Falklands veteran defends UK stand
A veteran of the Falklands War has defended Britain’s decision to post Prince William to the area and send out a Navy warship.
Argentina is to make a formal complaint to the United Nations Security Council after accusing the UK of “militarising” their long dispute over the Falkland Islands.
President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner said the UK’s decision posed a risk to “international security”.
Her announcement comes amid simmering tensions between London and Buenos Aires in the run-up to the 30th anniversary of the 1982 Falklands war, which saw Argentinian forces invade the archipelago in a row over its sovereignty.
Des Wallington, 50, of Corby Road, Weldon, said: “The accusation is totally ridiculous.
“It makes me angry.
“Once again Agentina is in trouble and this is a way of saving face with its people.”
Mr Wallington, who now runs his own catering company and is chairman of the Weldon branch of the Royal British Legion, served as a 20-year-old cook on HMS Antrim which was bombed during the conflict.
During action he had to abandon his cooking duties and served as a sick bay assistant.
He said: “I took part when we commemorated the 25th anniversary of the conflict and it is right that we mark the 30th anniversary. The accusations being made against Britain are disgraceful.”
Ms Kirchner said it was difficult to see how “the sending of an immense and modern destroyer accompanied by the Royal heir who we would have liked to see in civilian clothes and not in military uniform” was not a show of purposeful military strength by the UK.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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malvinasmarch
Sunday, February 12, 2012 at 04:24 AMI don't believe the current "show" by Cristina Kirchner will lead to war. The Kirchner government is trying to distract people from the current runaway inflation that will soon begin to bite the Argentine people. Beside thanks to the military cutbacks of the Menem and Kirchner governments, Argentina has no tank landing ship left to be able to disembark a battalion of marines with their amphibious vehicles. Nor do I believe the Argentine Army 4th Airborne Brigade has enough airforce C-130, F-27 and army G.222 transports left to drop even a single parachute battalion on the islands. And most importantly, I don't think any of the Argentine officers and NCOs would want to die for the Kirchner government that glorifies the Montoneros and ERP terrorists that started the Dirty War and caused over 13,000 killings, woundings and kidnappings all in the name of Marxism. Cristina Kirchner has several ex-Montoneros in power and even plans to formally "welcome back home" in 2012 Mario Firmenich the founder of the Montoneros and plans to exclude in the formal ceremonies marking the 30th anniversary of the war, all officers and NCOs who fought in the conflict. Instead she will concentrate of the official storyline of the leftwing ex-conscript veterans group CECIM that claims the army officers and NCOs didn't feed the conscripts and that the officers and NCOs ran away at the start of the battles. CECIM ofcourse presents a distorted picture of the field punishments carried out against the conscripts for abandoning their posts, necessary in wartime and ex-war correspondent Nicolas Kasanzew has lambasted CECIM for their lying addiction on several occasions on nighttime television and talkback radio.
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