VARIOUS: Argentine war veterans struggle with memory of ill-fated Falklands (Malvinas) war

Record ID: 449203

  • Title: VARIOUS: Argentine war veterans struggle with memory of ill-fated Falklands (Malvinas) war
  • Date: 14th June 2007
  • Summary: (BN17) LA PLATA, ARGENTINA (RECENT) (REUTERS) LAS MALVINAS EX-COMBATANTS CENTRE LOGO VARIOUS OF EX-SOLDIERS SITTING IN CENTRE (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) LAS MALVINAS VETERAN ERNESTO ALONSO, SAYING: "In these first 10 years of democracy in Argentina there have been no (government) schemes. They rarely listen to us. They don't understand what we are asking for. And it has brought us to the point where, unfortunately, we now have the same amount of suicides as the same amount of people that died on the islands. And this is partly the result of how we have been treated. We didn't have assistance, in fact it was totally opposite. They kept us hidden, they tried to silence us and it resulted in this situation that is so deplorable."
  • Embargoed: 29th June 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: History
  • Reuters ID: LVAHR69XZ05O34KIVON7AY5XLZZ
  • Story Text: Twenty-five years since Britain and Argentina went to war in the Falklands (Malvinas), the islands are far from forgotten by Argentines - even less by those that were touched by it directly.
    Some 326 Argentines were killed in land combat during the 10-week war. A further 300 died when the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano sunk after being reportedly hit by British submarine torpedoes.
    But many say the tragedy didn't stop there.
    Maria Laura Capparelli married a Falklands (Malvinas) veteran, who she met two years earlier in a riotous party celebrating Argentina's 1983 return to democracy.
    They had three children, and Maria says her husband Jorge Martire was a respected and well-liked man.
    But in 1992, Jorge took a gun into a café, ordered two coffees and then took his own life.
    He had been troubled mentally for months, and had just been released from a psychiatric ward.
    Maria Laura says she has no doubt it was the war that had tormented her husband.
    "I think that the men have a lot of pain inside and only they know what they lived through. It is not easy to bury a dead person and then what - you are going to just turn around like it was nothing? I think that nobody forgets that. It is terrible. Or to tormented by the cold and you don't have any food and you warn up a bit of water to have something to drink. I think that happened to Jorge and he couldn't keep going. It was like he needed to find an internal peace. But he loved me and he loved Florencia, his daughter, too. It wasn't that he didn't love us but that he couldn't show it anymore," she told Reuters recently in the inland city of La Plata.
    Argentina's decision to land in the British territory on April 2, 1982, is widely seen as a mistake by the discredited military dictatorship ruling at the time.
    Most Argentines now believe it nothing more than desperate attempt by the military regime to retain its grip on power.
    But the Argentine army was badly equipped, irregularly fed and mostly made up of young conscripts and they surrendered after 10 weeks.
    When the soldiers returned to the mainland, they were refused official recognition and paid only meagre government pensions.
    Many of them face long-term unemployment and depression.
    Hundreds turned to suicide. In fact, 350 ex-soldiers have taken their lives - more than the number of men who died in direct combat.
    "In these first 10 years of democracy in Argentina there have been no (government) schemes. They rarely listen to us. They don't understand what we are asking for. And it has brought us to the point where, unfortunately, we now have the same amount of suicides as the same amount of people that died on the islands. And this is partly the result of how we have been treated. We didn't have assistance, in fact it was totally opposite. They kept us hidden, they tried to silence us and it resulted in this situation that is so deplorable," said veteran Ernesto Alonso of the veteran's social club called Las Malvinas Ex-Combatants Centre.
    In recent years some veterans groups have held vigils and protests in order to call for higher pensions and access to psychiatric services.
    They said they were fed-up with having to beg or hawk trinkets on buses and trains just to get by.
    War veteran psychologist Alberto Dupen says for many veterans suicide is another way of calling out their plight to the world.
    "At some point in time all of them have wished for death and many of those that returned feel guilty to continue living when they left (men) behind on the Islands. It is well known when a person decides to kill himself they don't think so much only in their own death, but it is that they are pushing the guilt on everyone else or leaving behind a message," Dupen said.
    Worse than years of mistreatment from successive governments, the veterans also say they were stigmatised by all of Argentina for the ill-fated conflict.
    Many of them 12,000 Falkland (Malvinas) veterans were only students when they were sent to battle by the hard-drinking General Leopoldo Galtieri. On their return, many say they never felt again accepted by the community.
    "They were treated like they were crazy. When they got on to buses to sell badges they were told to get off the bus because they were ex-combatants. I remember that. They were treated like they were crazy. We failed as a society. The government doesn't always have the blame. The government has a lot of the blame, but society is guilty as well," Maria Laura said.
    These days Maria Laura tries to keep herself busy, but every now and again she still looks over the mementos of her late husband - including the notes he scribbled down before his death.
    In one, it simply says "I feel very bad" and has a drawing of a bomb crashing down on the words from above.
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