“Our claim over Malvinas is so archaic as imperialism”
- Periodista:
- Sylvia Carol Branzei-Velasquez
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Malvinas is historian Federico Lorenz’ passion. In his book Las guerras por Malvinas (The Wars for Malvinas), he recalls when in 1982 he asked a group of friends at primary school: “Aren’t you sad due to our defeat in Malvinas?”
Since then, he has become one of the top experts in the issue. Though he supported some of the actions taken by the Kirchnerite administration, he has also maintained a critical stance, which made him confront publicly with Alicia Castro, the Argentine Ambassador to the UK.
“I started studying Malvinas because it was linked to the dictatorship. But it was also an excuse to study topics related to 1982 but also our collective conscious as a nation. For me, a breaking point was my first visit to the islands in 2007,” Lorenz told the Herald.
Malvinas is a hot issue because it involves two kinds of approaches: a jingoistic logic and also an idea of a popular cause. Where does the Kirchnerite administration stand?
The government policy toward Malvinas changed in 2008. In the last years, a superficial narrative has been crystallized, which clings to the popular ties that Malvinas has. During the first years of Kirchnerism, there was an effort to think Malvinas as part of our recent past. Some of us tried then to take all the progress made in issues related to our memory to Malvinas. The facts that the Malvinas war was produced by the dictatorship and that some officers are accused of crimes against humanity goes against a jingoistic narrative. But I think that Malvinas was functional to those in power for matters of domestic policy and somehow the same happens today. We saw that in the 30th anniversary of the war.
It was also useful for UK premier David Cameron, wasn’t it?
It was terribly useful for him. From a rhetorical point of view, we have done what they expected: to play the intransigent and aggressive role.
Why do you say the Kirchnerite policy on Malvinas changed in 2008?
Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner have always presented themselves as pro-Mal-vinas presidents, maybe because they were from Patagonia or for ideological reasons. I think that the radicalization of the narrative regarding Malvinas happened to meet other radicalization of conflicts between Kirchnerism and different agents. The government has always led epic battles against big adversaries, inevitably Malvinas had to appear.
From a geopolitical point of view, the government has resorted to the cooperation of the region. What’s your opinion?
It’s a positive action. Malvinas is a regional issue.
And what about the islanders?
It is hard to imagine how we, Argentines, think of negotiating with UK from a rhetorical position, excluding the islanders. I don’t have the solution. But I think it is quite contradictory with other positions we have maintained. If you think Malvinas is a regional issue, it’s paradoxical not to have a more modern approach. Somehow, our claim is as archaic as imperialism and we cannot hold that position.
A group of intellectuals holding an “alternative vision” also suggested including the islanders in the negotiations, though the government says they are an “implanted population.”
They behaved as the government, I think. For a domestic situation, they took the topic. They suggested analyzing the substantive issue and I agree as a matter of principle. We sponsor the reform of the Security Council because we are no longer in a Cold War background, so we should also start questioning the paradigms used by Argentina to build up its position. This is not easy, of course, Malvinas has ingredients that make it a popular cause and what’s more it is a lost war with hundreds of deaths.
Daniel Filmus will be sworn-in tomorrow as the head of Malvinas Secretariat. What can be expect?
If you take into account his role as a senator, just the same. It is fundamental to have that secretariat. I don’t think there is going to be any change. Any change would mean flexibility and Argentina holds an all-or-nothing position.
Including the Malvinas issue within a human rights paradigm is a difficult task if you consider, for instance, that the human rights movement was divided over the war...
And after it as well. The only organization that supported the former combatants was Adolfo Pérez Esquivel’s Service for Peace and Justice (SERPAJ). At that time, the former combatants had a huge problem: they were vindicating a war experience when society was repudiating the dictatorship. That’s something they have been purging so far. We have a pending debt with former combatants. Identifying the Argentine soldiers’ corpses in Malvinas is fundamental. We have to re-discuss this idea that concerning Malvinas we are all Argentine. Foreign policy cannot condition domestic policy in terms of revising our past.
Is it possible to compare the response that former combatants and survivors of the clandestine detention centres had from the rest of the society?
For the 20th anniversary of the coup, (Sociologist) Héctor Schmucler wrote that former combatants were living disappeared people. It is important to think why we had the Malvinas war, thinking it as a consequence of the dictatorship that ruled the country from 1976 to 1983. We should consider two things separately: the commitment of those who went to war, maybe because they were serving the compulsory military service, and those who before going to the war had already stained their hands with blood.
But is the social response comparable?
You can compare them as cohabitants of a certain time. It has to do with social conditions to listen. Some time ago, cases of abuses and crimes against humanity during the war emerged but those reports were also made by the former combatants in 1982, 1983, 1984. Why did nobody listen to them? One thing is connected to the other. Trials against dictatorship perpetrators gave the combatants the necessary elements to promote their claims.
Did the way of teaching Malvinas change?
The state has done much and I think it has changed. But there are also some conservative initiatives that are locally linked to how the war affected certain towns. In the 30th anniversary of the coup, we discussed at the Education Ministry if Malvinas should be included among the topics to be discussed. From a Buenos Aires point of view, it might not be a topic but in Chaco or Corrientes, it is more important than state terror.
What’s your opinion of the museum that is being built at the ESMA memorial?
For me, it was essential to take Malvinas to the ESMA memorial but I do not agree in making a claim for Malvinas at the memorial. There you should remember the killed soldiers. The idea of establishing a museum at the ESMA memorial was to link the war with the repression.
But how do you deal in that museum with the list of killed soldiers, which would also include war heroes and repressors?
State authorities should define the controversy. There are not two armed forces: there was one responsible for the repression and one that fought in Malvinas. The state should say that a person accused or convicted of human rights violations does not deserve any homage in spite of having fought in Malvinas war.
Why did so many former combatants commit suicide in Argentina and in the UK?
Because both countries faced a paradox. Even in the UK, after the victory, it was said that the war was a political manoeuvre and that has a negative effect in personal terms. In Argentina, it is connected to the fact that during the first five years after the war, the former combatants were wandering randomly.
@LucianaBertoia