MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Malvinas veterans ask for anthropologists to identify Argentine soldiers buried at Darwin cemetery

The Argentine memorial in Darwin holds 237 graves of which only 123 have names

A Centre of Malvinas War Veterans and next of kin presented a petition before a federal court requesting the identification of Argentine combatants buried at the Darwin Cemetery in the Falkland Islands and the circumstances of their death during the South Atlantic conflict in 1982.

For this purpose the petition requests a team of Argentine anthropologists set up an advance base in Malvinas to address the investigation.

According to the presentation of the 237 graves of Argentine soldiers at the Memorial in Darwin, only 114 figure with their names while for the rest (123) stands a cross with the reading, “Argentina solider, only known by God”.

The petition was presented at the Criminal and Correctional Federal Court No. 10 under magistrate Julian Ercolini.

In a brief release the La Plata centre of Malvinas war veterans argues that Argentina underwent a process of “de-Malvinization” with the purpose of hiding events and thus eluding responsibilities, “both from Argentina and Britain”.

As part of this operation Argentine soldiers returning to Argentina were silenced as were those who remained in the Islands, “some of which are not even identified”, adds the release.

Because of this situation a petition has been presented “with the purpose of returning to the unknown soldiers their identity, history and the circumstances in which these heroes gave their lives in defence of Argentine sovereignty over the Malvinas”.

For this “we propose that a team of Argentine anthropologists be established in the Islands and with an advance base address the pertaining studies of the cases”.

“We are asking the Judiciary to acknowledge and declare the right to the truth, identity and justice for the fallen in Malvinas, for their relatives, their fellows in arms and the whole civilian society”, says the release which also requests the Argentine Executive to take the necessary measures, in its area of competence, to make effective these rights.

The release also cautions that the analysis of the remains and the singularities they might present, “could lead to force us to consider possible war crimes or human rights abuses, but this should never be an argument to impede having full access to the truth”.

Finally thirty years after the conflict in “a country that was attempted to hide events and thus avoid and elude responsibilities, both Argentina and the UK, it is not possible to continue with a veil of silence on true events”.

According to the Argentine media the experts which would be travelling to the Falklands belong to Argentina’s Forensic Anthropology Team which was involved in the identification of the disappeared during the last military dictatorship (1976/1983).