Argentina commemorated on Saturday April 2 the 40th anniversary of the start of the Falklands War. In April 1982, the dictator Leopoldo Galtieri sent his troops to the islands to plant the Argentine flag there, 150 years after the English occupation. In Buenos Aires, the Falklands Museum retraces the history of this war. But even if the war covers a good part of the permanent exhibition, this museum on three levels, which opened its doors in 2014, covers different subjects related to the Falklands: fauna, flora very similar to Patagonia, scientific research in Antarctica and especially the history of the islands…
Before being called the Falklands, the Falklands, as their name suggests, were inhabited by the Malouins, explorers who came from Saint-Malo and led by Bougainville in 1764. The French then ceded the lands to the Spanish, and, upon independence in 1810, the Falklands, like the rest of the mainland, became Argentine. It was in 1833 that the English landed on the islands, appropriating them.
“There were 23 families. This whole community was building Argentina which was taking its first steps because we only had ten years of independence. There was even a time when the English almost gave the islands back to us because the inhabitants all depended on Argentina”Explain Edgardo Esteban, the director of the museum. “There was a very close bond with the inhabitants of the islands that the military dictatorship destroyed because the war marked a real setback. That’s why we have to fight our way to explain to the world that the Argentine people are upright, peaceful, but with great strength to continue fighting for this conviction that the Falklands are and will be Argentine.”
The Argentines have therefore never ceased to claim the Falklands. For 189 years and what is considered here as a usurpation of the English, the claim has always been made through diplomatic channels, except in 1982, in the midst of a military dictatorship. Lieutenant General Galtieri who had succeeded Videla sent his troops to the Falklands with a view to recovering them by force. The museum shows the two sides of the coin: the front pages of the official newspapers announcing an English defeat and the rudimentary outfits of the Argentine soldiers, for the most part conscripts, very young, inexperienced, without equipment and dying of hunger.
Objects but also reports, testimonies and interactive maps retrace the history of the Falklands, the trauma of war and the incessant attempts to recover the islands from the UN. Forty-two screens and a 3D immersion allow the youngest to enjoy the museum. The idea is to transmit the passion and the strong Argentine sense of belonging to the Falklands for historical, geographical and emotional reasons. She is also to explain to visitors that these islands in the South Atlantic are ultimately much more than an old dispute with the English.