MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Next of kin hold service in Argentine Memorial

A delegation of Argentine next of kin and close friends held this Tuesday, under persistent rain, the first service ever at the recently built Argentine Memorial in the Falkland Islands Argentine Darwin Cemetery.

The service was held shortly before noon in front of the cross that overlooks the cenotaph built in Argentina, assembled in the Falklands but still to be officially inaugurated.

The delegation of twenty two next of kin includes a Catholic priest, an interpreter and the architect of the monument to the Argentine dead in the South Atlantic conflict of 1982.

One of the younger members of the group and Treasurer of the Families Commission, Leandro Martin de la Colina whose father was among the crew of a Lear Jet shot down on Pebble Island explained that the main purpose of the visit was to check that the cenotaph commissioned had been constructed to specification.

Among the next of kin arrive yesterday a pilot Roberto Curilovic who was involved in the bombing and sinking of the Atlantic Conveyor with his Super Etandard and the mother of one of the first Argentine soldiers to die during the shooting at Government House.

The Argentine Memorial estimated cost of a million US dollars was financed by businessman Eduardo Eunerkian, besides the delegation a small group also arrived Tuesday morning at Mount Pleasant airport on a private Gulfstream Jet having flown directly from Buenos Aires in three hours together with members of his staff and invited media.

Mr. Eduardo Eurnekian is involved in the air terminal business and his company Aeropuerto 2000 manages most of Argentina's main airports, Carrasco airport in Montevideo and Milan's Malpensa, with Italian partners.

Tuesday's simple but highly emotive ceremony is the option found to the controversy surrounding the Memorial inauguration date and program which has been bogged down by disputes over air links with Argentina.

Flying in to the Falklands the relatives of all the Argentine servicemen buried in Darwin would demand charter flights which Islanders will not accept until President Nestor Kirchner administration lifts the ban on summer charter flights from Chile, which are hindering the local tourism industry.

A further problem is that Argentine officials refuse to have their diplomatic passports stamped in the Falklands and Mr. Kirchner insists on a direct air link between the Islands and Argentina with an Argentine flag carrier.

The next of kin delegation which arrived last Saturday in the weekly Lan Chile is scheduled to return this coming Saturday.