In an unprecedented move for Argentine democracy, the current Minister of Defense and former Army Chief , Carlos Presti , has broken with decades of legal and diplomatic tradition by describing the sinking of the ARA General Belgrano cruiser as a mere "act of war." His statements, made on April 2nd, not only represent a direct affront to the 323 heroes who guard the seabed of the South Atlantic, but also reveal an alarming alignment of the current leadership with the British narrative.

The "Act of War" as a shield for negligence

By claiming that the attack was a "combat" event, Presti is trying to bury an inescapable technical truth that the national media have brought back to the table: the Belgrano was torpedoed by the nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror 231 nautical miles from the conflict zone, outside the Total Exclusion Zone (TEZ) unilaterally imposed by London.

But there is a darker side to the Minister's "technical interpretation." By normalizing the sinking as a regular act of war, Presti deliberately omits what the Rattenbach Report starkly detailed: the ship's complete lack of combat readiness. The tragedy was compounded because the cruiser was internally unprepared; the locks and watertight compartments were open, allowing 9,000 tons of water to flood in unopposed, sinking the ship in minutes. The "disorganization" that Presti ignores is what doomed our sailors.

Outrage in Congress

The political reaction was immediate. Deputy Esteban Paulón (United Provinces Bloc) presented a draft resolution to express "strongest condemnation" and demand a public retraction. Paulón was unequivocal: to characterize the event as an act of war is an "inexcusable offense" that ignores the irregular circumstances of the attack ordered by Margaret Thatcher to sabotage the peace negotiations of May 1982.

The Navy that fled

This critical assessment cannot ignore the behavior of the naval superiority of the time. While the Belgrano was sinking, the then-Chief of the Navy, Jorge Isaac Anaya , ordered the withdrawal of the fleet. The Argentine ships fled the theater of operations to "safe harbors" on the Patagonian coast, Puerto Belgrano and Mar del Plata, abandoning the fight at sea and leaving total control to the British enemy.

Presti 's stance is not a "technical opinion"; it is a political decision to de-Malvinize the issue. By not recognizing the war crime , the Ministry of Defense deprives Argentina of a fundamental tool for international redress and betrays the sacrifice of almost half of the total casualties of the war.

Forty-four years after the event, the wound remains open because, while the people honor their dead, their leaders seem more interested in validating Thatcher's orders than in defending the historical truth of the Nation.