Argentine force on move in Atlantic

Press, 23 April 1983, Page 10

Argentine force on move in Atlantic

NZPA Bahia Blanca AH units of Argentina’s fleet and naval Air Force are taking part in manoeuvres at an unspecified place off the South Atlantic coast, said the Naval Operations Command. Earlier, it had been announced that Argentine families mourning soldiers killed in the Falklands campaign wiH pay homage to the dead on the high seas on April 30 because of Britain’s refusal to let the relatives land in the Falkland Islands.

Ships in the naval exercises include the aircraft

carrier 25 de Mayo carrying 1 Snper Etendard airplanes, 1 said the command. ! The Super Etendards 1 played a leading role in the I recent Falkland Islands war 1 by launching Exocet missiles against British ships. Ceremonies honouring the i 221 Argentine soldiers ] buried in the Falklands will i take place at the. edge of 1 the maritime exclusion zone ’ proclaimed by Britain and i extending 150 nautical miles from the Falklands, said | Osvaldo Destefanis, who is 1 organising the funeral voy- < age aboard an Argentine i ship. Previously, Mr Des- i

tefanis’s centre of volunteers for the fatherland had said that it planned to defy the British ban on Argentine funeral ceremonies on the Falklands. As a result, the British Foreign Office, warned yesterdav that any visit unsupervised by the International Red Cross Committee would be unauthorised with all the consequences that would result. London morning newspapers reported that the Royal Navy had been ordered to bar any Argentine ship from approaching the islands with parents of fallen soldiers.

When Mr Destefanis announced the mourning ship would stop at the edge of the exclusion zone, he said that several British Opposition leaders had telephoned him to express their solidarity with the famHies of the dead soldiers and to criticise the British Prime Minister, Mrs . Margaret Thatcher’s refusal to allow mourning at the gravesides. The command said that the fleet exercises included landing operations and attacks against designated targets on land and on the sea.