The former Chief of the Argentine Army, Veteran of the Malvinas War and former Ambassador to Colombia and Costa Rica, Martín Balza , publicly denounced the existence of a secret pact between Great Britain and Chile during the South Atlantic conflict in 1982 .
In an article for La Nación , Balza mentions a meeting between soldiers from both countries to deliver a letter intended for the de facto president Augusto Pinochet , who approved the collaboration with the usurpers of the Malvinas Islands.
"Our communications in the Malvinas were permanently interfered with by anonymous Chilean correspondents - I am a witness to this - who uttered insults and hurtful comments towards our troops," noted the former military man in an article he authored. “It also deployed military personnel in the area bordering our Patagonia, to force it to divert its own forces.”
According to Balza, Chile's aid to the British began with the dialogue between the commander of the Air Force and member of the Military Junta, General Fernando Matthei, and the captain of the Royal Air Force (RAF) David L. Edwards, head of Great Britain Intelligence.
The United Kingdom was favored by the “ use of the Punta Arenas air base”, the authorization of British special forces to operate in its territory and the “ exchange of information and intelligence, including the monitoring and description of Argentine codes and signals.” , which the Chilean Navy provided them.”
For its part, Chile benefited from “six Canberra high-altitude bombers, used in secret operations during the conflict. A Hawker fighter-bomber squadron. “Part of the Argentine weapons that were left in the Malvinas and the cruiser Glamorgan (damaged).”
In Balza's opinion, two other agreements must be added to this: “The repeal of British restrictions on the sale of arms to Chile, the provision of enriched uranium and the offer of an English Magnox-type nuclear reactor” and “the political and diplomatic support to neutralize the investigations carried out by the United Nations (UN) in relation to the violation of Human Rights by the Chilean dictatorial regime.”
"Without a doubt, the most forceful revelation about Chilean support for Great Britain emerged publicly on October 9, 1999, on the occasion of the annual conference of the British Conservative Party, when the so-called "Iron Lady", Margaret Thatcher, among other concepts , expressed: “Chile is our oldest friend in South America (…) President Pinochet was an unconditional supporter of the United Kingdom when Argentina invaded the Malvinas (sic) and provided us with valuable assistance (…) He and General Matthei delivered timely alerts of imminent Argentine air attacks that allowed the British fleet to take defensive actions.”
In the same chronicle, the former Argentine soldier and war veteran quoted the Chilean Fernando Matthei: “It was not convenient for us that the Argentines hit the English, because then (Galtieri had already said it) we would be next. We were just digesting the Plaza de Mayo speech, in which he had roaredly declared that the Malvinas would only be the beginning. He looked like Mussolini. We were worried that after the islands they would point this way.”
