Belgrano sinking ‘justified’

Press, 25 July 1985, Page 6

Belgrano sinking ‘justified’

NZPA-PA London A powerful all-party committee of parliamentarians yesterday declared that the sinking of the General Belgrano during the Falklands conflict was justified on military grounds and not undertaken out of political design. The Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs also acquitted the British Government of a coverup over the events surrounding the attack on the Argentine cruiser during the week-end of May 1-2, 1982. It would have been a “dereliction of duty” on the part of the Government, they assert, to have taken any other course than authorise the attack on the Belgrano in the light of information and Intelligence then available to Ministers

and their military and naval advisers. As the controversy surrounding the sinking continues, a minority report prepared by Labour members of the committee accuses the Government of attempting to conceal “a hasty and unjustifiable decision to risk many lives and a possible disaster in order to ensure the life of an administration which was itself palpably negligent”. The minority report, which was defeated by six votes to four, calls for a House of Commons inquiry conducted by people with the right of access to all information, including security information. The Labour M.P.s accuse the Government of suppressing evidence, of truculence and obstruction, and describe the possible link between the Peruvian peace

initiative and the sinking of the Belgrano as “still an open question.” The principal report refutes the allegation that the Peruvian plan had anything to do with the decision. “We have no reason to disbelieve the evidence of the participants that the War Cabinet was not aware of the Peruvian peace proposals at the time of the decision to authorise the attack on the Belgrano,” the report said. The War Cabinet, the M.P.s say, could therefore not have been motivated by a desire to frustrate such proposals. The committee also acquits the Government of, “a deliberate or mendacious desire to mislead.” It accuses Ministers of “excessive caution” over the provision of information and of leaving the Commons far

too long in ignorance of information to which M.P.s were entitled. The report will be welcomed by Mrs Thatcher and her Cabinet as total justification for the decision to attack the Belgrano, which sank with the loss of 368 lives. The report poses the question of whether British authorities knew of an Argentine decision to withdraw their fleet to port, but preferred to discount it. The M.P.s said it was “perverse and absurd” for journalists and others to assume that the British Government must have known all the Argentine authorities’ intentions hour by hour as the events were unfolding. They added: “Even if the Belgrano’s change of course had been notified to Minis-

ters during the afternoon of May 2, the assessment then available to Ministers of Argentina’s tactical plans would not have justified a change in the orders given to H.M.S. Conqueror" (the submarine which sank the cruiser). “We are therefore satisfied that the decision to authorise the sinking of the Belgrano was militarily justified,” says the report. On the question of the Government’s reluctance to tell the whole truth, the M.P.s said: “A reluctance to provide information, however ill-judged, is however, a very different matter from a deliberate attempt to mislead the House, whether by knowingly providing false information or by deliberately failing to correct previous statements known to be false.”