MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
“We planted between 15.000 and 20.000 antipersonnel and antitank mines” in Malvinas
In a rare interview, the Argentine Colonel who was responsible for placing mines in the occupied Falkland Islands in 1982 as part of the defense strategy against the advancing British forces, admits that between 15.000 and 20.000 of antipersonnel and anti tank explosives were planted, but also claims some stretches of the Islands' coast already had mines which had been placed by the British. Read full article
Comments
Disclaimer & comment rules3 decades ?? 30 will not be enough !
Apr 02nd, 2014 - 08:04 am - Link - Report abuse 0No sure how many mines he caused to be placed...Brilliant tactics; shows intelligent military foresight, and something entertaining for him to think about in his old age. Great achievement. Great Humanity.
Apr 02nd, 2014 - 08:15 am - Link - Report abuse 0There were no mines planted by the British - idiot!
Apr 02nd, 2014 - 08:41 am - Link - Report abuse 0The British may have planted land mines IF they knew that the Argentinians were going to invade, in 1982, but they had so little notice, and tried diplomacy to stop the invasion that there was no time to have got the land mines from the UK to the Falklands.
So he is a liar (I know, I know, and Argentine official lying - whatever next!).
Even if the UK had laid land mines, we would have marked where we laid them, unlike this numpty.
He had no control over his troops, and they laid the mines wherever they wanted and didn't mark the areas.
So he falls back on the usual lies. Yes some of the minefields were marked, but towards the end, when defeat was upon them, they just laid them anywhere and everywhere and didn't mark them.
But it wasn't his fault, apparently. Typical Argentine.
“Soldiers felt betrayed; they had to return in defeat, heads down, nobody was here to receive them, they were hidden from public sight, and we never received any acknowledgement for what we did”
Apr 02nd, 2014 - 08:44 am - Link - Report abuse 0...until 32 years later when they symbolise the invasion.
It's so sad that these poor men returned home as pariahs only to be used years later as pawns by a self-seeking government
He still wants to 'share' with the Islanders?
Apr 02nd, 2014 - 09:21 am - Link - Report abuse 0Bloody Fool. The Islanders, with damned good reason, want nothing to do with RGland.
“Soldiers felt betrayed; they had to return in defeat, heads down, nobody was here to receive them, they were hidden from public sight, and we never received any acknowledgement for what we did”.
Apr 02nd, 2014 - 09:24 am - Link - Report abuse 0And what did you do that deserves acknowledgement?
Fact:
Apr 02nd, 2014 - 09:40 am - Link - Report abuse 0The Royal Marines, 6 or so Royal Navy logistics personneal and the small part time loca defence Force had NO mines in stock.
Let alone the time to lay them! This man is yet another Liar!
Fact: within a fortnight or so the Arg Invaders were issuing edicts on our radio warning Islanders “to not circulate near the beaches because of the mines laid by the retreating British marines” -
Fact- this was put out because Arg troops were already starting to stand on and detonate Arg mines laid by their fellow troops who had not marked where they were.
Yes some minefields were indeed marked, but not many.
Probably just acknowledgement of putting their lives on the line and having had to suffer some horrors by choice of others above them.
Apr 02nd, 2014 - 09:49 am - Link - Report abuse 0One difference is that the overwhelming majority of the British Taskforce wanted to go to the islands whereas the overwhelming majority of the Argentine conscripts didn't but were forced to.
Forget about the rights and wrongs of the conflict.....Put yourself in their shoes......forced by a military dictatorship to go to a cold, wet, foreign place and face a vastly superior trained opposition. How would you feel if you received the same treatment they got when they got home?
@8
Apr 02nd, 2014 - 09:51 am - Link - Report abuse 0No need to lie though, most people can see through a lier.
You gave all the data to the British!! Yet you don't know how many you planted! are you stupid or what? Can't Argentines, even conscript/reservists count?
Apr 02nd, 2014 - 10:17 am - Link - Report abuse 0@8 You should try reading Los Chicos de la Guerra by Daniel Kon where without exception the conscript/reservists that he interviewed were delighted by the annexation of the Falkland Islands and were desperate to get there so they could defend them against the 'evil imperialists'. Many of them were under the impression that they were going to 'liberate' fellow Argentines and were mightily shocked to discover that the Islanders despised them - that is when the rot started to set in - when they discovered they had been lied to.
@9 I'd be surprised if there wasn't a lie
Apr 02nd, 2014 - 10:32 am - Link - Report abuse 0@10 thanks for the tip......I'll have a read
Forced to or manipulated by lies still shows they got truly shafted.
I'm sure I read somewhere, possibly on here that the British did plant mines but recovered them all barring one or two. They laid a small amount, something like 80 rings a bell though I may be wrong.
Apr 02nd, 2014 - 10:36 am - Link - Report abuse 0But didn't the Argentines (post surrender) help the British find some of the mines they laid under a helipad by encouraging them to land a Helicopter on it? Oh what a lovely bunch.
What a complete load of rubbish. How much did Filmus pay him to produce this tripe.
Apr 02nd, 2014 - 10:50 am - Link - Report abuse 0Once again, they tell lies and more lies..
Apr 02nd, 2014 - 10:58 am - Link - Report abuse 012-Frank- correct, in South Georgia Astiz and his men mined the H of the helicopter landing site and then signalled the Br helicopter bringing in the team to take the Surrender to land on it- the pilots had a bit more sense - luckily!
Apr 02nd, 2014 - 11:06 am - Link - Report abuse 0Im surprised Danny has not been on here commenting,
Apr 02nd, 2014 - 11:23 am - Link - Report abuse 0still,
the guilty always legs it..
@10 & 11
Apr 02nd, 2014 - 11:49 am - Link - Report abuse 0It's interesting that the Junta felt they had to lie about who the Islanders actually were. Why, if they were so convinced of their moral right to invade? And what did they think their soldiers were going to feel when they discovered the truth? Incompetent...and cynical besides.
Horrible things, land mines...
@17 Heisenbergcontext
Apr 02nd, 2014 - 12:22 pm - Link - Report abuse 0The British Army has a saying 'land mines have no friends'.
That means it is an indiscriminate killer that doesn't differentiate between foe, friend and completely innocent bystander.
This Colonel Dorrego is not only a liar but an idiot too.
If the British (upon finding out about Argentina's impending invasion) had enough time to send land mines to the Falklands, for the 40 or so Royal Marines that are stationed there to plant, then we would've had enough time to reinforce the Islands with actual troops and equipment, thus signalling to the Argentine military Junta that the British were serious about invading the Falklands.
Time and time again, the Argentines have told us that the reason they thought they could get away with stealing the Falklands was because the believed that the British didn't care about them. So if we didn't care about them, why would we plant land mines to defend them?
His lies are so transparent as to be ridiculous, and all of it is a blatant attempt to try and shift the blame from himself onto someone else.
I'm sure the Malvinistas and the La Campora trolls will lap this up, but then they're ready to listen to any lie, no matter how bizarre it sounds or who is saying it, as long as it falls within what they WANT to hear.
It's just like them celebrating the invasion of the Islands, even though they didn't support the Junta (honest!), but they would quite happily have had every single Falkland Islander disappear (even though they were against that too, honest!).
This guy isn't fooling anyone except the morons who want to believe him.
Even when he pretends to have repented and forged his bayonet into a plow he still says it was still “partially” the british's fault. Whatever the Littler Eichmann has to tell himself to make it through the night I guess.
Apr 02nd, 2014 - 01:26 pm - Link - Report abuse 0“”“”“”“As to the conflict, Dorrego states that Argentine officers and troops were not prepared for war and much less in the “aggressive inhospitable” conditions of the Malvinas.”“”“”“”“
Apr 02nd, 2014 - 04:53 pm - Link - Report abuse 0one would have thought, what with Argentina having claimed it since 50,ooo,000 years BC, that they'd've known a bit more about this land that they always claimed as theirs.
Quite odd that it took them by surprise really.
I also ”Liked” that he explains away the laying of 20,000 mines as a reaction to the British laying a mythical number of mines...
as usual its never Argentinas fault for anything they do....
I always supported The Blessed Margaret apart from when she listened to “Ray Gun” Ronnie Regan about not attacking Argentina and utterly destroying their military installations but to “let them have a little dignity left to them”.
Apr 02nd, 2014 - 08:26 pm - Link - Report abuse 0And this is the result three decades later. Next time, and I really believe these stupid bastards will find a way to do it, the mainland should be razed of all important infrastructure.
Only by putting them in a Stone Age environment will they not be a problem.
Why do you think record numbers of Argentines and their families are making residency applications to Uruguay if everything is “so good”?
I fully believe that they intend to have another go at taking them, it is the last tactic in their box of tricks, I do hope we are prepared this time.
Apr 02nd, 2014 - 09:18 pm - Link - Report abuse 0i think some minefields were laid and marked correctly.
Apr 03rd, 2014 - 09:40 am - Link - Report abuse 0Unforuntatly in the panic caused by thr collapse of the mighty argentian defence when comfronted by lone lost cubscout.
Unmarked minefields were laid along with mines that are very difficult to detect hence the problem. Mines are very easy to physically lay what takes time and skill is marking the location of said mines to be able to remove them afterwards. Its an utter bitch of a job and that was on excercise is the uk ,in the falklands with live mines and conscripts the job would be a nightmare.
“Mining fields is a job which he described as demanding 'extreme concentration' with ”
Apr 03rd, 2014 - 05:54 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Unavailable to his sort who take a siesta.
“Although Dorrego alleges he quickly became aware that defeat was round the corner”
The clue was in the shelling possibly, even when Galteiri was telling his men they were still winning on the 13th June.
And the lines of white flags streaming off the hillside was also a big clue-naturally as the Brits were a top NATO force, Dorrego was surprised to see it was his side that was surrendering-doh!
“if the blockade imposed by the British towards the end of the conflict had continued a few more days, we would have starved”.
'We' meaning the Argy officers-your conscripts already were starving, you prat even when there were plenty of stockpiled rations in Stanley.
”However the British suspended mine clearance to avoid Argentina from appealing to international military agreements“
Really? I was told by several EOD officers that it was because it was safer to leave the mines than to clear them at the time. They reckoned some methods of clearance would blow many unexploded mines further outside the marked minefields creating more problems.
”looking for some understanding so that we can share with the Islanders as a community, but that will demand at least another three decades”.
He's a bit more realistic than most Argies who believe in never land , but 30 years is a tad optimistic because the Argies have now enraged about 3 generations of islanders rather than just one.
And the more they sneep the Islanders (excuse the Staffordshirish) the more remote their chances of getting anything (even trade) with the Islands.
@22 With what?!? They cannot project far out of their own harbor without falling over like a cruise liner, let alone make it to a Falklands beachhead. At best they can try another “Condor”-style passive aggressive stunt, possibly on the oil assets at sea and then pretend to be a victim.
Apr 04th, 2014 - 02:52 pm - Link - Report abuse 0If you plot the frequency of announcements like this 'landmine story' you can see the ebb and flow of Argentinian propaganda campaigns.
Apr 04th, 2014 - 08:33 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Filmus-the new has to earn his stripes ... this is the closest he can get to an Argentinian tour-de-force.
But why just at this time?
CFK is pressing the buttons wherever she goes right now; she is preparing the ground for something.
@ 8 La Patria
Apr 05th, 2014 - 07:59 pm - Link - Report abuse 0who wrote: “the overwhelming majority of the Argentine conscripts didn't but were forced to.
Forget about the rights and wrongs of the conflict.....Put yourself in their shoes......forced by a military dictatorship to go to a cold, wet, foreign place”
Oh!?!
Tell us what this film shows.
Galtieri ovacionado en Plaza de Mayo el 2 de Abril de 1982
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xqwNsmzCbM
@25 With what?!?
Apr 10th, 2014 - 07:19 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Specially trained super-Gauchos dropped from rubber bouncy people pods dropped at low level from the wing of a Pampers Jet?
I can't work out how the Jet gets all the way to the Falklands but that's their problem.
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