While the Tierra del Fuego government proclaims sovereignty, the docks of the Fuegian capital sustain the flourishing tourist business of the colony established in the Malvina Islands.

For Gustavo Melella's government, sovereignty seems to be an elastic concept that stretches during campaign speeches and shrinks when faced with port fees . More than three months after Agenda Malvinas formally requested public information under Provincial Law No. 653 , the silence from the Provincial Port Authority (DPP) , headed by Roberto Marcial Murcia, is deafening.

The request was not arbitrary: it seeks to quantify maritime traffic between Ushuaia and the Malvina Islands from 2011 to the present. However, the response did not come from the offices on Lasserre Street, but from the colonial administration itself in Puerto Argentino.

The shameful figures

While Tierra del Fuego officials hide behind "institutional silence," Steph Middleton , Director of Tourism for the British government, optimistically celebrates the figures for the 2025-2026 season. Her projections are a slap in the face to the national rhetoric:

What the Tierra del Fuego government refuses to admit is that much of that colonial "success" is logistically impossible without the infrastructure of Ushuaia. This southern port functions, in practice, as an essential link in the tourist circuit that fills British coffers, systematically violating the spirit of Provincial Law No. 852 (Gaucho Rivero Law) and, even more so, the First Transitory Provision of the Argentine Constitution .

The "Gaucho Rivero" Law: A Dead Letter

Passed in 2011, the Gaucho Rivero Law prohibits the docking and refueling of vessels engaged in natural resource extraction in the Malvina Islands basin. While the focus is on fishing and oil, tourism has become the islands' third economic pillar, generating approximately US$20 million annually .

How can it be explained that the Secretary for the Malvinas of that province, Andrés Dachary , publicly admits that "dozens of cruise ships depart from Ushuaia towards the islands" and no action is taken? This admission is proof enough: the violation of the First Transitory Provision of the National Constitution is a known fact, permitted by the political leadership.

Business over the Constitution

The province presents itself as a "champion of the defense of the sovereignty of the Malvina Islands" in international forums, but in practice, it prioritizes the inflow of tourist revenue. By allowing cruise ships to use Ushuaia as a base for their routes to the usurped archipelago, the provincial government is:

1.    Facilitating the logistics of an economy that seeks self-sufficiency for the colony.

2.    Ignoring the constitutional mandate that obliges all Argentinians to the recovery of said territories.

3.    Concealing with opacity data that should be public, preventing civil society from knowing the magnitude of the sovereign "drainage" .

For the Tierra del Fuego Provincial Port Authority , the clock on the Public Information Law stopped 100 days ago. But the clock of history keeps ticking, and every cruise ship that departs from Ushuaia bound for the islands, under the complacent gaze of local authorities, is a symbolic lowering of the flag in the Malvinas' capital itself.

Sovereignty isn't defended with press releases; it's defended with acts of government. And today, the port of Ushuaia seems to speak more English than Spanish.