Page 111 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo II

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aCta
The Argentine military government in the Malvinas/
Falkland Islands during the 1982 war”

ALEjANDro AMENDoLArA*

“Malvinas was a battlefield on Argentine territory and its inhabitants, regardless of their
origin, were not enemies” 1

“But the efforts of the Argentines to be friendly and obliging in no way concealed or com-
pensated for the fact that we were a country under enemy occupation” 2

the south atLantic confLict, apriL-june 1982

In April 1982, Argentina and Britain went to war for a sovereignty dispute over a group
of sparsely populated islands in the South Atlantic. The Malvinas archipelago, located some
500 kilometers away from Argentina, stretches over some 250 kilometers West to East, and
125 kilometers North to South, comprising two major islands (Soledad/east Falkland and
Gran Malvina/West Falkland) and more than 200 smaller islands covering a surface of ap-
proximately 12,500 square meters. There are practically no trees and, except for the 600,000
sheep, the resources for survival were scarce in 1982. About 900 of its 1,800 inhabitants of
those days were mainly concentrated in the capital (Port Stanley/Puerto Argentino during the
Argentine occupation) and the rest lived in farms spread out in the rural areas (see Annex 1).
At that time the services in the capital were dimensioned for some 2,000 people. The islan-
ders are also known as “kelpers”, after a typical seaweed, the ”kelp”, which covers great ex-
tensions of the coastline. There were scarcely any roads, except in the vicinity of the capital.
It is quite a challenge to move around on a terrain mainly covered by peat and rocky rivers.
The archipelago lived under total logistic dependence of the continent, for which reason,
in order to mitigate the effects of isolation and as part of the diplomatic negotiations, the
Argentine authorities were taking charge of certain tasks under the 1971 Communications
Agreement (transportation of cargo and passengers by air and sea), and facilities of access
3
to hospitals in the continent, together with the granting of scholarships to study in Argenti-
na, all measures that were a significant contribution to improve the living conditions of the
islanders.
One hundred and forty-nine years after the Argentine government and population were

(*) Lawyer; attendant in the History of War master’s degree at the Argentine Army High School of War (“ESG”);
Member of the ESG Research Group on Military History for the topic of South American War History. The
Author has conducted many conferences and published several articles in national newspapers and speciali-
zed Argentine and British magazines about the South Atlantic Conflict of 1982.
1 Commodore (R) Guillermo Vicente Mendiberri, Chief A-2 Intelligence of the Malvinas Air Component, in
Palazzi, Rubén Oscar, “Malvinas – Otras historias”, page164
2 Harry Bagnall, Anglican Church priest at Port Stanley, in Bagnall, Harry; “Faith under Fire”, page 79
3 Joint Declaration dated 1 January 1971.