The Monument to the fallen in Malvinas (Monumento a los caídos en Malvinas), a memorial located in San Martin Square (Plaza San Martín) in Buenos Aires, was erected in honor of Argentinian soldiers fallen in the Falklands War (April 2 - June 14, 1982).
The Monument, located in the site that faces the Avenida del Libertador, consists of 25 plates of marble black with the names of the 649 soldiers killed in the Falklands War. An eternal flame is also part of the monument, located above the symbolic map that represents the geography of Falkland Islands. By national decree No. 1,405 of May 5, 1989, president of Argentina Carlos Saul Menem, declared the erection of a monument dedicated to the fallen during the Falklands War in area of Buenos Aires. Despite opposition and long discussions was Monument designed by the architect Andres Moran ceremonially unveiled on June 24, 1990.
The site, where Memorial is located, occupies 263 m² and it is situated at the bottom part of the Plaza San Martin. The west section of the Memorial consists of a semicircular vertical wall decorated by 25 black marble plates with the names of the 649 soldiers fallen. They are inscribed without their military ranks, to equal them in the memory. On the north side of the wall is a structure in the shape of the Falkland Islands and a votive lamp. In front of the wall, parallel to it, but much lower, there is a wall with provincial and national coats of arms. Two lower structures symbolize two semicircular arms around a pole with Argentina flag.
The Falklands War (Spanish: Guerra de las Malvinas), also known as the Falklands Conflict, Falklands Crisis, and the Guerra del Atlántico Sur (Spanish for "South Atlantic War"), was a ten-week war between Argentina and the United Kingdom over two British overseas territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. It began on Friday, 2 April 1982, when Argentina invaded and occupied the Falkland Islands (and, the following day, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands) in an attempt to establish the sovereignty it had claimed over them. On 5 April, the British government dispatched a naval task force to engage the Argentine Navy and Air Force before making an amphibious assault on the islands. The conflict lasted 74 days and ended with the Argentine surrender on 14 June 1982, returning the islands to British control. In total, 649 Argentine military personnel, 255 British military personnel, and three Falkland Islanders died during the hostilities.
The conflict was a major episode in the protracted confrontation over the territories' sovereignty. Argentina asserted (and maintains) that the islands are Argentine territory, and the Argentine government thus characterised its military action as the reclamation of its own territory. The British government regarded the action as an invasion of a territory that had been a Crown colony since 1841. Falkland Islanders, who have inhabited the islands since the early 19th century, are predominantly descendants of British settlers, and favour British sovereignty. Neither state, however, officially declared war (both sides did declare the Islands areas a war zone and officially recognised that a state of war existed between them) and hostilities were almost exclusively limited to the territories under dispute and the area of the South Atlantic where they lie.
The conflict has had a strong impact in both countries and has been the subject of various books, articles, films, and songs. Patriotic sentiment ran high in Argentina, but the outcome prompted large protests against the ruling military government, hastening its downfall. In the United Kingdom, the Conservative Party government, bolstered by the successful outcome, was re-elected the following year. The cultural and political weight of the conflict has had less effect in Britain than in Argentina, where it remains a continued topic for discussion.
Relations between the United Kingdom and Argentina were restored in 1989 following a meeting in Madrid, Spain, at which the two countries' governments issued a joint statement. No change in either country's position regarding the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands was made explicit. In 1994, Argentina's claim to the territories was added to its constitution. [Wiki]