ARGENTINA:
Malvinas/Falkland Manoeuvres and Memories
Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, (IPS) - The Argentine government has taken a tougher stance in its claim of sovereignty over the Malvinas/Falkland Islands. At the same time, it has approved an investigation into serious crimes allegedly committed by Argentine military personnel against their own troops during the 1982 war over the islands.

The governor of the northeastern province of Corrientes presented the Defence Ministry with a video on Friday, showing testimony from former soldiers who reported killings, torture, abuses and humiliations perpetrated by Argentine military personnel during the war, and asking for a national commission to gather similar evidence throughout the country.

Just days before the 25th anniversary of the Apr. 2 Argentine invasion of the Falkland/Malvinas islands, occupied by Britain since 1833, the old wounds seem to be re-opening.

The administration of Néstor Kirchner this week announced two measures which will block oil and gas exploration and exploitation plans around the islands, possibly harming the local economy there.

The first terminates the cooperation agreement signed by Argentina and the U.K. in 1995. The second is complementary to the first, and announces that oil companies with contracts in the Falklands under British law will be prohibited from operating on Argentine soil.

So far, this measure is only a warning. The exploration companies operating now in the islands are small, funded almost exclusively by islander capital, and none of them is operating in Argentina. However, things could change if the price of oil continues to rise to the point where investment in deep sea drilling, far from the coast, becomes attractive.

The resolution, which has not been signed yet, includes penalties against companies that transgress its provisions, and threatens withdrawal of licences and concessions.

Argentina's tougher stance towards Britain comes only a few days before the anniversary of the military invasion by Argentina that triggered a 72-day war between the two countries in 1982, during Argentina's 1976-1983 military dictatorship.

The war ended on Jun. 14, 1982 with the complete surrender of the Argentine forces, and it precipitated the fall of the military dictatorship. According to official figures, 635 Argentine troops and 255 British soldiers were killed in the action.

The accusations of human rights violations committed against Argentine conscripts by their superior officers during the war mark the start of a new chapter in the long series of investigations of such crimes during the dictatorship, undertaken with the support of the Kirchner administration.

According to newspaper reports which have not been denied, Kirchner will spend the anniversary of the invasion in Corrientes, the province where the undersecretariat for Human Rights has worked for 10 months to present the testimonies of veterans of the Malvinas/Falkland war. For the first time, they are making public the atrocities to which they were subjected by their superior officers on the islands.

Former Argentine Ambassador to the United Nations Lucio García del Solar told IPS that the decision to cancel the cooperation agreement with the U.K., signed by the government of Carlos Menem (1989-1999), may well be the right one to take, but it should have been debated by Congress.

García del Solar was highly critical of Menem's so-called "seduction policy", which gave rise to agreements with the U.K. on fisheries and oil and gas in the Malvinas/Falklands which are frowned on today.

The policy "was completely mistaken because it departed from the traditional strategy, which was to maintain our claim with the British government without involving the locals," he said. "Menem's policy made London believe that Argentina was willing to settle for cohabitation and good neighbourliness, and would be willing to leave its claim in the deep freeze."

García del Solar was ambassador to the United Nations in 1965 when he drafted and proposed Resolution 2065, adopted by the U.N. General Assembly, which calls on the parties to negotiate the issue of sovereignty over the islands.

In conformity with this resolution, every year Argentina calls on Britain to come before the U.N. Special Committee on Decolonization and negotiate the sovereignty issue.

The administrations of Fernando de la Rúa (1999-2001) and Eduardo Duhalde (2002-2003) took steps to resume Buenos Aires' traditional policy of maintaining its claim "without great fanfare, but effectively," until Kirchner was elected and espoused the cause more eloquently, García del Solar said.

"The president is from a Patagonian province (Santa Cruz, in the far south, only 600 kilometres from the islands). He is therefore more concerned about sovereignty over the Malvinas, and has pursued Argentina's claim more vigorously," he said.

Last year the Kirchner administration protested volubly in several arenas about the unilateral British decision to grant fishing licences in disputed waters for 25 years, as opposed to one year as previously.

Now the complaints are about the oil.

Foreign Minister Jorge Taiana said that the overturned agreement did not benefit Argentina, but only gave "a semblance of legitimacy" to oil company investments in the islands. There had never been any bilateral cooperation, which was why the agreement was being terminated, he said.

The British Foreign Office said "This regrettable action will not in any way help Argentina in its claim for sovereignty of the islands."

According to García del Solar, the oil agreement contained "enormous concessions."

"It contains a very one-sided article granting legal security to those exploring for or exploiting oil in disputed waters that Argentina claims are part of the nation," he pointed out. However, both the fishing policies and the oil agreement "ought to be discussed with Congressional approval," he argued.