With the war over, residents worry about a new invader—the outside world
During the fierce, short war between Argentina and Britain over the Falkland Islands, TIME Caribbean Bureau Chief William McWhirter covered the combat from Buenos Aires. Last week McWhirter was one of the first American journalists to be allowed by the British to visit the islands and to observe the changes, many unexpected, caused by battle and its aftermath in what had once been one of the most unchanging and neglected corners of the world. His report:
The invasion is now complete. Not, this time, by a conquering and hostile foreign army, nor by the remaining British garrison of 4,500 troops, who have dwarfed and engulfed the capital, if in a good-natured and well-meaning way. This time the invader is an even more threatening and less welcome presence—the outside world. The Falklanders, who had created a kingdom of simple but idyllic make-believe, now fear that the war and its aftermath will make reality a permanent visitor to their islands. "We used to talk about it during the occupation," says Gerald Cheek, a third-generation Falklander who was interned during the war. " 'When the British come, there's going to be a hell of a party.' Well, the party never happened."
The Falklands, of course, are no longer far away and forgotten. Their whimsical place names, such as Teal Inlet, Goose Green, Bluff Cove and Two Sisters, are now recognized as battlegrounds. San Carlos Bay became famous as "bomb alley." The fighting between one army fleeing and one pursuing across East Falkland has left the casual litter of war: gullies and ravines filled with the carcasses of crashed choppers and camouflaged trucks; thousands of rounds of unexploded ammunition and fat 500-lb. and 1,000-lb. bombs wallowing in the soft earth like beached whales. Many of the small cottages with their brightly painted trimming, window boxes and hothouses were angrily, savagely violated by the frustrated Argentines. Their floors are deep in mud, cupboards torn from the walls, furniture smashed, dishes broken and even children's toys crushed.
One act of desecration was cruder: mines sown indiscriminately around the capital and the smallest settlements. Perhaps 12,000 such mines, some plastic and hard to detect, some as small as 2 in. or 3 in. wide, were buried in the fields and beaches around Port Stanley, and another 4,000 in tiny Fox Bay on West Falkland. British explosives experts hope to have the town areas cleared by October, but the farming regions not for another year and the outback not for years beyond that.