Aftermath of Violence: Coming to Terms with the Legacy of the Malvinas/Falklands War (1982)

Argentina waged only one war against a foreign power during the XX century: the short-lived Falklands/Malvinas war of 1982. Barely two decades later, hardly anyone outside of Argentina remembers it. By 1982 the embattled military junta that had been in power since 1976 was seriously weakened by internal and external pressures over human-rights violations, a weak economy and demands for free elections. The war lasted only 74 days, with a roundly humiliating defeat for the Argentine Junta and the Argentine military. While the outcome of the war was predictable, the country’s enormous support for the Junta’s decision to invade and occupy the islands was both surprising and, in retrospect, deeply troubling. Large crowds gathered in the streets, chanting their support to the junta’s decision to recuperate the Malvinas. Groups from both the left and the right lent their support to the Malvinas’ cause publicly and loudly. Even those large sectors that claimed political neutrality in the increasingly tense disagreements over the dictatorship’s tactics celebrated the government’s decision to take the symbolically-loaded Malvinas by force.

During the war, the Argentine nation came together in a frenzied display of patriotism that extended across the political spectrum from right to left. This united popular front over the war made it impossible for those who disagreed with the decision to invade the islands to do so without feeling ostracized or unpatriotic. Beatriz Sarlo later admitted the impossible position of anyone who was critical of the war by noting the deep alienation she felt from her countrymen during these traumatic months: “Malvinas es el hecho más traumático de mi existencia, porque fue uno de los dos momentos en que la dictadura obtuvo un apoyo de masas [...me sentí] completamente ajena al país en el cual estaba viviendo” (Goldgel and Ramos 44).

After the 74-day long conflict came to an end, the initial explosion of nationalistic pride quickly subsided and Argentines were soon faced with the profound aftereffects of their country’s defeat. The war had equally momentous consequences for England, though of a much different sort. Prime Minister Thatcher’s management of the war helped her secure a second term in the 1983 elections, even when England was facing an anemic economic recovery and dealing with rising unemployment. A quarter-century later, England’s Imperial War Museum (IWM) in London would remember the war stripped of the political undertones that surrounded it in 1982. The commemorative exhibition of the Falklands reignited the curiosity of the English public, after 25 years of (almost total) oblivion.

There is no question that the Malvinas/Falkland defeat marked a watershed in Argentina’s disavowal of the dictatorial Junta and its recognition of the need for political change. Within months of the war, the Junta would be forced to step down after seven years of dictatorial rule. Although, as some historians note, the process of re-democratization had already gotten under way before the war through a series of pacts and agreements intended to lead to open and elections, the crisis of legitimacy unleashed by the Junta’s military ineptitude over the Malvinas invasion and the subsequent war caused the transition to happen by “collapse.”¹ Moreover, a sense of profound betrayal by their government turned new segments of the population against Galtieri and the Junta. During the Malvinas war, the Junta targeted a new group of victims other than their citizens: their drafted soldiers. Navy and army officers, all direct supporters of the dictatorship, used torture and disappearance to punish anyone suspected of deserting or undermining orders. In this respect, as would later became known, the war-torn territory of the islands became yet another space for the military government to practice their brand of state-sponsored terror.

The invasion radically changed how Argentines had long felt about the islands. In the Argentine imagination, the islands had been seen as a blank slate upon which to inscribe a territorial national identity. After 1982, however, they could no longer serve as a symbol of national...