The Malvinas Executions

Abstract

In a 1991 book translated into Spanish in 1992, the British paratrooper Vincent Bramley denounced various crimes perpetrated by the Royal Task Force against Argentine prisoners during the Malvinas War of 1982. However, his account became an (im)plausible path toward Argentines' historicization of this international conflict. The democratic government of Carlos S. Menem and the Argentine military command (including members who had participated in the campaign) rejected these charges while war veterans and victims of British crimes added to them or kept silent. There is a striking resemblance between these reactions and Argentine responses to the crimes against humanity committed during the last military dictatorship (1976—1983) variously labeled as the “antisubversive war,” the “Dirty War,” and “state terrorism.”