Falkands 30 year anniversary: the Argentine prisoner of war who became unofficial British translator "I told them I was British," he says. When the suspicious officers asked where he lived, Mr Savage struggled for a moment, before remembering Ossie Ardiles and Ricky Villa, two Argentine footballers playing for Tottenham Hotspur. "I said I was from Tottenham," he said. And in some accounts of the war, it's gone down as a true fact. Since the 1949 Geneva Convention demanded that information relating to prisoners of war be translated, officers enlisted Mr Savage to carry out the work. "I helped out at every British briefing," he says. During that week at sea, I found my role in the war. I translated instructions directed at Argentine troops and conversations between doctors and wounded conscripts. I even had to go to amputations. As tensions rise between Argentina and Britain over the sovereignty of the Falklands, Mr Savage, now 49, also praised the treatment of his colleagues in the aftermath of the war, which claimed the lives of 649 Argentine and 258 British troops. "The Canberra was like a sociological experiment," he says. Young soldiers who had been shooting at each other were telling stories and exchanging addresses. The British gave us hot showers and took us for walks on the upper deck. They treated us better than our own officers, who humiliated us and destroyed our moral. Two weeks ago, Cristina Kirchner, the president of Argentina, declassified the long-awaited Rattenbach Report, which analyses the Argentine defeat. It says the junta sent its troops to the Islands "without adequate preparation" and that many conscipts faced "serious malnutrition." Mr Savage said he was provided with just one day of rifle tuition before being sent to the frontline. The atrocities of the 'Dirty War' - during which up to 30,000 civilians were 'disappeared' by the military dictatorship - were extended to the Falklands, where conscripts were abused. "We went to the Islands with the same people that were torturing civilians in the 1970s," said Mr Savage, whose officer at Mount Longdon, Carlos Carrizo Salvadores, was arrested last year for alleged crimes against humanity. Once, after I stole a tin of meat, a sergeant placed his rifle against my head. I kneeled down and, crying, pleaded for him not to kill me. He pulled the trigger, but the cartridge was empty. After Néstor Kirchner, the former Argentine president and Mrs Kirchner's late husband, repealed amnesty laws in 2005 protecting those accused of human rights violations, more than 100 veterans have testified against their officers in the Falklands. Relations between Britain and Argentina have soured in the build-up to the 30th anniversary of the war with Mrs Kirchner renewing her country's claim to the Falklands. David Cameron says Argentina should respect the Islanders' right to self-determination and that sovereignty is non-negotiable. Mr Savage supports Ms Kirchner's push to encourage the UK to negotiate sovereignty of Las Malvinas, the name for the archipelago in Spanish, and denies she is using the cause to distract attention from escalating domestic crises, including accusations that her government is hiding high inflation rates of around 30 per cent. He also condemns what has been described as the "militarisation" by the UK of the South Atlantic and believes the Coalition should respect a 1965 UN resolution that calls for Argentina and Britain to talk. "It's a legitimate feeling on behalf of Mrs Kirchner," Mr Savage said. I see Mr Cameron like Margaret Thatcher and Leopoldo Galtieri [head of the military junta] 30 years ago. He has a mentality of jingoism. But with Ms Kirchner I see maturity; I see the respect of law. She is made out to be a monster, but she's just going with the law under her arm and persistently asking for dialogue. "The Islanders" culture should be respected, but they replaced an Argentine gaucho population in 1833 and do not have the right to self-determination. There should be a civilized handover of the Falklands to Argentina.