A former air force commander has acknowledged that Chile helped Britain during the 1982 Falklands war because it feared an attack from Argentina after the conflict.
General Fernando Matthei told the Santiago newspaper La Tercera that then-dictator General Augusto Pinochet approved Chile's "strategic cooperation" with Britain's successful efforts to recover the southern islands that Argentina had occupied in April 1982.
A good relationship with Argentina "is very important to me," Matthei said in the interview published on Saturday, "but at that time in the face of such a clear threat, I had to do every possible effort to strengthen Chile's defense."
Matthei's remarks come just ahead of the release of The Official History of the Falklands War, a book by British historian Lawrence Freeman that is to disclose details of Chile's assistance in the war.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair sent a copy of the chapter about Chile to Chilean President Ricardo Lagos, who shared it with his Argentine counterpart Nestor Kirchner, said Luis Maira, the Chilean ambassador to Argentina.
Rumors of Chilean help for the British during the nearly three-month war have circulated for years. Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher referred to it, without elaborating, as she expressed support for Pinochet when he was arrested and kept in custody from 1998 to 2000 on a warrant by a Spanish judge who wanted to try him on human-rights charges.
No details have been made public about the type of help Chile provided, but most reports indicate it was mainly intelligence information and permission to use remote Chilean southern landing strips.
Chile's leaders believed that an Argentine victory in the Falklands would have been followed by an attack against Chile, according to Matthei. He said then Argentine dictator Leopoldo Galtieri, who ordered the invasion of the islands, clearly warned that.
Galtieri "told Argentines at Plaza de Mayo that he would recover everything that belonged to Argentina that was located south ... and all the Argentine people roared in approval," Matthei told the paper.
Chile and Argentina had actually been on the brink of war four years earlier over three islands in the Beagle channel. The conflict was avoided at last minute in a mediation by Pope John Paul II.
Another reason for Chile to help Britain was its offer to sell military airplanes at a low cost to Chile, which was at the time suffering a worldwide embargo on arms purchases because of alleged abuses during Pinochet's regime. Chile bought nine Hawker Hunter war planes and, after the war, received three reconnaissance planes, Matthei said.
"We needed to reinforce our air force and at that time we were not able to buy anywhere, we were embargoed everywhere," Matthei said.
He said he doesn't know whether other branches of the Chilean military assisted the UK.
Argentine troops invaded the Falklands in April 1982 to back up Argentina's claim that it had inherited the Falklands from the Spanish crown before the islands were occupied by Britain in 1833. More than 700 Argentines and 255 British were killed in the fighting.
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