MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Hunt for Falklands Wreck Opens Old Wounds.

Amid growing controversy here, a National Geographic Society maritime expedition is scheduled to depart tomorrow Sunday from Patagonia to search for the remains of the General Belgrano, an Argentine warship sunk in the South Atlantic Ocean under disputed circumstances during the Falklands War more than 20 years ago.

The voyage, which is to be filmed for a television documentary, has produced deep divisions among various groups representing war veterans and relatives of victims of the sinking. Some consider the undertaking a desecration of the memory of the dead, while others hope evidence will be uncovered that will strengthen their efforts to bring Britain to justice for an attack that has been widely regarded here as a violation of international law.

Carrying a crew of 1,093 men, the General Belgrano was sunk on May 2, 1982, in frigid seas east of Tierra del Fuego. The attack killed 323 Argentine sailors, the largest single loss of life during the 10-week conflict that had begun a month earlier when Argentina, then ruled by a military dictatorship, invaded and occupied the Falkland Islands.

When it was torpedoed by the British nuclear submarine Conqueror, the General Belgrano was outside a 200-mile "exclusion zone" around the Falklands that Britain had declared in April. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher argued that the attack was justified because the Argentine vessel had been sailing toward a British naval task force, but Argentina said the cruiser was heading in the opposite direction when it was sunk. The incident has led Argentine veterans groups to push for Lady Thatcher to be charged with war crimes.

"I don't know whether we will find the vessel or whether you will be able to draw any conclusions about its direction or anything else," John Bredar, the executive producer of the documentary, said today in a telephone interview from Washington. "But that's not our focus. We're setting out not to do a geopolitical history but to personalize the story of the Belgrano and tell it to a much larger global audience."

Both of the main groups representing Argentine veterans of the Falklands War, however, have expressed irritation that they were not consulted about the expedition. They are also angry at the Argentine Navy, which they accuse of deliberately ignoring a law that declares the General Belgrano's resting place, in international waters nearly 14,000 feet deep, to be hallowed ground and a national war memorial.

"What happens if the skeleton of one of those who died defending the fatherland should appear in the film?" asked Marcelo Sánchez, president of the National Commission of Former Combatants in the Malvinas. Rubén Rada, the president of the Federation of Argentine War Veterans, said his group wanted assurances that "they are not going to haul off a piece of the Belgrano and take it to London to show in a museum."

Mr. Bredar said such concerns were unwarranted. "We've never had any intention whatsoever of recovering anything or penetrating the hull," he said. "Argentine law is very clear about not touching the site. It's a sacred burial area, and we are going to treat it as such."

Accompanied by an Argentine Navy vessel, the expedition hopes to locate the General Belgrano with sonar and then send a remote-operated submersible to film the wreckage. The 24 people on board include two members of the Conqueror crew, one from the submarine's torpedo room and the other from the sonar room, whose presence has been protested by the Argentine veterans' groups.

"You don't take the executioner back to the scene of the crime," Mr. Rada said in an interview today. "It is offensive to the memory of those who perished that this expedition should include members of the submarine crew that criminally sank the Belgrano and then fled without providing notice to nearby ships that could have rescued survivors."

In response, Mr. Bredar said, "You can't tell a personal history if you bring veterans from only one side." The two British crew members met today for the first time with their Argentine counterparts, who earlier in the week said they harboured no personal resentment against their former adversaries.

"You have to look at this with professionalism," Pedro Luis Galazi, the second in command of the General Belgrano, told the daily Clarín. "The English had a mission, and so did we. It was the same: destroy the enemy. But one cannot always be at war. Now the ties between us are strengthening."

Britain and Argentina resumed diplomatic ties in 1990, and in 1994 the Argentine government formally recognized the sinking of the General Belgrano as a "legal act of war." In July 2000, however, relatives of two Argentines who died in the attack filed a complaint against the British government at the European Court for Human Rights, claiming that the attack violated the crew members' "right to life" and seeking compensation.

Those lawsuits have been turned away on the grounds that they were filed too late and that the complainants have not exhausted all their legal remedies in British courts. But veterans' groups here continue to pressure the Argentine government to take the case to the International Court of Justice and to have Lady Thatcher charged with war crimes.