MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina insists before Red Cross on identifying remains of combatants buried in the Falklands

Vice President Boudou met with Red Cross chief Kellenberg in Geneva (Photo: TELAM)

Vice President Amado Boudou called for a ‘concrete reply’ to Argentina’s request for the International Red Cross to collaborate with the identification of the combatants fallen during the Falkland Islands conflict in 1982 and whose remains are buried at the cemetery in Darwin.

The Argentine leader who on Tuesday was in Geneva for a conference at the International Labour Organization, ILO, took time to meet with the president of the International Red Cross, Jakob Kellenberger who anticipated “a good disposition” to Argentina’s request including from the British government to whom the message was addressed.

According to Boudou’s press office in Buenos Aires “Mr. Kellenberg gave a positive welcome to the Argentine request and said that in his first contacts with the British government he had perceived a ‘positive attitude’ towards the issue”.

Last April 2, the 30th anniversary of the Argentine forces invasion of the Falklands in 1982, President Cristina Fernandez from Ushuaia announced she had sent a letter to the International Red Cross requesting the organization intercedes before the UK government “so that the remains of unknown Argentine and British soldiers can be definitively identified, thirty years after the Malvinas war”.

Kellenberger added that “there can be no discrimination of any nature on the right of next of kin to know what happened with their loved ones”, added the same source.

The idea is for forensic teams to work in the Falklands making DNA tests of the remains at Darwin Argentine memorial and matching them with possible relatives.

At the Red Cross meeting the Argentine delegation besides Boudou included Ambassador Alberto D’Alotto permanent representative before the international organizations in Geneva; the head of the Foreign Ministry cabinet Antonio Trombetta and other officials.

Vice-president Boudou was one of several speakers at the ILO conference on “Global crisis and Social Security systems” where he argued in support of the Argentine model, that “austerity policies only help to worsen the financial crisis.

“Austerity plans deepen losses of the economy and once growth slows down or freezes the country’s capacity to repay sovereign debt only keeps increasing as a percentage of GDP”, said Boudou who insisted that emphasis on markets should be limited since “they only turn the problem explosive”.

Boudou then compared the current situation in Europe with that of Latin America and Argentina in particular, which centred all efforts in the so called ‘marginal classes’ because “with all resources destined to consumption the economic system picks up at a quicker pace”.

This way “distribution of income becomes a moral imperative for all governments, and at the same time when all efforts concentrate in the real economy they have a more direct and faster impact on recovery”.