MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Malvinas Veterans Office created by the Macri administration

The head of the Office will be a Malvinas war veteran, Colonel Jorge Zanela, and the new department will depend from the Strategy and Military Affairs Secretariat

Argentina has created a Coordination Office for Malvinas War Veterans, the first such office since the end of the 1982 conflict, when Argentine forces invaded the Falkland Islands and were defeated 74 days later.

According to the release the purpose of the Office is “to optimize in a unified, integral way to maximum institutional level, services for the former combatants”, a long standing demand from their organizations.

“The new Office will help the heroes of that conflict, as well as their relatives”, said a Ministry of Defense release.

The head of the Office will be a Malvinas war veteran, Colonel Jorge Zanela, and the new department will depend from the Strategy and Military Affairs Secretariat, a dependency of the Ministry of Defense.

The decision comes only three months before the end of president Mauricio Macri's four year mandate and the 27 October election, in which the opposition leader Alberto Fernandez seems to be the favorite to win.

The Malvinas War Veterans Coordination Office will manage the data base of war veterans and will assess them in a personal, virtual and telephone manner. It will also extend the War Veteran ID, which will coordinate with the Veterans Attention Program.

One of the active petitions from some organizations comes from former soldiers who are not recognized as Veterans, some 10.000 in total, because during the conflict they were stationed on the continent in Trelew, Comodoro Rivadavia and Rio Gallegos, from where troops and supplies were sent to the Falklands/Malvinas.

These members aspire to be given Veterans accreditation since they were responsible for the defense of the bases in mainland, and were being prepared for a major counterattack on the Islands.