Geoffrey Cardozo

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Geoffrey Cardozo

CBE
Born3 March 1950
Service/branchBritish Army
RankColonel
Unit4th/7th Royal Dragoon Guards

Geoffrey Cardozo CBE (born 3 March 1950) is a former British Army Colonel, known for helping to identify the human remains of Argentine soldiers in the Argentine Military Cemetery, Falkland Islands. A number of the Argentine dead had graves marked "Argentine soldier only known to God" after the Falklands War due to the refusal of the Argentine government to assist in their identification.[1][2][3] In the Army, he belonged to the 4th/7th Royal Dragoon Guards.[4][5][6]

In November 2020, he was nominated for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize along Julio Aro, the Argentine Falklands War veteran who joined efforts with Cardozo in the DNA identification of remains in the Cemetery.[7][8][9]

He is the son of Frederick Cardozo, a British Soldier and SOE veteran.[10] He also was Secretary of Veterans Aid.[10][3]

Work in the Darwin Cemetery[edit]

Darwin Cemetery in 2007

Cardozo, a specialist in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and Spanish speaker,[11] arrived to the Falklands after the war to provide support and to check on the morale of service personnel.[12][13] As military engineers cleared the island of landmines, bodies were usually found.[12][13] Cardozo would then fly in a helicopter to look for the bodies, register the location where they were found and bury them.[12][14]

Then, Cardozo was officially charged with the task of locating and burying the remains of Argentine soldiers dispersed in the island, and the creation of a cemetery (in land donated by Brooke Hardcastle, a farmer).[9][11][15][12][14][13] To cope with this new task, he returned to London and assembled a crew of twelve men who would assist him in the Falklands, then came back to continue with the burying.[13][16] The tasks started in January 1983.[13]

Cardozo found according to different sources between 230 and 246 bodies: those he could positively identify; he provided a grave stone with personal details.[9][17][18][19] For the 122 he could not identify, Cardozo took the decision to carefully bury them, including personal items he would find, in the idea that his work could someday help in identifying the Argentines.[1][2][16] He wrapped the remains in three layers of sheets, plastic and PVC bags, including a note describing where the soldier had been found.[13][19][16][3][14] They would be later placed in a wooden coffin.[13] The burial works concluded on 19 February 1983, ten months after the end of the war.[14] For the construction of the cemetery, he contacted the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.[13]

Then, he wrote a report and sent it to the Red Cross, who sent it to the British Government, who would later send it to its Argentine counterparts. The families of Argentine veterans were not informed of the existence of this document.[19][12][14]

Identification of remains[edit]

Main article: Argentine Military Cemetery § Identification using DNA

In 2018, Argentine war veteran Julio Aro traveled to the Darwin Cemetery.[19] He then went to London, seeking for British veterans that he could gather information from. There, he met Geoffrey Cardozo, who acted as a translator.[3] He provided Aro with a copy of his reports, indicating the location of bodies in the cemetery, which became crucial for the DNA identification of Argentine veterans remains in 2017.[3][19][12][14]

President Mauricio Macri with Geoffrey Cardozo and Julio Aro, in 2018

Then, a race to identify the remains started. Aro founded the No Me Olvides foundation (Don't Forget Me), accompanied with Cardozo and journalist Gabriela Cociffi.[19][8][9][20][12] They also had the help of Roger Waters, who used his time in an audience with then-president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner to increase public pressure on the search.[19][20][21][22][14] There was, however, no real progress under the Kirchner governments who did not discuss the matter with the British government. The breakthrough occurred with the government of Mauricio Macri and the signining of the Foradori/Duncan agreement.[23]

Honors[edit]

In 1984, Cardozo was appointed Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II.[4][24]

In 2009, he was awarded a Mention of Honor by the Senate of Argentina.[19] In 2018, he was distinguished by the Argentine Embassy in London, alongside Julio Aro, Gabriela Cociffi and Roger Waters.[25][15][21]

In 2019, he was appointed Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II for services to UK/Argentina relations.[24][26]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b "Red Cross identifies 88 Argentines killed in Falklands War". Deutsche Welle. EFE, Reuters, AFP, dpa, AP. 2 December 2017.
  2. ^ a b Duncan, Alan (26 March 2018). "Relatives of Argentine soldiers killed during the Falklands War visit the Argentine cemetery at Darwin". GOV.UK. Foreign & Commonwealth Office. Retrieved 30 November 2020.
  3. ^ a b c d e Midgley, Dominic (13 March 2018). "British Army officer who never forgot fallen Argentinian soldiers". Daily Express.
  4. ^ a b Recommendation for Award for Cardozo, Geoffrey Charles. The National Archives (United Kingdom). 1984.
  5. ^ "Supplement To The London Gazette" (PDF). The London Gazette. 31 December 1983.
  6. ^ Tozer, Nicholas (30 March 2018). "A humanitarian triumph in the aftermath of war". MercoPress. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  7. ^ Johnson, Jamie (12 November 2020). "Falklands veterans who identified remains of unknown soldiers nominated for Nobel Peace prize". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 30 November 2020.
  8. ^ a b "El marplatense Julio Aro, candidato a Premio Nobel de la Paz" [Julio Aro, from Mar del Plata, candidate to the Nobel Peace Prize]. La Capital (Mar del Plata) (in Latin American Spanish). 9 November 2020.
  9. ^ a b c d Santa Cruz, Daniel (9 November 2020). "Dos veteranos de Malvinas serán candidatos al Nobel de la Paz" [Two Falklands War veterans to be Nobel Peace Prize candidates]. La Nación (in Latin American Spanish).
  10. ^ a b Ortega, Matías (31 March 2018). "Juan López y John Ward". Tiempo Argentino (in Latin American Spanish).
  11. ^ a b Perera, Verónica (8 October 2019). "Malvinas y Derechos Humanos, entre sinergias y tensiones: una conversación entre Pablo Vassel (ex subsecretario de Derechos Humanos de Corrientes) Celina Flores (Memoria Abierta), Maco Somigliana (Equipo Argentino de Antropología Forense) y María Laura Guembe (UBA)". Nuevo Mundo Mundos Nuevos. Nouveaux Mondes Mondes Nouveaux - Novo Mundo Mundos Novos - New World New Worlds (in Latin American Spanish). doi:10.4000/nuevomundo.77273. ISSN 1626-0252.
  12. ^ a b c d e f g Pardo, Daniel (19 June 2017). ""Todo esto es mi culpa": el soldado británico que construyó el cementerio en Malvinas /Falklands y asesorará la exhumación de soldados argentinos no identificados". BBC Mundo (in Spanish). Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  13. ^ a b c d e f g h Cociffi, Gabriela (20 June 2017). "La historia del oficial inglés que hizo el cementerio de Malvinas: "Enterré a los soldados argentinos con respeto y honor"". Infobae (in Latin American Spanish).
  14. ^ a b c d e f g null (2 April 2018). "El militar inglés que les devolvió su nombre a los argentinos caídos en Malvinas (Published 2018)". The New York Times (in Spanish). ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  15. ^ a b Sociales, CLACSO. Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias (2019), "Sepulturas argentinas en las Islas Malvinas", Ciencia por la verdad, 35 años del Equipo Argentino de Antropología Forense, CLACSO, pp. 137–139, doi:10.2307/j.ctvt6rms2.32, JSTOR j.ctvt6rms2.32, S2CID 243265653, retrieved 1 December 2020
  16. ^ a b c "Malvinas: Héroes con nombre" [Malvinas: Heroes with a name] (video). YouTube (in Latin American Spanish). La Nación. 2 August 2019.
  17. ^ Molina, Federico Rivas (6 September 2017). "La Cruz Roja termina la exhumación de soldados argentinos sepultados sin nombre en Malvinas". El País (in Spanish). ISSN 1134-6582. Retrieved 30 November 2020.
  18. ^ Molina, Federico Rivas (21 June 2017). "La Cruz Roja inicia la exhumación de soldados argentinos en las Islas Malvinas". El País (in Spanish). ISSN 1134-6582. Retrieved 30 November 2020.
  19. ^ a b c d e f g h Guerriero, Leila (10 October 2020). "La otra guerra de las Malvinas" [The other Malvinas War]. El País (in Spanish). ISSN 1134-6582. Retrieved 30 November 2020.
  20. ^ a b "Roger Waters detrás del pedido de CFK a la Cruz Roja por los caídos". Perfil (in Latin American Spanish). 2 April 2012. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  21. ^ a b Santa Cruz, Daniel (1 March 2018). "La historia detrás del premio a Roger Waters por su compromiso con los caídos en Malvinas". La Nación (in Latin American Spanish).
  22. ^ Cociffi, Gabriela (4 December 2017). "Madres, un soldado y Roger Waters: la conmovedora historia de la identificación de los caídos en Malvinas". Infobae (in Latin American Spanish).
  23. ^ "UK and Argentina joint communiqué: 13 September 2016". GOV.UK. Retrieved 18 January 2021.
  24. ^ a b "Geoffrey Cardozo". The London Gazette. Central Chancery of the Orders of Knighthood. 28 December 2019. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  25. ^ "Malvinas: depositarán rosas hechas por Juan Carlos Pallarols en los cementerios argentino y británico". La Nación (in Latin American Spanish). 22 March 2018.
  26. ^ "El coronel Geoffrey Cardozo recibió una de las más altas condecoraciones del Reino Unido por su labor humanitaria en las Islas Malvinas". Infobae (in Latin American Spanish). 28 December 2019.
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