MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Islands visit a positive experience for Argentine Families Commission Delegation.
Despite having to spend many hours each day traveling during a week of exceptionally bad weather, even by Falkland Islands standards, the visiting group of directors of the association which represents the families of the members of the Argentine forces killed in 1982 (Comision de Familiares de Caidos en Malvinas e Islas del Atlantico Sur) left the Islands today Saturday in positive mood, satisfied that they had achieved their objectives.
First among the aims of the group had been the inspection of the monument to the Argentine fallen at Darwin, which was largely financed by businessman Mr. Eduardo Eurnekian.
The memorial at Darwin was first constructed at Ezeiza Airport in Buenos Aires and then shipped to the Falkland Islands in sections to be erected on site by Morrisons (Falklands) Ltd. Although local Managing Director, Ken McKenzie, was away from the Islands during the week of the Families Commission visit, it is understood that a meeting took place in Stanley between the Commission and company representatives. President of the Commission, Mr. Hector Cisneros, told Mercopress that the Commission was extremely satisfied with the way the work had been carried out by Morrisons.
During the visit, the Commission also had talks with possible contenders for the maintenance of the cemetery which has up to now been carried out by the British Ministry of Defence. Mr. Cisneros told Mercopress that the Commission was seeking to enter into a private contract for this work and they were now expecting soon to receive quotations from three separate sources, which they would be evaluating before offering the contract. It was the Commission's intention to maintain the cemetery to the highest standard possible, given the climate to which it was exposed. Already some deterioration to the individual crosses had been noticed, which it was hoped would be repaired as soon as the winter was over.
At his invitation, the Families Commission delegates had also met with Falkland Islands Governor, Howard Pearce at Government House in Stanley.
Speaking to Cordoba's Voz del Interior newspaper by telephone from the Islands, Commission President Hector Cisneros said that the business of the Commission "is not to talk politics nor resolve diplomatic problems" and that the hour and a half long meeting with Governor Pearce had been "very pleasant, very cordial and very respectful". Besides the members of the delegation, there were about thirty islanders present.
In the same interview, Cisneros said that in general the reception of the delegation by the islanders could not have been better. "They are so friendly that it is frightening. They invite us in for tea and take us everywhere", he said. This view was also repeated to Mercopress by several members of the delegation, including treasurer, Leandro De la Colina.
Some degree of controversy over the decision made by Governor, Howard Pearce to invite the Families Commission to Government House was reported in the Islands' weekly, Penguin News. Asked to comment by Mercopress, Falkland Islands Government Councillor, Jan Cheek, said that she thought that in the circumstances it was "the right thing to do." She added that Councillors had themselves met a representative group of the Families' Commission at their Gilbert House office and were convinced that they were all genuine relatives of the Argentine war dead and not in any way politically motivated or representatives of the Argentine Government.
Councillor Cheek stated that it had always been Falkland Island Government policy to welcome the bereaved families and said that it was agreed "that we shouldn't be in the business of making political capital out of them". Mrs. Cheek said that the first invitation for Argentine next-of-kin to visit had been made at the United Nations, as early as 1983, by her late husband, John Cheek, then a member of the Islands Legislative Council, and pointed out that although the memorial at Darwin had been incorporated into the July 1999 Letters of Understanding between the Argentine and British Governments, it had actually been agreed to in principle by the Falkland Islands Government in August 1995.
John Fowler (MP) Stanley
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