MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Malvinas veterans identify officer allegedly involved in abuses

A second Argentine officer allegedly involved in the abuse of conscripts, including the death of several of them, during the 1982 Falkland Islands conflict has been identified by one of the victims, reports this week the Argentine press.

The conscript who together with several members of his company, --very short on food and hungry-- were staked to the ground in the Falklands for having killed a sheep, said the officer involved is now an Army Lieutenant Colonel and Deputy Director of a Military School. Oscar Núñez survived the 1982 conflict and returned to Argentina where he became an attorney and is one of several war veterans that are pressing charges against officers who were involved in cruel treatment of soldiers, a homicide and the death of four others because of mal nutrition. The case has been presented in a federal court in Rio Grande with the support from Corrientes province Human Rights Secretary Pablo Vassel. Al the veterans involved so far are from the province of Corrientes. "Our company was in the first line and there were difficulties with receiving food. One of our mates, Secundino Riquelme died of inanition. We then decided to look for food and there was this sheep, 40/50 meters away. We were in the process of killing it when the officer in charge of our company surprised us red handed", recalls Nuñez. "He insulted us, ordered us to leap frog and then staked us to the ground without shoes or gloves. Four, five hours later I asked for him because we were freezing and hadn't eaten for hours. When he came I told him it would be better if he shot us. He drew his pistol, pointed it at me but then said I wasn't worth a bullet. He kicked me in the ribs and left us as where we were" Nuñez says that they managed to survive because a Sergeant disobeying orders "set us free". The plaintiffs want the abuses committed during the Falklands war to be considered crimes against humanity so they won't prescribe and are also demanding an Investigation Committee so that all those who suffered abuse can come forward and tell their stories. "On the return from the war all conscripts were forced to silence, threatened with being considered "traitors" to the motherland; court martial or simply considered cowards", underlined Vassel. "If the government offers guarantees and the military secrecy is lifted, I'm sure we can receive a significant number of dramatic experiences and claims", added Vassel. Argentina's Ministry of Defence already has removed from his post a Navy captain who at the time of the war was head of a Marines battalion in Ushuaia.