2023-09-08 04:06:00
September in Malvinas, with six hours of sunshine a day and a climate that is divided into 15 days of rain, three of snow and the rest dry and windy -according to data-, that September 8, 1964, a Cessna 185 plane, single-engine 260 HP, with the license plate LV-HUA bursts into the alienated sky of the islands…
The Argentine pilot, of Irish descent Miguel Fitzgerald, who called the plane he flew to the Malvinas “Luis Vernet”, turned 58 on the same day that he inscribed forever, a personal and transcendent action in the history of the Homeland. The son of Irish parents, he was born on September 8, 1926 and died on November 25, 2010. It was the first time that an Argentine arrived alone on a plane to the Malvinas, to plant our light blue and white banner on September 8, 1964….
He would say after the memorable action: “I realized that in that year, 1964, the United Nations Organization (UN) would deal with issues related to the decolonization of territories on its agenda. I decided that it was time to dust off the national sentiment, to keep alive in the country the claim on the land seized in an inadmissible way”.
Indeed, in that year and in those days, the Government of Pte. Illia sent the Legal Adviser of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dr. José Maria RUDA as a representative before the UN, with the mission of exposing the situation of the Malvinas Islands before said subcommittee. At that time he will deliver a memorable speech, “The famous Ruda allegation” defending Argentine sovereignty over the Malvinas, South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands, so argued (unanimously approved) that they gave origin, basis and foundation to the Resolution 2065.
Fitzgerald, when recounting his vindicatory flight, will say: “When I passed over the ranches, I surprised the Malvinenses because the plane did not have floats, as they were used to seeing. I landed on the stables court and without stopping the plane, I got off. There was no person. I placed the flagpole on the latticework of the field” A resident arrived and held a dialogue with him in English… “Here, give this to your governor” was the Proclamation in Spanish that he was carrying; other people would approach, he got on the plane and took off normally, all this took him about fifteen minutes.
When he arrived in Rio Gallegos, “they gave him a fraternal welcome”, and he was warmly received at different levels, in the Capital, he signed autographs and even members of the Tacuara Group awaited him with joy, but we do not assert whether or not he belonged to said movement. President Illia prevented him from being sanctioned by the Air Force and invited him to Government House.
The following are two outstanding paragraphs from the Proclamation left by Fitzgerald in the Malvinas Islands: “Almost 132 years have elapsed since the act of piracy and subjugation of Argentine sovereignty in the Islands that I symbolically occupy today. The dispossession perpetrated by the privateers of the frigate Clío… We Argentines are determined not to allow England to continue occupying an archipelago that for geographical, historical, political and legal reasons, belongs to the Argentine Republic”.
The occasion of this trip led the new newspaper Crónica to exhaust its circulation and its founder and director, Héctor Ricardo García to be a permanent promoter of the Malvinas Cause and to burn the phrase “the Malvinas were, are and will be Argentine”.
Courtesy of Correo Argentino, a special postmark was made alluding to the fiftieth anniversary of Miguel Fitzgerald’s flight to the Malvinas Islands on September 8, 2014. (Sources: Fundación Marambio, Crónica newspapers and La Prensa / Pablo Otero)
*Diploma in Heritage Preservation NyC (UBP)
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