LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Falklands War: Argentina
built 656 days ago
The possibility that war might not have been the last resort seems a strange one to raise in the case of a party reacting to aggression. However, this claim has been made in the case of the British response to the Argentine occupation of the Falkland Islands. It arises because of the time taken for Britain to assemble and deploy forces during which (it is suggested) there were possibilities for a non-violent resolution of the conflict which would have met the minimum demands of either side. In the initial phase, during which the British task force was approaching the Falkland Islands, negotiations between Britain and Argentina were brokered by United States Secretary of State, General Haig. Despite some British concessions on what had been on offer before the war began, these negotiations failed. It seems most likely that this was due to an Argentine belief that the British were bluffing and since Argentina was already in possession of the disputed territory, there was really no need for any concessions.
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In April 1982 Britain went to war with Argentina following the Argentine occupation of the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic. This work starts with the transcripts of old Government papers showing why Britain believes it has sovereignty of these remote islands since their discovery by the Elizabethan sailor John Davies and their mapping by Charles Darwin. It then includes the text of the Franks report which describes how the war came about and why the foreign secretary resigned. The book includes several House of Commons debates and speeches by the Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher, and the oficial account of the battle.
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In many ways, it was a strange war, quite unlike any other: a little over ten weeks from beginning to end. The Suez episode in 1956 was even shorter, but at least most British people had some idea where the Suez Canal was, but the Falklands? รข€“ somewhere off the coast of Scotland? was one initial reaction. To cut a long story short, the Falklands archipelago, a group of small islands some 400 miles into the south Atlantic Ocean from the east coast of Argentina had been uninhabited until the late 17th century, when, after initial British discovery in 1592, and naming as the Falkland Islands in 1690, in honour of Viscount Falkland, Acadians from French Canada settled and named them Isles Malouines after St Malo. In the following 140 years French, British and Spanish settlements co-existed and superseded each other, the (Spanish translating Isles Malouines into Islas Malvinas) until in 1833, after US intervention, Britain claimed undivided sovereignty and the islands began continuous habitation with people of British stock, sheep being introduced as a staple object of farming, and the population numbering some 1800 by 1982.
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On April 25, while the British task force was steaming 8,000 miles (13,000 km) to the war zone via Ascension Island, a smaller British force retook South Georgia island, in the process capturing one of Argentina's vintage diesel-electric submarines. On May 2 the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano was sunk outside the war zone by a British submarine. Following this controversial event, most other Argentine ships were kept distant from the conflict, but Argentine submarine action continued to threaten the British fleet. Meanwhile, the British naval force and the land-based Argentine air force fought intensive battles, during which the Argentines sank the HMS Sheffield and the container ship Atlantic Conveyor with Exocet air-to-sea missiles. In addition, two frigates and another destroyer were sunk and several other vessels damaged, but the majority of Argentine bombs did not detonate. Argentina ... failed to prevent the British from making an amphibious landing near Port San Carlos, on the northern coast of East Falkland, on May 21.
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An editorial in Clarín captured what appeared to be a melancholic mood - on the Argentine side - surrounding yesterday's war anniversary. "There are, one knows, severe obstacles," the paper's editorial stated. "Britain's firm 'no' to any opening-up of negotiations on the sovereignty issue, no matter who may be governing [in London]. Tony Blair has just admitted that he would have done the same thing as the ultraconservative Mrs. Thatcher - go to war....[T]his influences the visceral rejection by the 'kelpers' of any kind of Argentine intervention in the territory...." Clarín's editorial faults the United Nations for not calling for and supporting negotiations on the Falklands-sovereignty issue (which would involve which countries exactly, only the U.K. and Argentina, or a wider group of participants?). The newspaper's editorial recognizes, with what seems like a sigh, that the sovereignty issue evokes both the "consensus and the impotence of the Argentines," who appear to be marked by "more emotion than reality," and by more of a sense "of the past than of the future."
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The British captured some 11,400 Argentine prisoners during the war, all of whom were afterward released. Nearly 750 Argentine troops were killed--including 368 in the sinking of the General Belgrano--while Britain lost 256. Scores of Argentine aircraft of various types were destroyed, most while on the ground, and the British lost 10 Harrier jets and more than two dozen helicopters. Military strategists have debated key aspects of the conflict but have generally underscored the roles of submarines (both Britain's nuclear-powered vessels and Argentina's older, diesel-electric craft) and antiship missiles (both air-to-sea and land-to-sea types). The war ... illustrated the importance of air superiority--which the British had been unable to establish--and of advanced surveillance. Logistic support was vital as well, because the armed forces of both nations had operated at their maximum ranges.
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