The lawsuit argues that the British “violated the right to life” of Mr Ibañez and hundreds more by using the nuclear submarine Conqueror to strike the Belgrano while it was navigating outside the British exclusion zone of 200 nautical miles.Lawyers contend that the attack was meant to undermine peace negotiations and prolong combat because the British Prime Minister refused any compromise. It may be months before the court decides whether to hear the case, which took five years to prepare. The lawyers acknowledge that winning indemnity for these deaths might prod Argentina to bring its own case against the UK in the Hague.”I am not doing this for revenge but in the hope of justice,” said Luis Alberto’s mother, Luisa Romero de Ibañez, 63. ” I’m told that La Señora [Margaret Thatcher] had to order the captain of that submarine to fire three times because he didn’t want to do it. That just tears me apart.” Mrs Ibañez and others finally goaded Argentine officials to erect a memorial to the lost sailors last year – a replica of the Belgrano, lined with portraits of the men who sunk with her. There is also a Belgrano cyber-cemetery, where loved ones can click a white cross and see their drowned relative’s portrait.Petty Officer Oswaldo Ramirez was a 20-year-old radar technician aboard the Belgrano when the torpedo struck “I saw it hit the stern and explode,” he recalled. “The ship caught fire like a huge match, the mattresses and covers ignited and the people were like human torches.

Never in my life will I get over the smell of human hair when it catches fire.”In spite of the horrific memories, Mr Ramirez disputes some claims in the lawsuit, which says Britain violated a 1907 Hague Convention. “I disagree that this is a war crime because we were never prisoners, nor were we killed after surrender,” said Mr Ramirez, now 38. “But I do think the British should be ruled guilty.”Mr Ramirez was one of seven men in his compartment who managed to escape as the cruiser sank. He is still haunted by the cries of the 23 others in his section who were still alive when the ship went down, though he admits, “I probably would have died if I had tried to save them.”Today Mr Ramirez lives in Argentina’s most southerly city, Ushuaia, where he teaches an internet course and helps youths fight drug addiction. Compared to many other veterans of the Falklands War, he feels lucky, but he deeply resents last year’s accord allowing Argentines with a passport to visit the islands “I am totally against that,” he said. “The Kelpers [islanders] have made no effort whatsoever to reach some sort of agreement with us Argentines.”In 1993, Julia Solano Pacheco made headlines by revealing that an investigation commissioned by the Argentine Defence Ministry failed to mention the Belgrano.

“Parts of the testimonies were missing – particularly those which accused Mrs Thatcher of giving the order to sink the Belgrano,” said Ms Solano. “I think they did this because there was an attempt at the time to reconstruct diplomatic relations.”Ms Solano works with ageing Falklands veterans in the psychiatric ward of Campo de Mayo Military Hospital. “The ones who survived believe their ship was headed toward the Argentine mainland and that the English had been unfair,” she said. “They share a deep pain for all those who died.”Ms Solano added that she hoped the current lawsuit before the Court of Human Rights would clear up the “aberrant crime”.”I don’t think anyone is ever ready for war, especially conscripts in a country like ours,” said Mr Ramirez.

“We only really realised what it all meant when the bullets started whistling by us.”. Grand Marnier, the liqueur with the distinctive tang of oranges, claims bigger export sales than any other French digestif. But as the company’s French executives headed off for the Bastille holiday weekend they were fending off allegations that conditions on their orange plantation in Haiti were little better than those on the French-owned sugar plantations worked by Haitian slave labourers in the 18th century. Grand Marnier, the liqueur with the distinctive tang of oranges, claims bigger export sales than any other French digestif. But as the company’s French executives headed off for the Bastille holiday weekend they were fending off allegations that conditions on their orange plantation in Haiti were little better than those on the French-owned sugar plantations worked by Haitian slave labourers in the 18th century.
On the 72-hectare plantation in the hills around Cap-Haïtien in the north of the poorest country in the western hemisphere, hundreds of men and women are employed to pick and peel the famous Grand Marnier oranges in conditions which, it is claimed, violate even Haiti’s flimsy labour code.Yannick Etienne of Batay Ouvriye, the workers’ rights group representing plantation staff, says she has seen the raw and bleeding hands of the women in the orange-cutting and grating room and the desperation of the men who spend hours each day perched on ladders reaching into the rough thorny branches with bare hands for 20 US cents a crate.To earn anything approaching a living they have to work flat out at least 12 hours day.