Fleet poised as hopes fade

Press, 21 May 1982, Page 1

Fleet poised as hopes fade

NZPA-Reuter London Britain’s battle fleet in the South Atlantic was poised yesterday to attack the Ar-gentine-held Falkland Islands as last-ditch peace efforts went on at the United Nations. The United Nations Secre-tary-General, Mr Javier Perez de Cuellar, said on Wednesday evening that he had held separate talks with Argentina’s President Leopoldo Galtieri and the British Prime Minister (Mrs Thatcher) in an effort to avert war. The Security Council had given him a few more days to seek a peaceful solution.

A military showdown between the British forces and Argentine troops who seized the islands on April 2 seemed inevitable after Mrs Thatcher had earlier described Argentina’s latest negotiating position as not very encouraging.

Britain’s military response to a failure of the United

Nations negotiations was yesterday spelt out at meetings of the Inner Cabinet and. later, the full Cabinet at Downing Street. It was reported likely that the broad outlines of that response would emerge during the afternoon debate in the House of Commons.

Just what that military response would be was being kept a close secret in Whitehall, but it was thought unlikely that it would consist of a head-on assault on the islands. It was made clear earlier this week that a direct assault immediately the talks collapsed would be regarded as “too unsubtle.” Members of Parliament expect that the military action will take the form of an intensified campaign of mili-

tary and psychological harassment of the Argentinian troops on the island, possibly combined with some limited landings. Some M.P.s believe that this action has already begun. Mrs Thatcher worked into the early hours of yesterday on her speech, which will open the emergency debate, expected to start at 1 a.m. N.Z. time today.

She has refused to give the undertaking sought by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Michael Foot) that the Commons be given the opportunity to assess the diplomatic collapse and to approve any escalation of the military action.

This, Mrs Thatcher said, would be to lose the element

of surprise and risk the lives of task force members. The task force on Wednesday maintained its “softening up” raids on the Falklands. Brian Hanrahan, the British Broadcasting Corporation correspondent aboard the aircraft carrier H.M.S. Hermes, reported that the task force had made “a further substantial bombardment” of military targets south of Port Stanley, the Falklands capital. Sea Harrier jets had also bombed targets on East Falkland. “No British losses have been sustained but the results of either mission are not known,” Hanrahan said. “No other incidents have been reported.” Argentina’s Military High Command said that the British jets which bombed tar-

gets outside the Falklands capital had been repulsed by anti-aircraft fire. At the United Nations, Mr Perez de Cuellar yesterday launched an eleventh-hour bid to avert war over the islands after making personal appeals to the leaders of Argentina and Britain. “I have spoken to both President Galtieri and Prime Minister Thatcher to express my views and my very great concern,” he said. “The cost of failure in terms of human life and suffering is too high to permit us to give up our efforts.” The Secretary-General disclosed his last-ditch effort at a private meeting of Security Council members summoned to hear a sombre account of his attempts- over the last

two weeks to defuse the crisis. He later told reporters that the negotiations he had been conducting with Argentinian and British envoys w'ere now “at a very dangerous point." “The time left for negotiations must now be measured in hours,” he said. Although substantial progress had been made in his 11 days of talks with the British United nations, representative, Sir Anthony Parsons, and Argentina's Deputy Foreign Minister, Mr Enrique Ros, “this will be lost if the present opportunity for negotiations disappears:” He had now suggested “certain ideas" which he believed might help in overcoming the remaining differences.