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Conscription in Argentina, also known as "colimba", was the compulsory military service that men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one had to fulfill in Argentina from 1901 to 1994.
In 1901, the Minister of War, Lieutenant General Pablo Riccheri, presented the project according to which Argentine males in their twenties were recruited into the Armed Forces to serve for two years.
The aim of the project was to spread the idea of citizenship and equality before the law and to "literate" and integrate the children of immigrants, as well as to increase patriotism in men from different social classes and corners of the country. The project followed the ideals of the then President Julio Argentino Roca, also a military man, commander of the conquest of the Desert.
Law No. 4031 was approved by the Senate on December 11, 1901, after half a year of discussions. [1] [2]
The term "colimba" derives from the vesre "colimi", itself derived from the word "milico" (slang for "military" or "soldier"). Originally, it consisted of serving in the daily activities of each branch, be it the navy, the air force or the army, where they were militarily trained. Another possible etymology, quite widespread, postulates that "colimba" derives from the first syllables of the words "Corra, limpie and barra" (run, clean and sweep), an ironic allusion to the main occupations of conscripts. [3]
In the 1970s, a numerical draw of lots was implemented, which was used to assign males over the age of eighteen who were to be conscripts to one of the three forces, according to the last three numbers of their national identity card. [4] [5]
At the beginning of 1921, conscripts were sent together with the troops of the 10th Cavalry Regiment "Húsares de Pueyrredón" under the command of Lieutenant General Héctor Benigno Varela to put an end to a rural workers' strike in the national territory of Santa Cruz. On this occasion, the troops did not act and brought about the cessation of the strike with the promise that the conditions demanded by the strikers would be met. However, in October of the same year, a strike was again declared in rural areas. Army troops were again sent to Santa Cruz, where they put a stop to the strike by mass murdering strikers and people suspected of being strikers. In November, more troops were sent, mainly conscripts, under the command of Captain Elbio Anaya of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment "Lanceros de Paz". [6] [7]
In total, more than 120 conscripts took part in the repression of the strike, in which an undetermined number of workers were killed, with estimates ranging from 1000 to 1500 dead. The conscripts were accused of carrying out a large part of these murders, as well as the theft of money, belongings and horses from the victims. [8] [6] These events were popularly known as La Patagonia Trágica, after the book of the same name by José María Borrero and the four volumes by Osvaldo Bayer, entitled "Los vengadores de la Patagonia trágica" (The Avengers of Tragic Patagonia). However, they are better known as "La Patagoina Rebelde" after Héctor Olivera's 1974 film of the same name.
On 2 April 1982, the military junta led by Lieutenant General Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri decided on the military occupation of the Falkland Islands, Georgias and South Sandwich Islands through Operation Rosario, after continuous inconclusive diplomatic claims and before the 150th anniversary of British usurpation, as well as in an attempt to take pressure off the civil-military dictatorship. The week before, two people were killed in the repression of anti-coup demonstrations; then the Plaza de Mayo itself was filled with demonstrators in favour of territorial resettling.
The Argentine military did not believe in an eventual British reconquest operation, since that country was going through its worst political and economic moment, and the United States, through its foreign minister, had suggested non-intervention because the memory of the Vietnam War was still fresh. Thus, the international context seemed to favour the Argentine position. However, with the operation already underway, US President Reagan called his Argentine counterpart and was clear: the United States did not support Argentina's territorial recomposition, which it saw as a big mistake, and would support its strategic ally, Britain. Galtieri had already played his card: on 2 April 1982, under the name of Operation Rosario, the Argentine armed forces recaptured the islands without causing British military or civilian casualties. Conscript soldiers between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one made up the combat units of the three Argentine Armed Forces deployed in the theatre of operations. Some thought the occupation would be brief and international pressure would lead to a diplomatic resolution favourable to Argentina; Thatcher and Galtieri, two questionable leaders with bad press, thought different. [9] [10] [11]
In the 74 days that the conflict lasted, 649 Argentine military personnel lost their lives, almost half of them in the sinking of the Belgrano. Of the total, 273 were conscripts. [12]
The units were made up of conscript born in the years 1962 and 1963, year 1962 had completed their training and had largely been discharged, and year 1963 had completed their basic period. Although the device was defensive, they also integrated patrols that developed missions such as in the exploration sections or in the Güemes Combat Team, which alerted the British landing and fought in San Carlos and then was heliborne to Darwin-Goose Beach (among other combat situations).
During the war, various crimes against humanity were committed against conscript soldiers, including torture by officers. Conditions on the battlefield were marginal: conscripts had less than four months of training, went hungry and lacked the necessary shelter for the weather. Conscripts even went so far as to kill poultry, sheep and scavenge dumpsters for food. [13] [14] [15]
Over the years and in the aftermath of the war, the suicide rate of war veterans almost equalled the number of those killed in combat. In December 2018, the complaint of torture was published, the names of the prosecuted officers and it was announced that the trials will take place in the Province of Tierra del Fuego, Antarctica and South Atlantic Islands: 95 military officers have been prosecuted and 105 acts have been reported. [16]
Although the torture was well known in Argentine society, it was only in 2007 that the allegations against the officers were made public. In 2019, the trials against the officers prosecuted for crimes against humanity began in Ushuaia, with the indictment of 18 accused officers. [17] [18]
Conscripts were used as an action force in the six coups d'état that the country experienced. They also carried out tasks during these de facto governments, playing an active role in State Terrorism.
In 1955, there was a break in ideology within the Armed Forces, known as the division between the "Blue and Reds", which lasted until 1963, in which conscripts were aligned according to orders from their superiors. [19] [20] [21] In 1978, conscript soldiers were deployed along the border with Chile in Operation Soberanía.
After the return to democracy in 1983 and the beginning of the trials of military juntas for crimes committed during the last dictatorship, the carapintadas uprisings took place, which, together with the economic hyperinflation during the government of Raúl Alfonsín, showed military service as a waste of money and an institution that undermined democracy.
In 1994, conscript Omar Carrasco, who was serving in the 161st Artillery Group of the Argentine Army, was disappeared. His body was found a month later in the barracks. When it was discovered and publicised that Carrasco had been a victim of torture, the institution was widely criticised and, in response, then President Carlos Menem put an end to compulsory military service in Argentina on 31 August 1994. [22]
In 2007, former provincial senator Alfredo Olmedo proposed the reactivation of compulsory military service, which he called "community military service". His project was aimed at recruiting young people who neither studied nor worked. The proposal was considered a step backwards for democracy and was criticised by the media and the community at large, although a minority showed interest in the return of the "colimba".
In 2019, the government of Mauricio Macri created the "Voluntary Civic Service in Values" under the decree resolution 2019-598-APN-MSG, which stated the need to educate people who did not work or study, in a voluntary civic service to train them in trades and new technologies, thus squaring a relaunch of the old service, with a different purpose but for the same reasons as the Riccheri Law. [23]
Some famous conscripts included:
Admiral Jorge Isaac Anaya was an Argentine admiral and Commander-in-Chief of the Argentine Navy. He was born in Bahía Blanca, in the province of Buenos Aires. He participated in the right-wing military dictatorship known as the National Reorganisation Process (1976–1983) and, along with Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri and Basilio Lami Dozo, was a member of the Third Military Junta that ruled Argentina between 1981 and 1982. He was the main architect and supporter of a military solution for the long-standing claim over the Falkland Islands that led to the Falklands War.
The Beagle conflict was a border dispute between Chile and Argentina over the possession of Picton, Lennox and Nueva islands and the scope of the maritime jurisdiction associated with those islands that brought the countries to the brink of war in 1978.
The Conquest of the Desert was an Argentine military campaign directed mainly by General Julio Argentino Roca during the 1870s and 1880s with the intention of establishing dominance over Patagonia, inhabited primarily by indigenous peoples. The Conquest of the Desert extended Argentine territories into Patagonia and ended Chilean expansion in the region.
This is a list of the ground forces from Argentina that took part in the Falklands War. For a list of ground forces from the United Kingdom, see British ground forces in the Falklands War.
Rodolfo Enrique Fogwill, who normally went only by his surname, Fogwill, was an Argentine short story writer, novelist, and businessman. He was a distant relative of the novelist Charles Langbridge Morgan. He was the author of Malvinas Requiem, one of the first narratives to deal with the Falklands War. Fogwill died on August 21, 2010, from a pulmonary dysfunction.
There were many events leading to the 1982 Falklands War between the United Kingdom and Argentina over possession of the Falkland Islands and South Georgia.
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The 7th Infantry Regiment is a unit of the Argentine Army based at Arana, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. The unit's full official name is 7th "Coronel Conde" Mechanized Infantry Regiment, and it is part of the 1st Armored Brigade, 3rd Army Division.
On 22 July 1971 Salvador Allende and Alejandro Lanusse, the Presidents of Chile and Argentina, signed an arbitration agreement. This agreement related to their dispute over the territorial and maritime boundaries between them, and in particular the title to the Picton, Nueva and Lennox islands near the extreme end of the American continent, which was submitted to binding arbitration under the auspices of the United Kingdom government.
Operación Soberanía was a planned Argentine military invasion of Chile due to the Beagle conflict. The invasion was initiated on 22 December 1978 but was halted after a few hours and Argentine forces retreated from the conflict zone without a fight. Whether the Argentine infantry actually crossed the border into Chile has not been established. Argentine sources insist that they crossed the border.
The direct negotiations between Chile and Argentina about the islands and maritime rights in Beagle conflict began after the Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom announced on 2 May 1977 the judgement of the Beagle Channel Arbitration to the governments of both countries. The court ruled that the islands and all adjacent formations belonged to Chile. The direct negotiations finished with the Act of Montevideo on 9 January 1979, where both countries accept the papal mediation after Argentina's call off of the Operation Soberanía. This was the most dangerous phase of the Beagle Conflict and there was a real possibility of open warfare.
The papal mediation in the Beagle conflict followed the failure of negotiations between Chile and Argentina, when, on 22 December 1978, the Argentinian Junta started Operation Soberanía, to invade Cape Horn and islands awarded to Chile by the Beagle Channel Arbitration. Soon after the event, Pope John Paul II offered to mediate and sent his personal envoy, Cardinal Antonio Samoré, to Buenos Aires. Argentina, in acceptance of the authority of the Pope over the overwhelmingly Catholic Argentine population, called off the military operation and accepted the mediation. On 9 January 1979, Chile and Argentina signed the Act of Montevideo formally requesting mediation by the Vatican and renouncing the use of force.
Mario Benjamin Menéndez was the Argentine governor of the Falklands during the 1982 Argentine occupation of the islands. He also served in the Argentine Army. Menéndez surrendered Argentine forces to Britain during the Falklands War.
The Argentine Military Cemetery, Spanish: Cementerio de Darwin, is a military cemetery on East Falkland that holds the remains of 236 Argentine combatants killed during the 1982 Falklands War. It is located at Fish Creek to the east of the Darwin Settlement the location of the Battle of Goose Green. There is a replica of the cemetery at Berazategui in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina.
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Geoffrey Cardozo CBE is a former British Army Colonel, known for helping to identify the human remains of Argentine soldiers in the Argentine Military Cemetery, Falkland Islands. A number of the Argentine dead had graves marked "Argentine soldier only known to God" after the Falklands War due to the refusal of the Argentine government to assist in their identification. In the Army, he belonged to the 4th/7th Royal Dragoon Guards.
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Cristino Nicolaides was an Argentine military officer who belonged to his country's army. He held power as a member of the Argentine Military Junta from 1982 to 1983. Representing the Argentine Army, he took power after Argentina's defeat in the Falklands War, in the last phase of the Dirty War, waged by the self-styled National Reorganization Process.
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