“UNDERCOVER AFFAIRS”

 

Trying to hide the behind the scenes of a murky event disguised as an accident. How long can the fate of the crew of the ARA San Juan be hidden?

By Sir Charlattam

Winter is approaching the northern hemisphere and the afternoons are getting shorter, colder and with the restrictions due to the Coronavirus, there are few chances to make an interesting appointment, at least not in what is merely recreational. But undoubtedly this is not for the intrigue and that is why the flow of information and transcendent on topics of interest of what happens here and there in other parts of the globe has not stopped.

The issue of the submarine “ARA San Juan” that reminded us of a similar episode that occurred in August 2000 with the Russian “Kursk”, not only because of the tragedy itself, but also because of some circumstantial elements in which it occurred and one of they went, ours were there. Due to the information that has been arriving from Buenos Aires, there is much interest in closing the judicial investigations on the causes and responsibilities.

Beyond the Argentine publications that were talking about the prosecution of former President Mauricio Macri, his Defense Minister Oscar Aguad and his Navy staff for a possible cover-up (and espionage on family members) in the unclear matter of the submarine "ARA San Juan" that -according to the media account- disappeared on November 15, 2017 in the midst of circumstances never clarified and “reappeared” on November 17, 2018 in the same mysterious way in which it was said that he was not found .

It was inevitable, someone had to take responsibility and it was not us or the Americans. From what I was able to find out, the naval intelligence (Naval Intelligence Division) was aware of the movements of the Argentines and there was a special interest at that time not to be observed. A top secret event was taking place west of the submarine's route and its stealthy approach was a fatal mistake. The truth was that what happened to the submarine was part of that event and its sinking testified to the success of what was being rehearsed. Although Buenos Aires was not aware of it, they did learn the same day about the fate of its 44 men.

I don't think I need to say that we use the South Atlantic as a naval training ground not only for our navy but for NATO. We are sure that the Argentine military knows this very well, but its politicians are much more concerned with nonsense than with high national security issues. The same politicians like Macri and those who currently govern are conditioned by the Foreign Office, that is, they will not ask annoying questions and will attend to a saying such as “do not move beyond where they do not see you”, you know.

From the beginning, several very suspicious elements present in the area that day had been raised. The official version and when I say “official” I mean the one that the Argentine government and the media that make up the arc of propagators of truth adjusted to a certain interest, acted a masquerade to make public opinion believe that the submarine was simply He had vanished without his being able to launch any call for help. It is true that the state of your fleet is deplorable but we knew that the submarine had a good communications system.

From that moment on, events raged in a dizzying and even overactive way. Those who first volunteered and mobilized a search and rescue squad were none other than the “Royal Marines” (jollies) based in “Mount Pleasant” in the occupied Falkland Islands. The Macri government, following the masquerade, accepted this supposed aid based on the “solidarity of the sea” but that in reality was destined to nothing less than to have close control -with NID observers- and total control of the Argentine naval operations that were being carried out taking place at Cape Horn.

 

Why did the “jollies” arrive in such a hurry to the mainland? One of the reasons for such haste was the Russian offer of search and rescue technical assistance that would later arrive with the ship “Yantar”. Russian involvement in the South Atlantic was a nightmare come true for the Foreign Office. The implications on what happened with the submarine endangered the security of the submarine cable facilities that carry information from Mount Pleasant to Brussels, which interconnect with the Chilean bases in Magallanes and all NATO stations around the globe. At that point and as has been revealed, the naval command and subsequently the Minister of Defense and President Macri himself learned of the disaster through one of the most unusual but available means for an emergency: THE WHATSAPP from a cell phone on the submarine. What did those desperate calls communicate before the submarine went down? From there, other questions begin to be asked. Was it a structural failure of the ship or was it the result of an attack?

Although the formulation of these questions seems untrue, they put the Argentine government in serious trouble and a mistake in trying to argue an unconvincing story that covered up what had really happened could trigger an international incident. And if not, why was the event covered up and its 44 crew members abandoned?

Earlier audios and even internal reports from the Argentine Navy were leaked that gave an account of a very different version of what the government had. Apparently the surface units that came to the point from where the calls had been made had nothing to do and even the presence of oil and fuel in the water had been reported, attesting that the submarine had gone to the bottom. The audio of a report from one of the ships that attended the rescue had even been published by some capital media, making comments that seemed to describe the result of an attack. Of course, the government and the Navy categorically denied it, that audio disappeared and that track was never dealt with again.

Remember that on board the submarine its crew members had their cell phones and one of them was activated long before this event from where they wrote some text messages commenting that they were being followed by British and Chilean ships.What were the reasons for this surveillance? What could a small outdated diesel-powered submarine do that posed no threat if left to explore? This is a part of the “official” version in Argentina that does not want to be touched.

We have been hearing that the “investigators” and the lawyers of the crew members' relatives try to blame the Macri government for having sent the old submarine on a naval espionage mission, but they do not specify what the precise objectives of that mission were. Furthermore, it is highly doubtful that the apparatus was fit for a task like that. When I started talking to an old friend from S.B.S. and that just a few years ago he retired from active service, when I asked him if he believed that a submarine like this could have any degree of success for espionage tasks against the British fleet in the Malvinas, his answer was simple, brief and forceful: “No way ”.

The Argentine submariners had tested their capabilities not only in the 1982 war but also in several joint UNITAS exercises with the US Navy in which they were discreetly present, attachés of His Majesty's naval intelligence, showing that with few resources and great cunning could compete with the greats. But those were exercises. Many officers of the American fleet were humiliated to such an extent that insults such as “what the hell were you looking at Cunt or “asshole” could be heard over the intercoms. Certainly very hilarious.

If we accept that hypothesis, we would have to talk about a mission destined to fail or even to swallow the bait of a counterintelligence operation of our boys. But certainly that would not be a sufficient reason to attack the submarine. With only harassment and persecution maneuvers it would have been more than enough for them to run to the continent. The Royal Navy officers would also put their necks on the edge since such an unnecessary act would be unforgivable unless, it had been the only remedy. And then where did the hypothesis of an implosion come from? And if that was the cause, what originated it?

Look, for a similar effect to take place, the submarine must have broken its immersion capacity and by pressure caused a crushing of the walls, causing the entire structure to jump, but for this, there must have been a reason why it sank so fast. The quickest way I know of for such a process is to disable the ship or an impact so powerful that it would not have given the crew a chance to close the compartments. Whatever it was, it rendered the ship totally defenseless and could also boast, instantly eliminated the crew.

For it to have collapsed as one of the factors of that implosion, there must have been an immediate cause such as a collapse in the structure, the hole in the hull due to an impact being the most common and known, I must also say that no it's the only one.

Here too the researchers cannot explain the cause of that supposed implosion. If there was an implosion, why did the underwater microphones of the Vienna-based Commission for Comprehensive Control and Nuclear Tests record two explosions in the acoustic sonar of the Atlantic? If there were two of them, one would have been the impact of a weapon and the other the implosion when it sank.

So what could Argentines have discovered that cost them their lives? Perhaps the most disturbing question of this -and one that the Argentine and British governments do not want to answer- is where are the bodies of the 44? The convenient intervention of the oceanographic vessel “Ocean Infinity” was another pillar element to close the lie with this alleged find. And if the Argentine government knew from the first moment the fate of the submarine and that of these public servants, supposedly dead by the implosion of the hull that should have been reasoned, why did not a body come out?