MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

No invasion commemorations in the Falklands.

During the early hours of the morning of 2 April 1982, 904 Argentine troops overwhelmed the defending 65 British Royal Marines, and raised the Argentine flag on the Falkland Islands.

Tuesday the 2 April, the 20th anniversary of the Invasion will not be commemorated in any way in the Islands, as it never has been ever since 1982. A half-hearted proposal for those who lived in the islands 20 years ago, to, 'wear black arm-bands' on Tuesday, looks unlikely to gather much momentum.

'It is a day that we wish to forget, not remember', said Mrs. Velma Malcolm, who 20 years ago was forcibly arrested by Argentine troops and with her husband and 12 other suspected 'subversives', spent most of the period of occupation under house arrest at Fox Bay.

The Reverend Alistair McHaffie, Reactor of Christ Church Cathedral, (Anglican) said that he, 'does not feel it appropriate to arrange any type of service in the Cathedral, and has not been asked by one single person to do so'. The Reverend McHaffie, a former British Serviceman, who had 2 tours post-war in the Falklands, said that, 'Everything is being geared up to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Liberation on 14 June'.

Father Austin Monaghan of St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church in Stanley confirmed that during the daily morning Mass at 9-00am, 'prayers to remember the Invasion will be said'. Asked if Lieutenant-Commander Pedro Giachino, who commanded the Amphibious Commandos which were tasked to take Government House, but was killed during the attack, will be remembered in his prayers, Father Monaghan said, 'no names will be mentioned, no actions recalled and no incidents remembered, only prayers for the Invasion itself'.

Lieutenant-Commander Giachino was posthumously awarded Argentina's highest decoration, the Cruz-La Nacion Argentina al Heroico Valor en Combate, and a posthumous promotion to Commander (Capitan de Fragata).

The only Argentine journalist currently in the Falklands, 28 year old Martin Rodriguez of the newspaper La Nacion said that his newspaper 'has to have a journalist here on the 20th anniversary, despite the fact that the Islanders have nothing to celebrate. I want to discover how the people feel, now, 20 years after the War, and to report on the political scene'.

Meanwhile plans for the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the Liberation of the Islands on 14 June are going ahead, although Prince Andrew, a helicopte