Alberto Rubio
“We will go on fighting so that “the conscience of recovering the Malvinas does not decline”, said Ambassador Ricardo Alfonsín during the ceremony held last Friday in Madrid, in which twelve veterans of that war who reside in Spain received the Presidential Commemorative Medal ‘Malvinas 40 years’.
“These medals are a recognition to their bravery, heroism and love for the homeland“, said an emotional Alfonsín, who added that, therefore, “it is an honor for me to be able to receive them in this act”, whose celebration practically coincided with the commemoration of the battle of the Vuelta de Obligado, which marks the Day of the National Sovereignty of Argentina.
In an improvised speech because, as he admitted, “I had written some words but I renounce to say them and I manifest my absolute inability to say something that would satisfy us”, the ambassador stressed that “these veterans and all the fallen in Malvinas were heroes not only on the battlefield but before, because many of them were not obliged to go to war and yet they decided to go voluntarily to defend Argentina“.
“One not only suffers in the war but also in the post-war period”, he reflected, alluding to what one of the veterans said in the conversation they had moments before the act. The ambassador insisted that “all the recognitions are insufficient” and regretted that “others could have been made, but were not made”.
Therefore, he expressed his wish that “these tributes serve to keep alive the memory of the combatants and the Malvinas cause“. And he confirmed the determination of “all Argentines” to continue claiming the sovereignty of the islands in the face of “this usurpation, this dispossession that we have suffered by force and violence, because we are accompanied by international law, history and the resolutions of the United Nations”. He concluded by expressing his conviction that “we must start talking to solve this conflict”.
The decorated soldiers were Sergio Fabián Biagiotti, Adrián Hugo Haase and Federico López; Corporals Oscar Walter Doria, Adrián Esteban Juárez; Lieutenant Fernando Miguel Miranda Abos; and José Luis Langlois, Fernando Otero Otero and Juan Julián Redonda.
Soldier Sergio Rubén Varela and Corporal Hugo Óscar Moreira were unable to attend and will receive their decorations at their respective consulates.
The emotional ceremony gathered, in addition to the recipients and their families, numerous Argentines living in Spain, the Embassy staff and the consuls in Cadiz, Vigo, Tenerife, Barcelona and Madrid. Also present were the ambassadors of Chile, El Salvador, Haiti, the head of the Venezuelan Mission and the minister counselor of the Guatemalan Embassy, among others.
