On This Date in Latin America...The Malvinas War

Today, April 2, 2007, marks the 25th Anniversary of the Malvinas war (which England, America, and Canada in tradition with their imperialist/colonialist history, have continuously referred to as the Falklands War, while the rest of the hemisphere south of the Rio Grande continues to call it the Malvinas), in which Argentina and England went to war over a small chain of islands 300 miles East of the Argentine coast and 7871 miles from London, the seat of Margaret Thatcher's conservative government.

The war marked one of the least promising wars ever in terms of outcome - either Margaret Thatcher's conservatives would come out on top, or victory would go to an Argentine military dictatorship that had killed upwards of 20,000 of its own citizens (some estimate 30,000 people) in the previous 6 years.

Argentina, which had claimed ownership of the islands since 1820, felt that England's possession of the Malvinas since 1833 denied Argentina what was rightfully theirs. In an effort to continue the nationalistic state-building campaigns it had launched since the 1970s (including the 1978 Argentine World Cup victory), Argentina's military junta decided to invade the Malvinas, imagining the British would not respond or contest the issue.

However, facing challenges at home due to economic troubles, Thatcher seized upon the potential nationalistic support such an occupation could provide, and sent the British navy to defend the Malvinas. The British population quickly forgot about their economic woes, celebrating the ridiculous defense of the islands with a jingoistic air not seen since the loss of the British colonies in the mid-20th century. Thatcher's popularity immediately skyrocketed, aiding her and the Conservatives in 1983 elections (as well as gaining much moral and material support from Ronald Reagan in one of the few instances in which he broke with murderous Latin American military states).

The only good outcome of the war was what happend in Argentina in its wake. The military dictatorship, already in trouble due to growing economic problems and increasing pressure on human rights from groups like the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, had begun losing support and control in Argentina, but the undeniable failure of Argentina's military, both in its calculations that England would not seriously resist Argentina's maneuvers and then the military's great mishandling of the war when it arrived led to the almost total collapse of the military junta. The failed effort at nation-building blew up in their faces so severely, they suddenly found themselves completely removed from the executive branch as Raul Alfonsin became the first elected president since the 1970s. While removed from the executive branch, however, the military continued to exercise significant political sway over politicians, a fact which has explained the difficulty in gaining prosecution of those involved in torture and disappearances difficult up to today (thanks in no small part to Carlos Menem's absurd amnesty declaration shortly after his 1990 election).

In comparison to the havoc the Argentine military wreaked against its own population, the casualties of the Malvinas War were releatively small. After just under three months of fighting, 649 Argentines, 255 British troops, and three islanders had left this terrestrial coil between April 2 and the end to hostilities on June 14, 1982, when one of the more useless and stupid wars of the twentieth century finally came to a close.