Argentina's president stokes up claim to the Falklands

Argentina's president stokes up claim to the Falklands

Argentina's president is stoking up patriotic sentiment over the Falklands by ordering that each school have a classroom named after a soldier killed in the conflict with Britain.

Argentina's president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, is playing the Falklands card in her election campaign Photo: EPA

By Robin Yapp, Sao Paulo 3:24PM BST 04 Apr 2011

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President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner made the announcement as she said that "the Malvinas are Argentine for ever" and the government "will never yield in our claim".

She also ordered that a letter written by an Argentine teacher and volunteer soldier killed in the Falklands War be read to all school pupils in the country. The letter, dated 29 April 1982, was written by Julio Cao, 21, and sent to his class of primary schoolchildren after he arrived at Stanley in the Falklands.

Cao, who was killed in action weeks later shortly before Argentina was defeated by a British Task Force, used the letter to apologise for having left in haste, but added: "I find myself accomplishing my soldier's duty of defending our flag."

President Kirchner was speaking at an event to mark the 29th anniversary of the invasion of the Falklands at the weekend. The country's presidential election is due in October and the decrees will be seen as evidence that President Kirchner will use patriotic sentiment over the Falklands to help to win votes.

Speaking at an event in Rio Gallegos, Santa Cruz province, she said: "I know we are going to recover what belongs to us."

She criticised British concerns that Argentina could make a new attempt to win back the Falklands, saying: "It sounds likes a joke coming from a country that likes solving conflicts by bombing."

The letter written by Cao will be taught to all schoolchildren starting from next year, President Kirchner said.

In it he wrote to his class: "I hope you don't worry much about me because very soon we will be together again, we are going to close our eyes and jump on our huge condor and ask him to fly us to that 'land of stories' that as you know is very close to the Malvinas Islands ...

"Children I want you to know that when I go to sleep at night, I close my eyes and can see each of your small faces smiling and playing; when I fall asleep I dream I'm with you. I want you to be very happy and to study a lot because your teacher who is a soldier loves you and misses you."

Hector Timerman, the Argentine foreign minister, also said over the weekend that the issue of the sovereignty of the Falklands had become a "regional cause". He said this was due to British companies drilling for oil in the area and the establishment of a British "military fortress in the South Atlantic" which he claimed was a "threat for all the region".

Mr Timerman also thanked the "commitment" and "concrete actions" of neighbouring countries including Brazil, which earlier this year turned away a Royal Navy ship that attempted to dock in Rio de Janeiro.

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