MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine Memorial to be assembles in March.

The Argentine permanent Memorial to be erected at Darwin cemetery is almost finished and sometime next February/March will be shipped and assembled in the Falkland Islands, according to a report in the Thursday edition of Buenos Aires daily “Clarín”.

Héctor Cisneros, president of the Committee of Relatives of the Fallen in Malvinas and Argentine businessman Eduardo Eunerkian who donated a million US dollars for the monument, anticipated they will be flying to the Falklands for the inauguration ceremony.

Mr. Eunerkian is currently head of the company Aeropuertos Argentinos 2000 that manages under a concession system, 33 Argentine airports and just recently incorporated with Italian partners under a similar contract, Uruguay's main airport Carrasco. However, Mr. Eunerkian according to "Clarín" has standing arrears with the Argentine government equivalent to 120 million US dollars of unpaid concession fees.

And it was precisely in an area next to Buenos Aires main airport Ezeiza that Mr. Eunerkian began the construction of the Memorial that supposedly will be shipped to the Falklands and assembled at the south side of the Argentine cemetery at Darwin, where the bodies of 234 of the 649 Argentines killed in the 1982 War, are buried.

The permanent memorial is made up of 200 tons of iron, reinforced concrete, Patagonian jasper and black granite and is being built following instructions from architect Carlos D'Aprile who has visited the Islands on the matter, reports "Clarín"

"I became involved in the project when I found out that behind all this is a long and sad story of people who for twenty years have been trying to build it", said Mr. Eunerkian.

Apparently the Memorial will be made up of 45 base blocks, 12 components and a big concrete cross plus a hermit of Argentina's Virgin Mary, Virgen del Luján. Granite plaques will be engraved with the names of the 649 Argentines killed in the war, in alphabetical order but with no rank or service identification.

"Clarín" also reports the "good relations" between the British Ambassador in Buenos Aires Sir Robin Christopher and the next of kin of Falklands' families, and that Mr. Eunerkian recently traveled to London to contract the British company AWG for the assembling of the permanent memorial.

The article in "Clarín" is based on the fact that an "Islanders committee made up of Britons accepted the Argentine Memorial plans in 2002".

At sometime it was suggested in the Falklands that Memorial costs could be reduced considerably with the introduction of skilled Argentines to undertake some of the work at the Darwin cemetery. But Mr. McKenzie from Morrisons was asked if this was a realistic proposal and replied, ?It would be unlikely that the eight elected Councillors would allow Argentine labor to build the Memorial'.