Secret Files Reveal Abuse Of Argentine Soldiers

Previously secret files held by Argentina's military have revealed systematic abuse and torture of Argentine soldiers by their own officers during the Falklands War.

In April President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner ordered the country's armed forces to hand over all documents relating to the ill-fated invasion.

Argentine veterans, the majority of whom were conscripted, have long complained about the conditions they were forced to fight in. The newly released documents reveal however the true scale of the brutality they endured.

Poorly equipped, clothed and fed the men were beaten for leaving positions to look for food - many were sent to the islands in 1982 without proper coats or boats.

The files contain accounts of mock executions and living soldiers being tied up and left in empty graves. Others were bound in stress positions and left lying in wet sand in freezing conditions on beaches, sometimes for an entire day.

Officers beat some of their men so badly that they required surgical treatment. One veteran Ernesto Alonso told CNN: "Those who were supposed to protect us were in many cases our own executioners."

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The war, which began in April 1982, claimed the lives of 255 British and 649 Argentinian servicemen, the bodies of 123 of the latter have never been identified. Three Falkland Island civilians also died when Argentina's ailing ruling military junta tried to take the territory.

Despite their defeat at the hands of a British task force the Buenos Aires government continue to claim the Falklands, known in Argentina as Las Malvinas, belong to them.

Speaking on the most recent anniversary of the conflict President Kirchner declared: "We will see the islands form part of our territory again. It's not just wishful thinking."

In the same month Argentina's ambassador to the UK was summoned for a 'dressing down' by the Foreign Office after British companies drilling off the islands for oil were threatened with prosecution. 

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