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At week's end London and Buenos Aires agreed on the return of most of the P.O.W.s to Argentina, and two British ships left the Falklands carrying nearly 6,000 Argentines home. But British officials declared that about 1,000 selected prisoners, most of them officers and commanders, would be held in response to Argentina's refusal to accept an unconditional end to the Falklands hostilities.
Argentina's leaders had only belatedly prepared the country's population for the impending defeat. Upon getting news of the surrender, knots of angry Argentines gathered on the Plaza de Mayo in front of the country's presidential Casa Rosada to hear a scheduled balcony speech by Galtieri. As evening fell, the mood of the crowd turned ugly. "They lied to us," said a student. "We went to war with our hearts full, and now they are empty." Said an airplane mechanic: "We have been cheated, and our young conscripts have died for nothing." Finally riot police armed with shotguns and tear-gas launchers moved in on the crowd, firing rubber bullets and canisters of the eye-stinging gas. The mob scattered, setting fire to garbage cans and vehicles on side streets. The unrest continued for several hours. Galtieri never did come out on the balcony. He confined his oration to a twelve-minute television address in which he maintained that Argentina had lost a battle but not the war.
The next night, Argentina's army commanders convened in their Buenos Aires headquarters. During the heated midnight-to-6 a.m. meeting with his top 14 generals, Galtieri insisted on pursuing the war with Britain as if Argentina still had something left to fight with. When the others demurred, Galtieri offered to resign. "O.K.," he said, "I can't count on the army." With that, he retired to Campo de Mayo, the sprawling barracks of the First Army Corps on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. There he remained until the head of the army's general staff, José Antonio Vaquero, brought word that Galtieri's "voluntary resignation" had been accepted.
Few Argentines appeared to miss their deposed leader, who had been President only since December. Said the English-language Buenos Aires Herald: "Galtieri lasted not quite six months and managed to plunge the nation into a farcical war which besmirched the honor of the military." Proclaimed a prominent businessman: "He should be hung. No, drawn and quartered. No, it is better to let him live with his dishonor, 24 hours a day for the rest of his life." That outraged judgment seemed far from fair in a country that has been teaching its children for more than a century that the Malvinas, as the islands are known in Latin America, are Argentine. Says José Dumas, a business consultant: "It was the junta as a whole that made the decisions. Galtieri is the sacrificial lamb."