MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

“Malvinas are and will be Argentine”

Argentine president Eduardo Duhalde speaking in Puerto Madryn during the main commemoration of the Argentine landing in the Falklands 21 years ago that led to the full fledged 1982 South Atlantic conflict said that the “Malvinas have been, are and will be Argentine”. However he repeatedly insisted that the Argentines are committed to peace.

President Duhalde also unveiled a monument to the memory of the Malvinas Combatants and praised the Argentine soldiers who died fighting in the Falklands, "they will live eternally in the memory of the Nation".

"The veterans, the former combatants have defeated the worst of enemies: indifference", said Mr. Duhalde adding that these soldiers have become "the sacred children of the Motherland, those whose remains are in the peat, mud or the sea of Malvinas, and those who came back from the fighting and the cold".

In a direct reference to the current war in Iraq, President Duhalde said it was "an unjust war" and reiterated that "we Argentines are people of peace".

Present with President Duhalde at the ceremony were Interior Minister Jorge Matzkin, Commander of the Coast Guard Jose Luis Beltriti, Chubut Governor Jose Luis Lizurume, Puerto Madryn Mayor Julio Cesar Aristarain, representatives from different groupings of Malvinas Veterans and a crowd estimated in 3,000 people.

"We know they gave their precious best for Argentina, and today is our turn to follow this heroic example and deliver our outmost for the recovery of our Motherland".

The Puerto Madryn Monument has at the base 24 plaques with the engraved names of local soldiers killed during the 1982 conflict.

Courage of the conscripts

In Buenos Aires the Commander in Chief of the Argentine Army General Ricardo Brinzoni emphasized that "we are remembering the courage of all the soldiers, those who fought as conscripts giving evidence of a national feeling, which is ever present among us today, because we are all convinced that Malvinas is national territory".

Standing next to Defence Minister Horacio Jaunarena and the Commanders of the other Services, General Brinzoni said the best homage to the memory of the "courageous conscripts" was to make Argentina a liveable country, with a strong economy to "which the Islanders can associate, and with the passing of decades, fully integrate to our community".

Further on he stressed that the conflict from a military point of view was "a frank one, where all war conventions were respected and in which all sides showed courage".

Interviewed by the press, General Brinzoni indicated he totally favoured diplomacy to recover the Falklands and "this ceremony commits us to that purpose".

Public opinion recognition

Talking with the press Defence Minister Horacio Jaunarena said that with the passing of time pains and passions have eased and now the "Argentine people recognize and praise on one side the valour and sacrifice of Argentine combatants and on the other side the major political error of war. This explains the extent of public recognition when we commemorate and remember our men in Malvinas".

When asked about the Iraq war, Mr. Jaunarena said that Argentina "totally abides to United Nations and will act accordingly to United Nations resolutions".

"When international law and the international system is in crisis, we must redouble efforts to help support it, and one way to do so is abiding United Nations resolutions".