New Malvinas secretary claimed responsibility for hijacking Aerolineas Argentinas plane

In one of his first activities as Secretary for Malvinas, Antarctic and South Atlantic Islands Affairs, Guillermo Carmona carried out a tribute to a group of Peronist militants than in 1966 hijacked an Aerolineas Argentinas plane and diverted it to the Malvinas in an attempt to show sovereignty over the islands, which ultimately failed. The event took place last week, with the Minister of Culture, Tristán Bauer, at the Malvinas Museum.

The kidnapping leaders Dardo Cabo, Aldo Ramírez and Edgardo Salcedo met a tragic end because the military dictatorship that was imposed with the 1976 coup kidnapped them and made them disappear. But Carmona’s move to call for the so-called Operation Condor is fueling controversy over her appointment.

Carmona was elected by Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero as Secretary of the Malvinas, Antarctica and South Atlantic Islands region, replacing the current Minister of Science and Technology Daniel Filmus. Former deputy of his native Mendoza, Carmona is an ultra-Kirchnerist whose position divides the waters because of his fervent speech on one side of the political divide and because he must follow a file in which he has a very radicalized post for a post which requires diplomacy and dialogue.

Her star advisor on the sovereignty conflict when she chaired the Chamber of Deputies’ Foreign Relations Committee (2012 and 2015) was the former Ambassador to Venezuela and the United Kingdom, Alicia Castro. Criticism of the government of Alberto Fernández in aspects where he considers it not as radical as it should have been – for example before his Chavist ally – Carmona himself was a defender of the regime of Nicolas Mauro .

Still alongside Alicia Castro, even in her appearances at Instituto Patria, Carmona criticized Venezuela’s suspension from Mercosur in 2016, and she celebrated Argentina’s departure from the Lima group last year, where they tried to put pressure on Maduro. “The club of friends of the regional right no longer has the complacency of # Argentina. The time for integration has seriously come in favor of the development of our peoples”, stood up for Chavismo.

Although those who know him claim that despite his more radicalized words, Carmona is a “dialogue”, the facts show otherwise. One of the most controversial and worrying ones is his lack of tribute that then-MP Eduardo Amadeo, of Ensemble pour le changer, paid at the end of 2019 to those who collaborated with the so-called Project Plan. humanitarian aid, which allowed the identification of 116 graves in the Darwin cemetery, where Argentines who fell during the 1982 war remained without name or surname.

Carmona objected to the plan and the celebrations in her obsession, tweeting and commenting on several occasions that these were actions of the “Macrista Right” who she believed sought to “deliver” the islands to the UK. It is unclear which direction this space for dialogue with London will take, given the fact that he has yet to meet new British Ambassador Kirsty Hayes. He also did not comment on the matter.

His arrival at the Cuestion Malvinas Parliamentary Observatory, which had been established by the current Ambassador to the United States, Jorge Argüello, represented his radicalization. There are old guard soldiers who do not want Carmona, although the new generations are indifferent, as he may have learned. Bugle.

It is presumed that there were tensions with the forces at a time when he was the author of the project to create the Bicameral Commission to investigate the disappearance of the ARA San Juan with his crew members and where he carried out the initiative of the Namuncurá Navy. protected area – Burdwood Bank. And he was the author of the Law on Early Retirement for Malvinas Veterans, as well as President of the Financial Aid Institute for the Payment of Pensions and Military Pensions (IAFPRPM), the pension body and finance of the Ministry of Defense of the Nation. .

Carmona will now be in charge of official preparatory activities for the 40th anniversary of the April 2 landing promoted by the military dictatorship as a means of recovering the Malvinas. For the former deputy and the sectors which support him, the act of armed reconquest – its consequent failure – is a “feat”. But it is a debate whose discourse dominates ultra-nationalism and which Argentines have never been able to give due to the sensitivity of the question: 649 compatriots died in the war with the United Kingdom in 1982.