.

Betts, a fourth generation Falkland Islander, was born to Cyril Betts and Mally Goss who ran the Victory Bar in Stanley. At the age of fourteen Betts went to train as sheep shearer and later worked for LADE as an air-traffic controller at Stanley Airport. Betts' first wife, Candy, died in 1977 at the age of 26. The couple had one daughter, Dawn, born in 1969. Betts' second marriage was to Rosita, a Chilean-Falkander, with whom he had two children.

Betts claims that he began to question British sovereignty over the Falklands when he spoke to an Argentine tourist about the issue in the 1970s. He states that he started studying the history of the Falkland Islands in 1976 and concluded after two years of research that "Argentina had absolute rights over the island territory".