MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Events of April 2 as seen by an islander remembered in Argentine magazine.

In its latest issue La Primera weekly magazine carries a five page article headlined “The Argentine Invasion” in which the events of 2 April 1982 are recalled using a text and photographs from islander author and photographer Tony Chater's book “The Falkland Islands”.

The article, which is published with the authors' authorisation, gives a poignant first hand description of the events which took place in and around Stanley twenty years ago, as seen by then 29 years old Chater and includes several photographs which he took at the time.

Also included with the article is a "then and now" text written by journalist Nicholas Tozer under the headline ".... 20 years are nothing...," - in reference to the words of a well known tango - which reads: "Twenty years have passed since that 2 April which has been deeply marked in the calendars of our memories. The places, which were the scenery for these histories, are as recognisable today, as they were then.

Malvinas may no longer be a place forgotten by the hand of God, and the British Foreign Office with a dwindling population whose future was inexorably extinguishing.

Today the inhabitants of the islands are numerically more than they have been in any point of the recent history. They have a dynamic society and the per capita income of the highest in the world due to the small numbers and prosperous fishing industry.

Anyone who was on the streets twenty years ago, and today wanders around the peaceful capital city known Stanley by some and Puerto Argentino by others, will recognise almost all the sites which made up the islands landscape back them. The house of the feathered governor Rex Hunt, the Catholic St. Mary's Church and the Protestant Christ Church, the Whalebone Arch, the flagship store of the then powerful Falklands Island Company, the West Store and the austere Town Hall.

One will also note undeniable evidence of material progress. The impressive new secondary School, the Community School, the equally impressive King Edward VII Memorial Hospital or the new residential areas of East Stanley on the other side of the Cemetery and the place where the YPF depot was then located.

What we also notice the silent witnesses of the conflict be in the new Stanley Museum, once the House of the LADE representative or in the street with names like Margaret Thatcher Drive or Jeremy Moore Avenue, or on the faces of many of the islanders.

One will also see prosperity without ostentation in many of the now reconditi