The Bitter Taste of Defeat

By George Russell

As Argentina's troops return, the junta is in disarray

Only a few weeks ago, when Argentines still believed that things were going well for them in the Falklands, shop windows throughout the country were plastered with sky-blue-and-white signs proclaiming UNIDOS, ES MAS FACIL (United, it's easier). By last week those painted proclamations had faded in the weak sunlight of the southern winter--and so had Argentina's fac,ade of political unity. As British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher confirmed to President Ronald Reagan that Argentina would have no say in the future of the disputed Falkland Islands, the defeated nation bordered dangerously on anarchy.

Argentina's three-man ruling junta was riven over the choice of a new President to succeed Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri, the army general who was forced to resign after his troops surrendered to the British two weeks ago. Following five days of bickering, army Major General Cristino Nicolaides, the junta's newest member, ignored navy and air force objections and endorsed retired Major General Reynaldo Benito Antonio Bignone, 54, as the country's seventh military President in six years. Said Bignone, who was scheduled to be sworn in this week: "I am absolutely certain that with a great deal of humility, we will be able to get the country through these difficult times."

But Bignone was being optimistic. In the wake of his selection, the navy and air force declared that they would no longer take part in the junta's political decisions. That left the army in sole control for the first time since the military took power in 1976, but it also turned the army into a kind of rump political force. Asserting that it had "assumed the political conduct of the national government," the army promised unenthusiastically that it would return Argentina to civilian rule by "the first months of 1984."

Whether the precariously isolated army could hang on to power that long was another question. The situation, in the words of a Latin American expert in Washington, was "extremely unstable." President-designate Bignone was not linked with Galtieri's government. A former infantry commander who oversaw Argentina's top military academies in 1980 and 1981, Bignone was shunted aside when Galtieri seized power last December. Bignone is touted as a dialoguista, meaning that he favors the opening of discussions with Argentina's 14 suspended political parties. But behind the new President stood Major General Nicolaides, 55, who replaced Galtieri as army commander in chief only two weeks ago and is known to distrust civilian politicians.

Nonetheless, Bignone's first important move was to call a meeting of the leaders of Argentina's suspended political parties, including even the dreaded Peronists, whom some military hard-liners had vowed to exclude from government (see box). After the encounter, Bignone announced that the politicians could begin legal political activity this week.

As Argentina wallowed in confusion, Britain's Thatcher remained uncompromising. She dismissed the notion of a U.N. peace-keeping force in the Falklands. In a pointed reference to the war in Lebanon, she noted that such a force has "not been able to prevent aggressions." After her White House meeting, Thatcher glossed over her differences with Reagan on the question of sovereignty over the Falklands. Indeed, the Reagan Administration last week was maintaining, at least for a time, its relatively mild economic sanctions against Argentina, even though Britain's allies in the European Community had lifted their much harsher trade embargo against Buenos Aires.

Meanwhile, Thatcher dispatched former Falklands Governor Rex Hunt back to the islands, replete with the plumed hat that symbolizes Britain's colonial presence. As the newly dubbed Falklands "civil commissioner," he will share administrative responsibility with Major General John Jeremy Moore, who commanded the victorious British land forces. While Hunt looks after the 1,600 remaining kelpers, Moore's main responsibility is to return prisoners of war to Argentina, lengthen the Port Stanley airport runway to accommodate F-4 Phantom fighters and large transport planes, and establish the permanent British garrison promised by Thatcher. The British also had to take inventory of the vast arms cache left behind by the Argentines, including Exocet missiles, Pucara aircraft, radar installations and mountains of ammunition. Despite the efforts of Hunt and Moore, island life will not soon return to normal. Uncounted numbers of unmarked Argentine land mines are still scattered throughout the Falklands. Military experts estimated it would take months, perhaps years, to discover and disarm them.

One problem Moore will not have to deal with much longer is the care and feeding of most of the 11,313 Argentine prisoners of war. According to the British, more than 10,000 of the P.O.W.s had returned home last week aboard the converted luxury liner Canberra and the North Sea ferry Norland. (As the captured soldiers disembarked, some of them were clutching Canberra menus as souvenirs.) Of the Argentine soldiers left on the Falklands at week's end, the British intended to keep temporarily 563, including General Mario Benjamin Menendez, commander of the defeated Argentine force, as a guaranty that Argentina will observe a permanent cease-fire in the South Atlantic. One reassuring gesture was the Argentine announcement that three British journalists arrested April 13 for alleged espionage activity would be released this week.

In what a Whitehall official described as "a loose end that remained to be tied up," British forces landed on the remote South Sandwich island of Thule, 1,300 miles southeast of the Falklands, to evict eleven Argentines who were manning a scientific observation post established in 1976. Arguing that their presence was legal under a 1977 agreement, Buenos Aires accused Britain of "a new act of aggression." But London's Ministry of Defense retorted that the installation had been established without British permission and that the Argentines were not scientists but military personnel.

Politically, Thatcher was still basking in the afterglow of the Falklands victory. Last week a Market & Opinion Research International poll in London showed that 81% of the country felt "prouder to be British." But the Falklands hangover now afflicting Argentina could eventually have a British counterpart. Parliamentary scuffling has already begun in London, where Thatcher's government faces inquiries into why Argentina's invasion of the Falklands came as such a surprise. The Prime Minister was embarrassed by the publication of a letter she had written to a Tory loyalist on Feb. 3, claiming that the Royal Marine garrison stationed in the Falklands prior to Argentina's invasion--a total of 42 men--was a "sufficient deterrent against any possible aggression." Thatcher's explanation was that "I don't think any of us quite expected we would get a sudden invasion without an enormous increase in tension beforehand. We didn't get that increase in tension except a few days before."

Defense Secretary John Nott also came under renewed fire last week, as he presented the government's annual White Paper on defense. The document reaffirmed that Britain's major military priority was to protect the country from the Soviet Union within the NATO alliance. It underlined the Thatcher government's intention to go ahead with the controversial $13.5 billion purchase of Trident submarine-launched nuclear missiles at the expense of surface ships of the kind that proved valuable but also vulnerable in the South Atlantic. Nott's critics argued that the country needed stronger conventional naval forces.

There were other signs that life was getting back to less than buoyant normality in Britain. Workers for the National Health Service called a one-day nationwide strike last week. The London underground was crippled as strikers closed down the entire system. And this week railway workers are planning a walkout that could go on for weeks.

Still, the Thatcher government's problems paled in comparison with those facing Argentina. In an editorial, the independent Buenos Aires daily La Prensa published what it described as a blueprint for recovery. "We must accept the lessons of experience and rid ourselves of this crisis," the paper said. "A regime must be created by which governments can act without having to obtain approval of military organizations." Argentina last week seemed a long way from accepting that courageous advice.

--By George Russell. Reported by Bonnie Angelo/London and Gavin Scott/Buenos Aires

With reporting by Bonnie Angelo, Gavin Scott

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.