Volunteers, Argentinians and Foreigners, during the Malvinas War: Statistics and Motivations

Abstract

The conflict that confronted the Argentine Republic and the United Kingdom of Great Britain over the Malvinas Islands, in 1982, aroused the support of a large number of people, who fervently embraced a cause – their own or someone else's – that had deeply affected their representations and imaginaries.

The purpose of the present work is to offer a dimension of the adhesion of Argentines and foreigners, men and women, who volunteered, during the South Atlantic Conflict, in 1982. From the analysis of the documentation and letters addressed to military authorities, it was possible to reconstruct a quantitative and partially qualitative overview of the volunteers who made themselves present to take a place in the historic act and a first approximation of their motivations and actions carried out.

Its result exposes the magnitude of what the Malvinas Cause represented not only for Argentines, but also, for a large number of Latin Americans who did not hesitate to offer themselves for whatever Argentina decided, when the definition of recovering sovereignty over the unredeemed territory since 1833 was taken.