en HOPE AND RECONCILIATION: HUMANITARIAN COOPERATION BETWEEN FORMER WAR ENEMIES
  • Bellot,  Andrea Roxana
    Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Spain
Abstract

In March 2018, the bodies of 90 Argentine soldiers killed in action and buried in Darwin Cemetery were identified through cutting-edge technology in DNA testing. This was made possible thanks to a campaign led by organisations formed by both British and Argentinian veterans of the Malvinas/Falklands War, who managed to persuade their respective governments to get involved in the project. DNA samples were extracted and analysed by the International Red Cross Committee with a multinational forensics team. In the light of these events, this paper will seek to analyse how two former enemies doing collaborative work on humanitarian issues have brought about hope, reconciliation, and a sense of closure for the families of the deceased. The impact of these turning-point events will presumably be helpful in the search of new harmonies that would ease the remaining political tension between the two nations involved in the war over the ongoing sovereignty dispute for the Malvinas/Falkland Islands.