President says site shows government’s commitment to its claim over the islands
President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner yesterday took aim at opposition leaders for not being able to tell apart “partisan interests from national interests” while leading the inauguration of the Malvinas Museum at the ex ESMA clandestine detention centre.
The head of state highlighted that 106 members of the British House of Commons had backed Argentina’s stand against the holdout hedge funds — or “vulture funds” as she likes to call them. She contrasted that with what she said was a reluctance from opposition groups to support the government’s battle against those who have refused offers to restructure defaulted debt.
Fernández de Kirchner justified building the museum at the ex-ESMA, where thousands were illegally detained and tortured during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship, because “there is only one history, it cannot be split.”
After recalling events from those days — including an anti-dictatorship protest by the CGT union umbrella that took place on March 30, 1982, three days before the beginning of the war — the president concluded that “the only victorious battles by the Armed Forces where those that were they fought side by side with the people, not against the people.”
She was flanked by newly-appointed Culture Minister Teresa Parodi and Vice-President Amado Boudou, who marked his first public appearance after facing a grilling by Federal Judge Ariel Lijo on Monday.
Human rights activists, officials and several journalists packed the room, where at 6pm Fernández de Kirchner delivered her speech, which was transmitted via national broadcast.
Memory “is one of the main pillars” of the Kirchnerite administration, the head of state said, and the Malvinas Museum will seek to “promote the vindication” of the country’s long-standing sovereignty claims over the British-seized territories through a War Memorial commemorating the 649 Argentine soldiers killed during the South Atlantic conflict Buenos Aires and London fought over the sovereignty of the resource-rich archipelago.
The Memorial has been placed in an open square outside the building, that reproduces the geography and landscape of the Malvinas.
The president said her late husband and predecessor Néstor Kirchner, had participated in the CGT protest that ended in repression and that her then-five-year-old son Máximo Kirchner (now leader of the pro-government La Cámpora youth organization) insisted on attending “with his little flag” the pro-war rally that took place a few days later.
But even at that event, the head of state said, she could see banners saying: “Yes to Malvinas, no to dictators.”
The president made a huge effort to separate the war and the military Junta from a genuine sovereignty claim over the Malvinas, “one of the latest colonial enclaves” of the British Empire. Great Britain was still the source of “obsolete military colonialism,” the leader added.
In this context, she stressed that sovereignty “is built through peace, memory and diplomacy” and blasted opposition leaders once again by saying that the problems the country has had to build a great nation “had always come from within,” not from foreign powers.
Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman followed her words closely. He was standing next to Labour Minister Carlos Tomada and Education Minister Alberto Sileoni. Recently-appointed philosopher Ricardo Forster, controversial Army chief César Milani and members of the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo and Madres de Plaza de Mayo human rights organizations sat in the first row.
Her speech was followed on a giant screen by a little more than 100 spectators, who were left outside, including low-ranking officials and members of the centre-left, pro-government Nuevo Encuentro party who carried light-blue flags.
In a message to her successor, the president said the inauguration of the Malvinas Museum should be seen as a symbol of a commitment made by the national government, “the commitment of not abandoning this state policy.”
Opening hours. The Malvinas Museum is set on the former site of the Navy Mechanics’ School (ESMA), located in Del Libertador Avenue 8465. Its opening hours will be from Fridays to Sundays (also public holidays) from 10am until 6pm, starting on June 14.
buenosairesherald.com