Titulares de las Americas: Argentina & las Malvinas

Today we will look at a few headlines in newspapers from Argentina discussing the silver anniversary of the Falklands War.

• Controversy is surrounding president Nestor Kirchner’s absence from an official ceremony in Ushuaia. The local organizer of the ceremony confirmed that Kirchner’s absence was made at the last moment inasmuch as the Argentine government has yet to produce an official statement. “It would have been the ideal occasion for him to be with us…and prove the state’s view (on the Falklands) to an international audience,” said one Argentina army veteran.
• Despite Kirchner’s nonappearance in Ushuaia, Vice President Daniel Scioli did show up and spoke about the legitimacy of Argentina’s claims to the Falklands. Scioli proclaimed that:

“We will never give up our legitimate rights (to the islands). Neither war not the passage of time will change the conditions. The Malvinas were and always will belong to Argentina. We shall recover what belongs to us.”

• Ceremonies took place all over Argentina to commemorate the hundreds of soldiers killed during the Falklands War. In Comodoro Rivadivia governor Mario Das Neves affirmed that “our children and grandchildren will live another part of history; one where we will regain the islands…with dialogue and diplomacy.” Meanwhile in Bariloche a small military procession took place followed by the placing of flowers at a war hero’s memorial.
• Perhaps the most touching ceremony took place on the Falklands themselves where the British government granted permission for Argentine families of dead soldiers to visit and mourn at a cemetery for them in the capital town of Darwin. Several Argentine war veterans who made the visit to Darwin observed that the 1982 invasion was made “without desire to provoke or act with aggression.”

Links- Clarin, Diario El Chubut, El Cordillerano, El Dia, Jornada, La Nacion

Image- Diario El Chubut (Argentine war veterans honoring their fallen comrades by raising a national flag inscribed with the words “we will return”)