ARGENTINA: Army Admits Malvinas Affair Was an ‘Improvised’ War

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Apr 2 1999 (IPS) - The armed forces of Argentina threw themselves in an improvised manner into the war against the British in the Malvinas islands, encouraged by popular support, the army admitted on the 17th anniverary of this Southern Cone country’s military invasion of the archipelago.

Army General Staff chief Gen. Martin Balza said Friday that the armed forces had not planned to get involved in a war that would cost a total of nearly 1,000 lives.

They planned, rather, to occupy the islands in order to later negotiate the formal recovery of the south Atlantic archipelago roughly 400 kms off Argentina’s southeastern coast, which the British took by force and named the Falklands in 1833.

But the result was an armed confrontation that lasted more than two months, until Argentina’s troops surrendered. A total of 649 Argentine soldiers, mainly young inexperienced conscripts, were killed, compared to 250 British troops.

Balza said Argentina’s armed forces, in power from 1976 to 1983, decided to fight for the islands when they realised the extent of popular support for a recovery of sovereignty over the archipelago, indicated Apr 2, 1982 by a mass demonstration in front of the seat of government in Buenos Aires.

“On a tactical level – on the islands – we were unable to resolve what was only improvisation at a strategic, political and military level,” said Balza, who took part in the war.

It was also Balza who, a few years ago, harshly criticised the role of the army in cracking down on supposed opponents of the dictatorship, 10,000 to 30,000 (depending on the source) of whom were “disappeared” by security forces.

It was largely Britain’s military superiority that led to Argentina’s defeat. Since then, the suicides of more than 200 Argentines who fought in the war have been added to the list of casualties.

In an attempt to leave the past behind, Argentina and England are trying to move forward today towards reestablishing communications between Argentina and the cold, windswept islands with a surface area of 12,000 square kms and a population of less than 2,000.

Almost 10 years have passed since the renewal of diplomatic ties between the two countries, which were broken off by the government of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher after Argentina’s invasion of the islands.

The military invasion, a desperate bid for support by a de facto regime on its way out, set back the efforts made up to then by Argentina to recover sovereignty over the islands via diplomacy.

Britain had basically washed its hands of the distant, sparsely inhabited islands. But the episode sparked its interest once again in the islands, where a veritable “economic revolution” occurred in the wake of the fighting.

Salaries on the islands have skyrocketed by as much as 700 percent. Local authorities began to sell foreign boats licenses to fish for squid around the islands, and permits for oil exploration.

The islanders, whose purchasing power is among the highest in the world, refuse to accept a transfer of sovereignty, as Argentina has demanded before the United Nations Decolonisation Committee.

For its part, the Foreign Ministry has been unsuccessfully seeking – since the renewal of diplomatic ties with Britain under current president Carlos Menem – to break down the islanders’ opposition, plying them with letters and gifts.

Britain, meanwhile, has stepped up investments in Argentina, trade between the two countries has expanded, and British firms have presented bids for public enterprises put out for tender in Argentina.

Last year, Menem travelled to Britain, where he met Prime Minister Tony Blair and Queen Elizabeth II on the first official visit by an Argentine president since the Malvinas-Falklands affair.

Prince Charles, heir to the British crown, staged a reciprocal visit this year.

In Buenos Aires, he expressed his “hope that the people of the modern and democratic Argentina will be able, in the future, to live in a friendly fashion beside another democratic and modern land, a bit smaller, a few hundred miles off its coast” – an indirect reference to the possibility of Argentina recognising the islanders’ right to “self-determination.”

Argentina’s Foreign Ministry refuses to accept that possibility, however, because it would entail the abandonment of its demand for sovereignty.

The Menem administration is trying to persuade the islanders to agree to reestablish air communications with Argentina, and allow Argentine nationals to travel to the islands.

The only Argentines allowed on the archipelago today are reporters and the families of those who fell in combat, who travel in small groups, and are only allowed to visit the cemetery.

Argentina got Chile to suspend flights to the Malvinas- Falklands from the southern town of Puntas Arenas.

Argentina’s partners in the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) – Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay – also decided to bar flights to the islands that do not stop over in Buenos Aires, in order to force the islanders to negotiate the resumption of communications with Argentina.

Today, the only air communications between the islands and the rest of the world is a monthly military flight to and from London.

Argentine Foreign Minister Guido Di Tella will meet later this month with his British opposite number Robin Cook to continue to move ahead on the question of the Malvinas-Falklands, which have pitted the two countries against each other on both the diplomatic and military front.