Britain returns the last P.O. W.s
No bands played, and no crowds cheered, as 593 Argentine soldiers returned home under tight security last week aboard the British ferryboat St. Edmund. The diesel-powered vessel discharged its human cargo, the last of some 11,000 prisoners taken by Britain in the Falkland Islands war, on a windswept dock in out-of-the-way Puerto Madryn, 650 miles south of Buenos Aires. One of the first down the gangplank was General Mario Benjamin Menendez, army commander in the Falklands, who saddened many of his countrymen when he surrendered to Britain's Major General John Jeremy Moore. Military authorities refused to allow the returning soldiers to be interviewed or photographed, but Menendez did offer a few words to a local journalist who approached him while he was drinking coffee in a Puerto Madryn hotel. "The war was very important for the country, because we can use it as experience," he said. "We may have lost a military battle over the Malvinas, but we must be prepared to fight another one—the diplomatic one."
The Conservative government of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had vowed to retain custody of the final batch of P.O.W.s until Buenos Aires formally admitted defeat in the 74-day war. Argentina refused, insisting instead that Britain had restored colonial rule over the Falklands. But in a message sent to Whitehall through the Swiss embassy in Buenos Aires, and relayed to London through the Swiss Foreign Ministry in Bern, Argentine Foreign Minister Juan Ramón Aguirre Lanari admitted that .here was a "de facto cessation of hostilities." The Thatcher government, faced with having to move the prisoners 8,000 miles to proper facilities in Britain, decided that Lanari's statement was concession :nough, especially when it was coupled with private assurances given to third parties that Argentina was done with fighting. Said a Thatcher aide: "One has to face up to the fact that a dictatorship, after that kind of defeat, finds itself in certain difficulties."
In Washington, President Ronald Reagan took another step toward restoring normal relations with Argentina. He announced an end to economic sanctions imposed on that country by the U.S. on April 30. The sanctions had blocked U.S. Government loans and credit guarantees for exports to Argentina, but had little impact on the Argentine economy. Said Reagan: "It is important now for all parties involved in the recent conflict to put the past behind us and to work for friendship and cooperation."