Infográfico com detalhes do afundamento do
ARA Belgrano

Conflitos - Wars

Defesanet 27 Junho 2005 Guardian 27Junho 2005

Navy blocks release of documents
on Belgrano sinking

Richard Norton-Taylor and Rob Evans

Ministers have refused to release any Ministry of Defence documents relating to the sinking of the Argentine cruiser, the General Belgrano, the most controversial decision of the Falkands conflict 23 years ago.
Every line in the documents is being withheld, even though the papers were made available to the author of an official history of the Falklands campaign published tomorrow.

Sir Lawrence Freedman, professor of war studies at King's College, London university, drew on the papers to write a detailed account after he was commissioned by the government.

In response to a freedom of information request from the Guardian, the Royal Navy was less forthcoming.

It ruled that the release of information about the attack, including the rules of engagement, "could have, directly or indirectly, significantly prejudicial consequences for the UK's international relationships and interests".

It gives no further explanation.

The navy says it recognises that the "events" of the conflict "continue to be of significant interest".

However, it was decided that the public interest in withholding the information "outweighs" the public interest in its release.

The decision was taken after consulting ministers and other, unspecified, government departments.

The Belgrano was attacked on May 2 1982 by the submarine HMS Conqueror outside the exclusion zone established by the govern-ment around the Falklands, with the loss of 321 lives.

The cover-up by the Thatcher government over the circumstances surrounding the sinking of the Belgrano prompted Clive Ponting, a senior Ministry of Defence official, to send documents to the Labour MP, Tam Dalyell.

Mr Ponting was prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act and was acquitted by an Old Bailey jury in 1985.

It emerged during the trial that one of Mr Ponting's colleagues, Michael Legge, warned ministers that the "appropriate warning" about a change in the rules of engagement on May 2 1982 - to allow attacks on the Belgrano and any other Argentine warship "over a large area" - was not issued until May 7.

It was claimed that rules of engagement would have allowed attacks on Argentine destroyers picking up survivors.

Mr Ponting was also concerned about ministers refusing to reveal the time the Belgrano was first detected and the direction it was heading when it was sunk.

The Guardian is now challenging the Ministry of Defence's refusal, arguing that Argentinian sensitivities over the war have now faded.

The Argentinian government re-established diplomatic relations with Britain in 1990.

In 1998, the then Argentinian president, Carlos Menem, became the first Argentinian head of state since the war to visit Britain, laying a wreath at the Falklands war memorial at St Paul's Cathedral.

The Foreign Office says that a visit by the Prince of Wales to Argentina the following year helped to develop the "spirit of reconciliation and co-op- eration" between the two countries.