Susannes Folksong-Notizen
 [1988:] As an avid stamp
collector when I was a little boy I was, for some reason, fascinated
by the Falkland Islands, and I remember first hearing the name
Malvinas during the fifties and then approximately every ten years
after that. It still astonishes me that during the 1982 war there
was so very little, if any, public questioning of the basic notions
which Parliament and the press propagated. The first war that
England had watched on TV may have had something to do with it, and
I certainly shall not forget the utterly toneless briefings of that
M o D official night after night. I'm sure he's always existed and
that the armed forces have always made use of him. I'm equally sure
that the laughing, cheering and banging of drums that saw off the
task force was replaced in fairly short order by [...] doubt, misery
and torture [...]. (Notes Martin Carthy, 'Right of Passage')
[1995:] [Mrs Thatcher's account
of the Falklands War is] history with little nuance or complication,
whether political or moral. The Argentine invasion of the islands
was completely unforeseeable (she set up a royal commission
afterwards which confirmed it, so that's that); the British were
defending 'our honour as a nation'; while our wider duty was to
ensure that Aggression did not Succeed, and that international law
be not flouted. But the war also sprang from - and celebrated - Mrs
Thatcher's nature, and her resolution. When the Argentine Fleet set
off to invade the Falklands, the second-thoughting Defence Minister
[John Nott] gave her the feeble official view that, once seized, the
islands could not be retaken. 'This was terrible, and totally
unacceptable. [...] Not while I was Prime Minister.' She has to kick
a few peaceniks into line, including her Foreign Secretary, Francis
Pym, who shows wobbliness and a disproportionate interest in
diplomatic solutions; and she is willing to threaten resignation to
get her way with the War Cabinet. Staunch support comes from Caspar
Weinberger, Laurens van der Post, and Francis Mitterrand [...] but
it is, essentially, Maggie versus the Argies. Much of this is comic
strip simplification. The Falklands, with its depressed
company-store economy, tiny population, and militarily insufficient
runway, held no interest for the British except perhaps among
philatelists. We had been trying to unload the islands for decades,
efforts which culminated in Nicholas Ridley's 'lease-back' proposal
of 1980. This was thrown out by the House of Commons; but still, in
classic playground fashion, we did not really want, or think about
wanting, the islands until someone else did. [...] Nor was Mrs
Thatcher at all in the valiant isolation she now chooses to
describe. The House of Commons fell immediately and noisily behind
the Prime Minister, not least after a key intervention she fails to
acknowledge: that of Michael Foot, old-socialist leader of the
Labour Party and, in his own words, an 'inveterate peacemonger', who
came out for war. So did most of the nation: the British are still a
bellicose race, and they rather like fighting, preferably by
themselves and in a good-versus-evil struggle as sketched by the
Prime Minister. For once, something was happening out there, the TV
pictures were good, and xenophobia could be indulged. [Mrs Thatcher] doesn't mention the
basic statistics of the war. One thousand eight hundred islanders
were liberated from the Argentines (who brought not torture and
death but colour TV sets to cheer the crofters' firesides), at a
cost of just over 1000 deaths, 255 of them British, plus countless
modern maimings. Try doing the sum on a different war: imagine that
the reinvasion of France in 1944 had cost 23 million lives, 6
million of them Allied. Would we rejoice so much and praise our
leaders? Freedom is indivisible, politicians like to say, but of
course it isn't; on the contrary, it falls into strict categories.
It was lucky for the islanders that they were white, just as it was
lucky for the Kuwaitis [in 1991] that they exported oil rather than
Turkish delight. [...] Today, the islanders are no nearer
the hearts of the British than before; a political solution has been
endlessly deferred; and the enlarged airstrip, which we once
couldn't afford, has now been built, to the ultimate benefit of the
Argentines. [...] In fact, the cost of the campaign, plus that of
securing the Falklands to the end of the eighties, was upward of 2
million pounds per islander. All this, though, is politically
irrelevant. However impressive the feat of arms, its true and
lasting significance for the British was as a domestic metaphor.
[...] Hence the explicit linkage Mrs Thatcher made immediately after
the war in a speech at Cheltenham: 'We have ceased to be a nation in
retreat. We have instead a newfound confidence - born in the
economic battles at home and tested and found true 8000 miles away.'
(Julian Barnes, review of Margaret Thatcher, 'The Downing Street Years', Letters From London 248f)
 [1998:] Nördlich der
Falklandinseln wird nach Erdöl gebohrt - das weckt neue
Begehrlichkeiten der Argentinier und schürt die Ängste der
Insulaner. Das letzte, was die Falkländer von den Argentiniern
vernahmen, war ein unsittliches Angebot: Bis zu einer Million Pfund,
bar auf den Tisch, versprach Staatspräsident Carlos Menem 1994
jedem Inselbewohner, falls die Bevölkerung sich bereit erkläre,
auf ihre britische Staatsbürgerschaft zu verzichten [...]. Die
Offerte hatte damals bei den Insulanern wahre Emotionsausbrüche
hervorgerufen: [...] Man sei und man bleibe britisch, die wichtigste
Straße in der Hauptstadt Port Stanley heiße nicht
umsonst "Margaret Thatcher Drive". Die Eiserne Lady hatte
nach der argentinischen Invasion 1982 das Leben von 255 britischen
und (mindestens) 746 argentinischen Soldaten geopfert, um die
Falklands für die Krone zu retten. Außerdem das Leben von
drei einheimischen Frauen, die durch eine fehlgeleitete Granate aus
den eigenen Reihen getötet wurden.
Die Abfuhr [...] war nicht nur
angemessen patriotisch, sie war auch wirtschaftlich richtig. Denn
die erdverbundenen Insulaner können auf ungleich fettere Beute
hoffen: theoretisch 16 Millionen Pfund Sterling für jeden -
Mann, Frau und Kind. Soviel käme zusammen, wenn die Ölfelder
im Norden der Inselgruppe wirklich etwa 100 Milliarden Pfund
abwerfen, wie Analysten in der Londoner City schätzen. 40
Prozent aller Erlöse flössen dann als Lizenzgebühren
und Steuern an die Falkländer zurück. Die Regierung in
London, die sich vom Nordsee-Öl insgesamt 150 Milliarden Pfund
gesichert hat (was vor allem die Schotten beklagen), versichert:
"Alle Öleinkünfte gehören den Falkländern."
[...] Eigentlich könnten die
Falkländer auch ohne den reichen Ölsegen zufrieden sein.
Ihr Leben hat sich seit dem Krieg deutlich verbessert. Eine neue
Verfassung hat ihnen demokratischere Verhältnisse und eine
weitgehende Selbstverwaltung beschert; eine Bodenreform schuf die
Voraussetzungen, ortsfremde Großgrundbesitzer, vor allem die
Londoner Falkland Island Company und ihre Aktionäre, zu
enteignen und das Land unter den Einheimischen aufzuteilen. Frau
Thatchers anachronistischer Kolonialkrieg hat den Falkländern
einen richtigen Wohlfahrtsstaat hinterlassen. Neue Straßen
verbinden auch entlegene Gehöfte mit der Hauptstadt.
Gesundheitsversorgung, selbstverständlich kostenlos, und die
neue Schule sind vom Feinsten; die Hälfte der Bevölkerung
arbeitet in der Verwaltung, und alle Bewohner haben unter bestimmten
Bedingungen Anspruch auf kostenlose Auslandsreisen. [...]
Mit Skepsis sehen die Falkländer
dem November entgegen, wenn erstmals seit dem Krieg ein
argentinischer Präsident zum Staatsbesuch nach London reist.
Sie fürchten eine Einigung auf ihre Kosten.
Für das vergangene
Wochenende war auf der britischen Luftwaffenbasis Aldershot das
erste große Treffen von Falkland-Veteranen geplant - komplett
mit Auftritt der Falkland-Siegerin Thatcher und der Enthüllung
eines Mahnmals für die Kriegstoten.
Von sich aus haben sie deshalb
schon mal versprochen, die 70 Millionen Pfund zu erstatten, die die
Verteidigung der Inseln die britischen Steuerzahler jährlich
kostet - vorausgesetzt natürlich, daß das viele Öl
auch wirklich fließt. (Spiegel, 15. Juni) [1998:] He used to swish along
the avenues of Buenos Aires in escorted motorcades. Now former
Generalissimo Leopoldo Galtieri, ex-dictator of Argentina and
sometime conquistador of the Falklands, drives an ageing Ford
Escort. [...] The man behind the wheel [old, with a shock of white
hair and a broken nose,] once refused to take calls from President
Ronald Reagan until the Argentine invasion of the Falklands was
under way. Six days later, on 6 April 1982, Galtieri stood on the
balcony of the Casa Rosada (Pink House) and took the salute of
150,000 people packed into the Plaza de Mayo. He had taken back Las
Malvinas. Then Mrs Thatcher and the ghost of the British Empire
struck back.
Today few officials will
acknowledge Galtieri's existence, even fewer want to talk about
Argentina's dim-witted version of Chile's General Augusto Pinochet.
Amnestied for his role in the Falklands War and never found guilty
for his part in the country's Dirty War, the politics of forgetting
has meant that Galtieri has been airbrushed from the official
history of the country. The only observation people volunteer on
Galtieri is that he used to be a drunk who downed a bottle or two of
Black Label a day. [...] He lives with only [his wife] Lucía
for protection in a flat in an ugly brown block, where he is
part-time janitor and in constant fear of harrassment. [...]
Galtieri was a junior partner in
the military junta during the worst season of the Dirty War, which
claimed around 15,000 [Argentinian] people murdered or
'disappeared'. But he never spoke out against it and he accepted
power when he was offered it. [...] 'He was not stupid, but he was
not a clever man', said Gustavo Figueroa, who during the Falklands
War was the Chef de Cabinet to Foreign Minister Nicanor Costa
Méndez. 'To be fair, it is true to say that Galtieri was
never in the top 10 of human rights abusers. But he did not speak
out. None of us did. And that is a criticism I make of myself.' On
the Falklands, he allows Galtieri a plea of misjudgment. 'None of
the three-man junta which Galtieri headed ever believed the British
would ever send a fleet. Towards the end, he wanted to pull us out,
but he didn't have the wit to do it.' (John Sweeney, Observer, 1
Nov) [1999:] Bluff is Bluff Cove
which is on the Falklands, and the Iron Lady is an imaginary dance
that both sides were dancing. (Wally Macnow, www.mudcat.org, 22
June) See also Weston, Simon, Walking
Tall (Bloomsbury, London 1989 - story of a Falklands veteran who was
almost burned to death during the fighting and ended up badly
disabled and disfigured) [2000:] In the light of what followed, I blush to be reminded of my first thoughts. Yet, in the beginning, the dispatch of the task force did seem an extraordinary idea. [...] Thatcher was talking about fighting - going to war with horse, foot and guns in the year of our Lord 1982 - to recover some meaningless piece of real estate at the other side of the world. For God's sake. Take a pill. Lie down. The fever will pass. Flippant or not, that is how many people felt, including some at the summit of government and military command.
The Prime minister did not lie down, nor take a pill. The fever did not pass. Instead, the carriers Invincible and Hermes were ordered to sea, and sailed with their escorts on 5 April. 3 Commando Brigade, Royal Marines, was readied to embark for the South Atlantic. Sea Harrier and Sea King squadrons were earmarked for service. The Royal Navy's two assault landing ships, those elderly veterans Fearless and Intrepid, prepared for a role no soldier or sailor could have imagined they would ever fulfil in earnest. (Max Hastings, Going to the Wars 270 f.)
Many, perhaps most, men in the task force took a sardonic view of the merits of the cause for which we were going to war. They knew they were embarked on a throwback of history, in consequence of a huge political failure at home. I saw no Thatcher-worship in the South Atlantic, only a powerful professional commitment to doing the job (Max Hastings, Going to the Wars 295) [2002:] What Thatcher needed in 1981-82 was diversions. At the time she was the most unpopular prime minister since records began, but she proceeded to make her name by bashing the unions, privatising, and 'busying giddy minds with foreign quarrels' in the Falklands War. (William Keegan, Observer 24 Mar) [2003:] Er war einer der meistgehassten argentinischen Generäle, die das Land während der Diktatur von 1976 bis 1983 beherrschten. Denn der eitle Offizier war nicht nur für Folter und Mord an zahlreichen Oppositionellen verantwortlich. Er schickte Tausende schlecht ausgerüstete Wehrpflichtige als Kanonenfutter in den Falkland-Krieg, wo viele jämmerlich starben. Der General hatte sich verkalkuliert, als er am 2. April 1982 die Inseln besetzen ließ: Er rechnete nicht damit, dass die Briten das Archipel mit Waffengewalt zurückerobern würden. Am 14. Juni räumte der angetrunkene General mit schleppender Stimme die Niederlage ein, seither zeichneten Argentiniens Karikaturisten ihn meistens mit einem Whiskeyglas in der Hand. Im Juli vergangenen Jahres wurde er wegen seiner Verbrechen während der Militärdiktatur unter Hausarrest gestellt. Leopoldo Galtieri starb am 12. Januar in Buenos Aires an Bauchspeicheldrüsenkrebs. (Spiegel, 20. Januar) more:
http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadID=10093
http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=18672 See also
20th anniversary of the Falklands War
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1906000/1906008.stm
First day of the war
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1899000/1899334.stm
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