Britain's sinking of Argentine cruiser still stirs emotions

LONDON: The sinking of the cruiser General Belgrano by a British nuclear-powered submarine with the loss of 323 Argentine lives still stirs controversy, 25 years after the Falklands War.

Argentine lawyers have argued that the warship was outside of the 200-mile (322 kilometre) exclusion zone established by British forces around the archipelago when it was sunk on May 2, 1982.

But they have failed to win their case that British committed a "war crime" when the HMS Conqueror fired conventional torpedoes into the Belgrano, a World War II-era warship.

However, in July 2000, the European Court of Human Rights rejected a claim for compensation on a technicality, saying it should have been filed six months after the warship sank.

It was the first serious attack on the Argentine navy by the British since the conflict began with Argentina's invasion of the disputed Falkland islands on April 2, 1982.

It was also the biggest single loss of life in the 10-week war.

Clive Ponting, a senior Ministry of Defence civil servant, leaked documents saying the cruiser had been moving away from the islands. He was later tried under the Official Secrets Act, but found not guilty.

Retired General Jeremy Moore, who was the commander of the land forces, supported the attack during an anniversary interview with AFP.

"The fact that she was steaming in that direction made not the slightest difference to the threat she posed. She could turn around at any moment. She was still posing a threat to our people," he said.

But the controversy was fuelled by the The Sun mass-circulation newspaper in Britain, which ran the story about the cruiser's sinking under the banner headline: "GOTCHA." It was pulled from later editions.

Historian Lawrence Freedman, writing in "The Official History of the Falklands Campaign," said the decision to sink the warship -- the first and only such incident involving a nuclear-powered submarine -- was a military one.

It had been argued at the time that prime minister Margaret Thatcher had ordered the destruction of the Belgrano to sabotage a peace plan.

"It is just not true, there is no evidence, " said Freedman, a professor of war studies at King's College, London.

He described how the decision actually resulted from the fact that Britain was at war and felt vulnerable to an Argentine attack.

He noted that Britain would have preferred to have sunk an aircraft carrier but had been unable to find one.