Falklands War: The Argentine People's Claim of Existing Sovereignty

On April 2, 1982, an Argentine military force landed in the Falkland Islands and raised the flag of the southern nation in Puerto Argentino.

In response, Great Britain sent a powerful fleet to reconquer this territory, thus starting a war that lasted 74 days, and ended with the Argentine surrender on June 14.

In the war, around 650 Argentine and 258 British soldiers lost their lives, in addition to almost 2,000 wounded on both sides before the capitulation.

The survivors bore the consequences: it is estimated that there were almost 1,700 injured and around 400 suicides among Argentine ex-combatants as a result.

The defeat precipitated the fall of the military dictatorship that governed Argentina, while in the United Kingdom the victory helped to re-elect Margaret Thatcher's government in 1983.

Even if they lost that contest and the administration of the Falkland Islands, in the South Atlantic, is still in charge of the United Kingdom, the collective memory of the southern country does not forget those confused days of 1982 and in every town in Argentina, however small, there is still at least one wall painted with the intricate silhouette of islands whose surface is filled with the flag, an image that is accompanied by the inscription: “The Malvinas are Argentines”.

Mazo News Team