'Like Eva Peron and Maradona the Islands are part of us.'

I was a soldier doing national service at the time. One year of national service was obligatory. I was near the town of Puerto Argentino in the Islands, near Stanley, and my work involved looking after the maps and topographical diagrams. I did the mathematical calculations to work out the frequency and the angles for the canons to fire towards the front line where the British troops were.

In Argentina there was a military dictatorship in government, who demanded that eighteen-year-olds completed one year of national service. On the one hand there were professional soldiers, and on the other hand there were citizens who were just obeying the law and doing their national service.

It wasn't a question of volunteering to go, the truth is that most of the soldiers in the Falklands war weren't there by choice.

Mistakes all round

Until 1982 there had always been a direct link between the Argentinians and the Islanders. The majority of the people in the Falkland Islands studied in Buenos Aires, or would come to visit the doctor or the dentist. They got their food, gas and coal from us. Even their post came through Argentina, and the only flight out of the islands was with our state airline.

With the conflict all of this was lost, the relationship between the continent and the Islands deteriorated, and the links between the soldiers and the islanders became distant.

I think the war of 1982 was a mistake all round. It was a matter of the military dictatorship using an emotive issue which struck a cord with Argentinians - reclaiming sovereignty of the Falkland Islands - for political ends.

The reasons for going to war were very thin. There was a direct link with the islands, and which is no longer there since we lost the war, and it needs to be fixed. For me, it was the dictator Galtieri (pictured below) and the Argentinian Junta who were in power since 1973 who made the mistake to invade and to take a cause, like nationalism, against the British forces for political means.

When I think about the twenty-fifth anniversary, I don't think of it as a celebration, rather as a moment of reflection and analysis, first about what happened to us as a country, and second as a homage to all those who died on the islands in a conflict which should never have happened.

Life after the war

In Argentina as in the UK, many veterans have had a hard time adjusting to life after the War.

It's a problem which I look at from a human point of view. You try to be a visionary, a 'Rambo', someone who people admire for your acts of heroism, but what happens when you return home to face neglect and indifference? It's terrible. In Argentina it was even more cruel, perhaps, because we lost and we were at the beginning of the long road to democracy.

Everyone wanted to forget about anything associated with the terrible military dictatorship and the Falklands War. Within this silence it was like we'd been forgotten about. Thankfully the book I wrote and the film provoked a huge, intense debate in my country, forcing us to look at ourselves, and analyse what had happened to our society as a result of the war, and what happened to all the soldiers who didn't know where to turn as a consequence of this indifference.

I don't think war ever serves any purpose.

Argentina can achieve rapprochement through dialogue and peaceful means to reclaim what has become a question of politics. It goes beyond the people living on the islands: there have been diplomatic issues between Argentina and the UK since the British Empire invaded some islands which didn't belong to them back in 1833.

Argentina's attempt to reclaim the Falkland Islands should have been through international diplomacy, because the islands belong to us and it's Argentinian territory. It shouldn't have been through violence and war, and definitely not through a military dictatorship who manipulated the cause to try to stay in power.

With this in mind I can't celebrate the twenty fifth anniversary of the Falklands war.

Diplomatic means

For Argentinians there's no question: the islands are part of our identity, just like Maradona and Eva Peron.They're symbols of Argentina, just like the tango, and this sentiment is taught in schools from a very young age. There isn't an Argentinian town or city where you won't find a square or a street with the name "Las Malvinas".

There are monuments and reminders of the war everywhere, not just of what happened twenty five years ago, but of what is part of our territory. From this perspective there are feelings of protest, of hope and of recovering what's ours.

These feelings are evident in young people too, whether they're worried about the situation, or question it.

A few days ago I was in the Islands and they were worried about a new invasion and more violence, and that just isn't going to happen ever again. It's absurd and ridiculous to think that Argentina is on the verge of invading the islands again after the war last time.

We need to find a new way, and look again at rekindling the dialogue which was lost in 1982. As a society, Argentina is changing, we're a different country now to that of 1982. I think we're a stable, credible country now, and we'd have much more support at an international level to continue this struggle to regain the islands, and not just from the other countries in Latin America, but throughout the world.

But not through violence, and not without respecting the views of the people who live on the Falkland Islands at the moment.

About Edgardo Esteban

Edgardo Esteban wrote an autobiography about his experience during the 1982. It was turned into an award-winning film called 'Blessed by Fire' ('Iluminados por el fuego') in 2005. The image at the top of this article is taken from the film.

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