#40years: everything you need to know about the MALVINAS WAR – YouTube
The year was 1982. The genocidal dictatorship was in its sixth year in disrepute and Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri was President. The economic crisis, unemployment and uneasiness of the working and middle classes undermined its legitimacy. Mothers and grandmothers were already marching asking about their missing loved ones. On March 30, as part of a series of escalating protests, a massive CGT march is brutally repressed, demonstrating a huge crisis.
Three days later, the military junta announces the landing of Argentine troops on the archipelago. “If they want to come, let them come, we will fight them”
In desperation, have the soldiers developed an anti-imperialist side? None of that. The dictatorship, intoxicated with business and supplies to the power capitals, formulated a shady plan: to station troops on the islands, not with the intention of going to war but only to “negotiate” with England. They flashed that because the US had been obedient to the US in surrendering, torturing and training other genocides in the region, they would arbitrate in their favor and that England did not want to start such a war. And they would gain popular support. These decadent genocides were not very bright as strategists and statesmen.
They were wrong about England. Then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher led a government in crisis. He found in Malvinas the perfect move to try to close ranks within England and also position himself as a power on a global scale.
They were also wrong about the US. The ideological affinity and the “favors” rendered would never outweigh the interests as imperialist powers. They could not allow a country like ours to dare to stand on their hands.
Out of all of this, the plan was a disaster. Of the roughly 10,000 deployed soldiers, 75% were children between the ages of 18 and 20 doing military service. They were left without a plan, poorly equipped and even tortured by the officers in charge who bravely tortured the disappeared but were cowardly in battle. Countless tactical mistakes were made, e.g. B. Failing to prepare the runways for planes on the islands, so they only had to fight a few minutes before running out of fuel; have few and bad missiles, poorly prepared submarines and battleships
they were not sent. They had to be supplied from the mainland.
However, the soldiers and pilots got the Imperial Army into trouble, and Margaret Thatcher even says in her memoirs that if they were not partially defeated, it was because of the missiles, which failed to explode when they struck the English warships of the time, leaving to the Prepare and defend islands, borne only by the heroism of a few more than brave children on land.
Did supporting this cause play into the hands of the right and the dictatorship? No.
In principle, because the cause of the Malvinas, national sovereignty over the islands and the struggle against an empire were more than fair. The problem was that it was run by the dictatorship.
It was not intended to be lost if other action were taken.
It was necessary to develop with all the arms and popular education and to ask that the unions organize them; The entire population volunteered, from kindergarten children collecting supplies to sending letters of support to the elderly. Growing solidarity could be encouraged across the continent, for example by accepting military aid offered by Peru and Cuba and calling for a strike by all workers in America. Exaggerated? To cite just one example, the Bolivian community in northern Argentina offered 25,000 of its members to go to the islands to fight. Malvinas was something very heartfelt, as was anger at the oppressors across the continent.
And one might even call for a boycott of the British working class, who were also on the warpath against their rulers and their neoliberal plan.
Today we see economic and financial measures against Russian aggression in Ukraine. This, too, could have been an important path: from expropriating English capital and cutting off the supply of raw materials to ending trade relations with other countries, all under the pressure of an independent mobilization of the dictatorship.
In terms of political dynamics, all these measures would not only have strengthened workers’ and people’s organizations and thus weakened the dictatorship itself, but if they had been successful, would have given impetus to the entire international workers’ movement.
A war against imperialist powers in favor of an oppressed nation is progressive in terms of the interests of the world working class: it weakens the world’s oppressors and moralizes workers’ organization because it shows that it is possible to fight and even win.
But the opposite happened. The war lasted a total of 78 days and ended with Argentina’s surrender.
This had consequences in the world. The capitulation of Argentina’s genocides allowed the Thatcher regime and that of Ronald Reagan in the US to lift their heads. In the British Isles, miners are severely defeated by the “Iron Lady”. Imperialism, which emerged from the doldrums after the defeat of Vietnam, is raising its head and gaining strength to move forward with the neoliberal turn in the colonies and semi-colonies.
In Argentina, the defeat ended with a still uncertain number of casualties: about 650 in combat, but the number of suicides is even higher and continues to grow.
Peronists and radicals support the dictatorship to ensure an “orderly transition” and foment demoralization and the idea that “imperialism cannot be defeated”. It may sound familiar to you when, four decades later, it is taken for granted that you must pay the entire debt and submit without resistance.
From the governments most openly collaborating with imperialism, like that of Menem or Macri, to that of Nestor Kirchnerl, who gasped but even contributed Argentine troops to the “peaceful” invasion of Haiti at the request of North America, or for the “Anti-terrorists voted law” Over the course of the present only submission to the big multinationals grew: with mining like Barrick, extractivism like Chevron, big country octopuses like Monsanto, landowners like Benetton or Lewis etc. and submission by Debts as we see today.
Only with strong organization and mobilization of workers, women and children here and beyond can we stop them and fight for what is ours. For this you need to overcome the power lines, which clearly will not fight.
Imperialism can be defeated, as centuries of struggles show, by the insurgent slaves of Haiti defeating England, the greatest power at the time, or revolutionary Russia defeating 14 imperialist armies, Vietnam, Cuba defeating the Yankees in the last century.
If you like what we do, join the community
We have set ourselves and you the goal of reaching 10,000 connected employees in the coming months.
It also depends on you that we can reflect reality from below and fight the big power media.
To keep growing, join the La Izquierda Diario community.