Thirty years ago, the Brits were not the only enemy for young Argentine soldiers fighting in the Falklands. Many say they were tortured and starved by their own officers, and are now seeking justice in court.

"I was staked to the ground, my hands and feet tied, for eight hours alongside two fuel tanks while the British bombs rained down. I was terrified I was going to be burned alive," Gleriano told AFP.

Gleriano was the first former Argentine soldier to report mistreatment by officers during the Falklands War.

And his case is now among 100 others brought as a case action suit by Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Perez Esquivel before the Supreme Court, which aims to have some military commanders declared to have violated human rights.

Gleriano was told he was being punished for seeking food for himself and his comrades after two-and-a-half days without anything to eat shortly before Argentina surrendered on June 14, 1982.

"My superior officer ... told me that he had staked me down 'to teach me a lesson.' I spent eight hours on the frozen ground until I lost consciousness. My companions rescued me," said Gleriano.

He was 19 years old when he was sent to the islands only a month after being drafted into the military.

Gleriano, now an employee of the Argentine Senate, said his commanders showed little compassion when British bombs fell on their infantry positions near Stanley while he lay immobilized and terrified that a bomb would ignite the two tanks holding some 250 liters of fuel nearby.

"On the continent, they made you disappear," he said, referring to the 30,000 people who disappeared during the military dictatorship. "In the Falklands, they staked you down. The continent's repressive machine was the same one that led us into a war against Britain in the islands."

Veterans say that hunger and cold, physical and psychological punishments, a a lack of warm clothing against the islands cold weather as well as poor armament and disorganization all sapped moral.

In the end, the drafted Argentine army proved no match for the highly-trained, professional British military. Some 649 Argentines and 255 British died during the 74-day war.

But since then some 400 Argentines veterans have committed suicide, more than the 323 killed in the sinking of the navy cruiser the General Belgrano. The suicide rate among British veterans has also been high.

"Most suicides occurred in the early years after the war," Mario Volpe, president of the Center for Veterans of the Falkland Islands in La Plata, told AFP.

"Argentina was a country with no history of conventional wars and no preparation for dealing with such trauma, but then neither was there much interest," Volpe said.

Volpe was a 25-year-old medical student when he enlisted and fought in the war, serving as a radio operator.

"The scars of war are permanent," he said. "It takes nothing to revive the memories, and there are frequent deaths from drugs or alcohol."

Argentine veteran Enrique Splitek said he was given one day's rations to last him a week while serving in the Falklands Sound. He had no suitable clothes and was given weapons which did not work.

"We went to look for food in neighboring barracks, but we hid it so the non-commissioned officers would not take it from us," said Splitek, 50. "One day we found a storehouse with food and cigarettes. An officer noticed and wanted to confiscate it from me. I could not take it anymore and I fought with him to grab it away."

"The soldiers stole out of hunger, the NCOs out of wickedness," said the former soldier.

The veterans also complain that some officers abandoned their troops at crucial moments. "The head of my company, a first lieutenant, did not once visit the positions to see how the soldiers were doing," Volpe said.

"Other commanders were disastrous because they disappeared before the end of the war. They went home before anyone else."

In one case, incompetent military leaders ordered one of their own airplanes to be shot down as fighting raged near the capital, Stanley.

Although normally quite reserved, Volpe becomes emotional when he thinks about his fallen comrades, whose pictures fill the walls of his office. Thirty-three men from his regiment were killed.

"In my mind, I see the young people who I last saw moments before combat," he said. "I see their last moments, some with smiles, some with fear, some with questions, some with goodbyes."