MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Argentine Memorial inauguration: “no formal proposal”
Falkland Islands Councillor Mike Summers said that no approach has been made by Argentina for the inauguration of the Argentine War Memorial at Darwin.
Interviewed in the latest edition of Penguin News Mr. Summers indicated, "...you can't just come and carry out some exercise in someone else's territory without a formal agreement about how and what is being done."
Last week the Argentine press reported that Malvinas war veterans, headed by Mr. Héctor Cisnesros confirmed contacts with the British Embassy in Buenos Aires to formalize the request "to inaugurate the Memorial at Darwin no later than September", adding that "if the Islanders won't allow us to charter a plane we'll find a way of chartering a vessel".
To which Mr. Summers indicated that "To my knowledge, a cruise vessel doesn't require a series of complicated agreements. But they would clearly require all the normal immigration processes."
However he added, "There have been dozens of pieces of speculation and until someone in some kind of authority makes a formal proposal, we can't really respond."
According to Clarin, the Malvinas Relatives Committee is planning to send for the inauguration at least one next of kin member for each of the 649Argentines killed in the 1982 conflict, plus special guests, adding up to over 700 people. The transportation of this number "...would be impossible to achieve with the regular Lan Chile weekly flight that stops once a month in Rio Gallegos."
Clarin comments that Islanders are furious with the Argentine government for having banned charter flights from Chile, crossing Argentine air space, and therefore strongly oppose Argentine next of kin flying to the Islands in air charters.
But Clarín also points out that the whole operation to the Islands, including transport, lodging and food is extremely costly and currently there are no financial resources.
The only similar operation took place in 1991 when the first visit of Argentine next of kin to Darwin cemetery, where 234 servicemen are buried since 1982, was held organised by the Red Cross and flying from Chile in a chartered aircraft. The total number of travellers then was 354.
The Argentine Memorial near Darwin was provided for in the July 1999 Agreement signed by Argentine, British and Falklands representatives.
The Memorial, designed and built in Argentina, and later assembled in the Islands by AWG (Falklands) Ltd was mostly financed by Argentine tycoon Eduardo Eurnekian. PN
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