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Buenos Aires (AFP) – In Argentina, the death of Isabel II was received with ambivalence: there were signs of respect but without forgetting that she was the queen of the Falklands, the scene of a war 40 years ago between Great Britain and the South American country.
The government of President Alberto Fernández expressed that “it accompanies the British people and their family in this moment of pain.” A feeling that was reflected in the street, although for Argentines the conflict over the sovereignty of the islands and the memory of their fallen in combat is still alive.
“Isabel marked an era. But I, as an Argentine, say that the Malvinas are ours,” María Delia Bueno, a 71-year-old lawyer who went to pay tribute to her this Friday at the British embassy in Buenos Aires, told AFP, where she left flowers.
“For Argentina, the enemy was (former British Prime Minister Margaret) Thatcher, not the queen,” Raúl Arlotti, from the center for international studies at the University of Belgrano and professor at the University of Buenos Aires, told AFP.
But during the war, in soccer stadiums – a passion that the English brought to Argentina along with polo and rugby – fans insulted the queen. And even today, in each national team match, the war for the Malvinas lives on. The fans jump and sing in chorus: “And he sees it, and he sees it, the one who doesn’t jump is an Englishman!”.
The Falklands War, an open wound in Argentina
The lives of the late monarch and millions of Argentines dramatically intersected in 1982, the day Thatcher informed him of her decision to send a task force to recapture the Falkland Islands.
The sovereign gave the green light to military action. The queen even sent one of her sons, Prince Andrew, who was a second-lieutenant and a helicopter pilot, to combat in what the British call the ‘Falklands’.
After 74 days of war, the Argentine military regime surrendered. 649 Argentines and 255 British had died.
In 2013, 97% of the islanders chose in a referendum to remain in the British orbit, and the queen ratified the islands as an overseas territory.
“My government will guarantee the security, good governance and development of the overseas territories, including the protection of the right of the inhabitants of the ‘Falklands’ and of the Gibraltarians (by the Rock that Spain claims) to determine their political futures,” he said. then Elizabeth II to Parliament.
“I would have liked that before he died he would return the islands (Malvinas), as he did with Hong Kong (to China),” María Luján Rodríguez, a 51-year-old housewife, told AFP.
Malvinas ex-combatants remember “the suffering of the subjugated peoples under colonial rule”
“The death shocked me. The territory we lost should be returned to our country. But the queen always made herself respected and commands respect,” Celia Carlen, an 88-year-old retiree, added emotionally to AFP, bringing flowers to the door on Friday. from the British embassy.
But the Malvinas Veterans Center remembered the queen as the leader of a colonial empire: “Faced with the death of the face of the monarchy worldwide, which held the throne for 70 years, we put forward that he embodied the suffering of the subjugated peoples under colonial and economic domination throughout his reign, an archaic system”.
The history between Argentina and Great Britain is a mosaic of strong influences and controversies. Large British investments in agriculture, railways, and energy founded modern Argentina.
“Argentina is the most precious jewel of the British crown,” then Vice President Julio Roca dared to say in 1933.
Román García, a 56-year-old social psychologist, described the queen’s death as “an enormous loss” and stressed that at least after the Malvinas war “diplomatic relations were reestablished” between the two nations.
“The relationship was always one of respect for the Queen,” he said. On the opposite side are the historic demonstrations against “English imperialism” or the celebration as a revenge for Diego Maradona’s goals against England in the 1986 World Cup in Mexico.
In social networks, many Argentines compared the queen in memes with the television diva Mirtha Legrand, a 95-year-old conservative who surprised by declaring: “She was a great queen, but I cannot forget that in the Malvinas war she was reigning.”
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