Argentina installs new military government
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This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.
See the article in its original context from April 1982.
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General Mario Benjamin Menendez succeeds his only Argentine predecessor, Luis Vernet, on the islands after 149 years of British colonial rule.
The General, who celebrated his 52nd birthday the day Argentina seized control of the windswept archipelago, has a personal history of trouble-shooting.
He was head of the operational army staff in the northwestern city of Tucuman during a successful military campaign against rural guerrillas in 1975, a period he describes as one of the peaks of his career.
His uncle and his great-uncle, both called General Lucinano Benjamin Mendez, also saw active service in the same traditional centre of unrest with the Fifth Army Brigade.
The great-uncle later staged an abortive coup against the government of late army strongman Juan Domingo Peron in 1951 and the uncle commanded the Third Army Corps in the explosive provincial city of Cordoba.
The younger General Luciano Menendez failed in an attempt to topple the then commander in chief of the army, General Ernesto Viola, whose authority he questioned.
General Mario Benjamin Menendez was chief of staff at the army headquarters in the Argentine capital until informed of his appointment last Saturday.
He told the popular magazine 10 in an interview that he would govern the South Atlantic 200-islandgroup with a small personal cabinet of English-speaking Argentine military officers.
General Menendez has emphasised in television interviews that he plans a gradual process of integrating the local inhabitants, mostly sheep farmers of Britishstock, into the Argentine way of life. "And those who do not wish to embrace Argentine nationality will remain British subjects," he told 10. He said his initial task would be to consolidate the Argentine presence on the islands in the face of the British reaction.
