The death of Queen Elizabeth II was celebrated by an Argentine television show host, who popped champagne while pronouncing “the old b***h has died” live on air.
Santiago Cúneo, a member of the ruling left-wing Justicialist Party in Argentina, has come under criticism after he mocked the death of the Queen.
In a clip that has since gone viral on social media, the Buenos Aires-based politician and TV show host said in comments translated by the New York Post: “She’s done for good,” adding: “Loud applause for Satan who has finally taken her.”
With a chyron on the screen reportedly reading: “The old bag of shit has died,” in reference to the passing of the 96-year-old British Monarch, Cúneo added “the old bitch has died” and popped a bottle of champagne in a crude celebration.
It is likely that the animosity demonstrated towards the largely beloved monarch stems from the Falklands War between the United Kingdom and Argentina in 1982, sparked by Argentine forces invading the British islands.
The conflict, which lasted 74 days, saw the late Margaret Thatcher direct Britain’s armed forces to eject the Argentine invaders from the islands, with the Argentines losing 649 servicemen killed, 11,313 captured, and nine warships and support vessels sunk before surrendering.
The inhabitants of the British Overseas Territory — which is located approximately 300 miles (480 kilometres) east of Argentina in the South Atlantic — are overwhelmingly the descendants of British settlers who began to colonise the islands in 1841 — they were not previously inhabited — and they overwhelmingly support remaining under British sovereignty, as demonstrated in a 2013 referendum.
Cúneo was not the only person in the Americas to spit venom at the late Queen, however, with Carnegie Mellon University professor Uja Anya writing on Twitter on Thursday prior to the announcement of the Queen’s death: “I heard the chief monarch of a thieving raping genocidal empire is finally dying. May her pain be excruciating.”
The comments from the Nigeria-born, U.S.-based leftist professor were widely condemned in Britain and the wider world, with even Amazon’s Jeff Bezos writing: “This is someone supposedly working to make the world better? I don’t think so. Wow.”
The post has since been removed from Twitter, with the platform claiming that the comments violated its rules.
Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka
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