Whose Island Story?

We’d been lectured a lot about the Malvinas, the importance of their recovery ... they talked a lot about the English as invaders of something that is ours. We felt that we were going to the Malvinas to defend something that was ours.

In this manner, one Argentine soldier looked back to the Falklands War of 1982, when the Argentine people believed that – to quote a fellow conscript – 'going back in history the Malvinas were Argentine'. Inevitably, in April 1982 the invasion, terminating Britain's 'illegal' occupation, was interpreted as giving substance to their country's historical rights to the islands, which were depicted in a popular wartime song as Las Hermanitas Peridadas ['the lost little sisters'] of the Argentine family.