MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Argentine and British veterans meet at Cross of Sacrifice
An Act of Remembrance takes place in the Falklands each year on the Sunday nearest to 11th of November.
After religious services in the churches of the capital Stanley, a sizeable part of the whole community gathers to the East of the town at the Cross of Sacrifice, the memorial to those Islanders who fought and died for Britain in two world wars.
Whether it is calm and sunny or, as in the case of today's ceremony, cold and windy the Remembrance Sunday ceremony is always a moving one; there is a military parade made up of units of the three armed services present in the Falklands and the local Defence Force and the Governor arrives in full dress uniform to lay a wreath, as do the Commander British Forces, representatives of the Islands' Government and members of other organisations, including the British Legion. There is a two-minute silence, marked by the firing of the saluting cannons on Victory Green and, today, by a trumpeter of the Brigade of Guards, resplendent in scarlet uniform, topped by the traditional bearskin helmet.
As the Falkland Islands prepares to commemorate next the 25th anniversary of the military campaign to free the Islands from Argentine occupation in 1982, a special poignancy was given to today's ceremony by the presence of two visiting groups of veterans from both sides of this conflict. After the service was over, both groups met for the first time and with the help of interpreters were soon enjoying a brief and emotional exchange of experiences, which concluded with a joint photograph and many handshakes.
On the British side, proudly wearing their medals and berets were three former Welsh Guards, a sailor from HMS Broadsword, a Royal Marine and a Royal Engineer attached to the Parachute Regiment, who had taken part in the Battle for Mount Longdon. The Argentine forces were represented by a group of four veterans from La Plata: Luis Poncetta, Oscar Ibarguren, Gabriel Sagastume and Raul Pavoni.
The Argentines, like their British counterparts, are visiting the Islands for the first time since 1982, when all of them were aged nineteen or twenty. Unlike the British veterans, however, they were all conscripts and consider themselves to have been unwilling victims of the military junta. They were impressed by the campaign medals worn by their former foes, having had to wait until some years later for any such acknowledgement from their own country.
Busily filming today's event was another person with good reason to remember the events of 1982, journalist Carol Thatcher, daughter of the famous Iron Lady, who arrived in the Falklands yesterday and is reputed to be making a programme for television to be entitled "Mummy's War".
Picture: Argentine and British Veterans at the Cross of Sacrifice Memorial
John Fowler (Mercopress) Stanley
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