The best trophy is to recover the identity. Edgardo Esteban showed the identity card of that skinny boy with an angry face before the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, war veterans, family and friends. The ex-combatant and current director of the Falklands Museum for the reunion with that document and the 44 photographs that were stolen from the Argentine soldiers in the surrender of the war, forty years ago. “Malvinas has to be above the cracks, it has to be a matter of state”affirmed Esteban during the emotional act of restitution that took place in the San Martín Palace of the Chancellery.
persistence
The Argentine ambassador to the United Kingdom, Javier Figueroagave the identity card and the photographs to Esteban in an act in which the Secretary of Malvinas, Antarctica and the South Atlantic Islands also participated, Guillermo Carmona; the Minister of Culture of the Nation, Tristan Bauer; the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Daniel Filmus; journalist and historian Alicia Panero and the lawyer Federico Cincotta. “It is not regarding recovering lost objects, here we are dealing with the recovery of objects that were illegally appropriated. It is a very sensitive and particular aspect that has to do with the identity of the people, as in this case, Edgardo’s military ID,” Carmona stressed and hoped that this restitution “would be a metaphor for the recovery of other things that have been illegitimately appropriated”, referring to the Malvinas Islands, that part of the national territory usurped by a foreign power 189 years ago. “Edgardo represents that example of persistence in the face of reluctance and the commitment to achieve high goals that seem unattainable, but reality shows that they can be achieved,” added Carmona.
In July 2020, the Cordoban historian and journalist Alicia Panero informed Esteban that his soldier’s ID and a batch of photographs had been auctioned on the eBay trading platform in London, as “war trophies”. The objects had been stolen while he was a prisoner and embarked on the British ship Canberra in 1982. The Argentine ambassador to the United Kingdom demanded that Esteban’s belongings be returned. As the private collector refused, at the suggestion of the lawyer Damián Loretti, on March 31, 2021 Esteban filed a criminal complaint in London, through the lawyer Federico Cincotta. After a year of investigation, on April 11 the anti-terrorist division of the British police handed over the recovered objects to the Argentine Embassy in London.
A landmark of restoration
During the ceremony, Ambassador Javier Figueroa recalled that it was the Malvinas that united his life with that of Esteban, more than a decade ago, when he was a counselor at the Cuban embassy and the journalist and writer was unable to travel to present at the Fair of Havana Book lit by fire. When they met in Buenos Aires, they became friends. Figueroa confessed that he was surprised by the generosity, commitment and lucidity of the current director of the Malvinas Museum. “The management and research allowed the conversion of something that was an inert war trophy in a showcase to a document that speaks of the history of identity”, summed up the ambassador.
Cincotta reviewed the process that began from the moment the complaint was made to the British police until the identity card that had been stolen from Esteban was recovered. “After a lot of perseverance and insistence, I am extremely happy to have obtained what I might call a dream. This case constitutes a milestone in the various restitution cases and I hope that it will also serve as a precedent for similar cases”, said the lawyer who promoted the case in the United Kingdom. Historian and journalist Alicia Panero, author of the books Invisible Women. The silenced history of women in war y Unknown Soldier. We are nobodystressed that he never doubted that “the most important thing was the recovery of Edgardo’s identity as a soldier.”
feeling of absence
In the front row was Taty Almeida, beautiful and jovial as always. Daniel Filmus mentioned that it was the grandmothers and mothers who managed to get the right to identity into international law, “an Argentine contribution to humanity forever.” “We all have an identity that we lack; Argentina is not complete without the Falkland Islands. One of the characteristic features of the Argentine identity is the feeling of absence of a part of the territory that has not returned to the national territory.”, raised the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation. “We are not going to lower our arms until the Argentine flag on the islands tells us that we have recovered our full identity,” added Filmus. Bauer admitted to being “very emotional” in “a day of justice and reparation”. “This recovery is truly important and it is moving. Let’s keep thinking regarding the great struggles and the words”, proposed the Minister of Culture, until obtaining “the full exercise of the sovereignty of the Malvinas”.
Falklands, a future
Esteban thanked this “collective rescue of their belongings” and acknowledged that “Malvinas is and will be until the last day of my life.” “Recovering this is not minor, it is starting to put together a puzzle. Forty years is a lifetime. And here I have the skinny photo, with an angry face, but with the pride of being in Malvinas”, Esteban assured and clarified that it is also regarding 44 other stories recovered among those appropriated objects, which belonged to other people, and announced that from the Malvinas Museum they will work to identify the owners of the photographs and be able to restore them.
“We don’t have to pirate the spoils of war; it’s bad business. It hurts to go to the British museum and have to buy your photos or pay £11,000 for a helmet. It is our belonging, our life”, explained the author of lit by fire. “Malvinas is a past, Malvinas is a present, but we also have to work to make it a future”Stephen concluded.
