MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Falklands: Argentine tombstones with the names of identified soldiers should arrive Sunday

UK ambassador in Argentina, Mark Kent, Foreign Office officer Kara Owen and Enrique Pinedo, head of the Argentine Senate (Pic Clarin)

An Argentine charter is scheduled to land in the Falkland Islands this Sunday carrying the plaques (tombstones) with the names of the 88 now identified Argentine soldiers buried in the Darwin cemetery following a DNA forensic identification process during last year, led by the International Red Cross.

 According to Clarin the Argentine American Jet aircraft was chartered by Aeropuertos Argentina 2000, the company which is financing the 26 March one day trip of the relatives of the 88 now identified remains, religious and sanitary support team and Argentine officials, for an official ceremony at the Argentine memorial, which holds a total of 250 graves.

On that date of the 122 plaques reading “Argentine soldier only known unto God” in the graves at Darwin, 88 of them will be replaced with tombstones with the engraved full name of the fallen combatant.

The Clarin piece also points out that on 26 March, two chartered aircraft from the Los Andes company will be flying to the Falklands with two/three relatives of each of the now identified combatants. However what is interesting to point out is that both Los Andes and Jet American airlines are interested in the second commercial flight to the Falklands with third countries, with a monthly stop in Argentina, according to the recent announcement by the UK and Argentine governments.

Likewise Jet American, based in Neuquen, last year when president Macri's administration implemented a new air travel policy, was awarded the Comodoro Rivadavia, Falklands route. Furthermore when Kara Owen from the Foreign Office Americas Desk visited Buenos Aires for a regional meeting of British ambassadors, the head of the Argentine senate Enrique Pinedo apparently lobbied for a direct flight Ezeiza/Mount Pleasant Complex with a stop in Comodoro Rivadavia. This apparently was put forward to UK lawmakers at the international inter parliamentarian meeting held last November in Moscow.

However the Clarin piece underlines that this request is independent from the normal bilateral relation at foreign offices level, based on the UK/Argentine September 2016 communiqué chapter on the South Atlantic to bolster the Islands development, and which includes besides air links, fisheries, hydrocarbons and the elimination of (Kirchner presidencies) legislation punishing the Falklands.