Suicide plagues Argentine veterans of Falklands conflict By Veronica Sardon

dpa German Press Agency Published: Tuesday March 27, 2007

Buenos Aires- Argentina lost 649 of its soldiers in the
Falklands War of 1982 - but another 300 survivors have since taken
their own lives amidst government neglect and mistreatment.
Half of the 10,000 to 12,000 soldiers sent to the 74-day war were
young conscripts, some with just days of prior training to fight the
top notch Britain's armed forces just as southern hemisphere autumn
had settled across the chilly the South Atlantic.

Hunger, cold and damp plagued the conscripts who were inadequately
clothed for such April conditions - factors that historians consider
to have been almost as effective as British bombs in defeating
Argentina. In some cases, the conditions were worsened through
mistreatment by superiors.

Badly armed, hundreds died in combat. Even more have suffered the
effects of post-traumatic stress disorder and post-war abandonment by
the country for which they risked their lives.

When they returned in defeat, the conscripts suffered not only
from a two-tier system that gave veteran privileges only to the
professional soldiers, but also from a tide of public disdain that
washed across the country after the military dictatorship lost the
war.

To make a living and bring their cause closer to their fellow
citizens, some conscript veterans even make and sell small national
symbols on Argentine streets and trains. They are a constant presence
on the streets of the cities.

Falklands veteran Luis Alberto Lopresti, who committed suicide in
1999, wrote in his farewell note: "I want to return with my comrades.
I do not want to be a nuisance to my family or to society."

Former conscript and veteran leader Roberto Piccardi told
Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that just as Argentina was not prepared
to go to war against Britain, it was also not prepared for the return
of thousands of young, traumatized veterans.

Neither the ailing Argentine democracy of 1982 nor the
young democracy that emerged in the following year - precipitated by
the military defeat - were up to the task at hand, Piccardi noted.

"You find that unfortunately when you return, nobody supports you,
there is no health care, you have no income, you have few chances of
finding a job, because precisely for having gone through an abnormal
situation it is very normal that you feel bad," he recalled.

Piccardi estimated that 300 to 320 men committed suicide upon
their return in this mixture of helplessness and post-war trauma.

Conscripts who fought in the Falklands were denied the possibility
to retire as military personnel and receive the relevant pension and
health care. For nearly 11 years afterwards, they received no money
or medical attention as war veterans, and for many years after that
the amount was almost negligible.

That treatment compares to the support given other military
veterans - a pension equivalent to three times the minimum wage,
around 450 dollars a month.

Journalist Horacio Verbitsky noted in his 2002 book Malvinas, la
ultima batalla de la Tercera Guerra Mundial (Falklands, the Last
Battle of the Third World War) that Lopresti's farewell letter echoed
the feelings of his fellow soldiers.

"This says nothing good about the country which lit up with joy
during the war and then immediately turned its back on those who
suffered for it at the frontline," said Verbitsky. "April's Falklands
fervour" gave way to "June's anti-military furore," he wrote.

The government has made a limited attempt to catch up with the
needs of Falklands veterans - but those efforts have harvested scorn
from writers like Eduardo van der Kooy, co-author of another book,
Malvinas, la trama secreta (Falklands, the Secret Plot, 2007.)

He claims that 27,000 pensions are being paid to Falklands
veterans, even though only 10,000 to 12,000 went to war.

"There is something there which is not right ... and I feel that
it is not right because the whole (Falklands War) story was not
right," he told dpa.

General Leonardo Galtieri, whose regime collapsed within days
after the June 14 admission of defeat, was later found guilty for
mis-planning of the Falklands war, and sentenced by a military court
to 12 years in jail.

"The military plan was conceived with the idea that the
recuperation of the islands would force a negotiation, and not a
military answer on the part of Great Britain," van der Kooy says.

© 2006 - dpa German Press Agency

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