Finally, eight days after the national intervention took effect, and after months of ignoring official warnings, Governor Gustavo Melella has decided to appeal to the Federal Court . He does so under the guise of "defending federalism," but the facts suggest something far more sinister: premeditated inaction or technical incompetence that handed the Port of Ushuaia to Javier Milei's administration on a silver platter.

Lies have short legs

For months, this publication warned of the imminent intervention, based on official documents from the National Ports and Navigation Agency (ANPyN). The Governor's response was neither technical nor institutional; it was a personal attack . Melella even went so far as to say that Agenda Malvinas was lying and that we were receiving "bribes" to spread misinformation.

Today, the filing of his own injunction is an admission of his lie . The Governor is now acknowledging what he systematically denied: that the port was going to be taken over . But he is doing so too late .

A precautionary measure filed after the administrator had already taken office and the Prefecture had assumed operational control sounds more like a staged performance for the public than a real strategy for sovereign defense.

Accomplice or Incompetent? Time is on Milei's side

What's suspicious about this port "ordeal" is the handling of the timeline. Let's review the chronology:

1.    October 2025: A devastating technical inspection of the ANPyN (broken piles, accounting chaos).

2.    December 16, 2025: Formal notification from the Nation warning of intervention if there were no responses.

3.    January 21, 2026: Implementation of the intervention.

4.    January 29, 2026: Melella's judicial reaction.

Why did the Governor wait eight days after the intervention—and more than a month after the December notification—to act? This delay gave the Libertarian Government the necessary time to consolidate its takeover during a record-breaking tourist season. Is Melella a strategist of victimhood who preferred to lose the port in order to have an external enemy, or is he simply a manager overwhelmed by reality?

The Box on the Dock: The Original Sin

In his legal filing, Melella claims that "there is no misappropriation of funds." However, the origin of this conflict is Provincial Law No. 1596 , with which he attempted to seize the port surplus to finance the collapse of the OSEF social security system.

That attempt to transfer funds allocated by national law for the maintenance of the pier was the "original sin" that served as the nation's legal excuse. By prioritizing the financial patch for its inefficient health policy over investment in infrastructure (which was a mere 1.3% ), Melella handed Milei the argument of "police power" to intervene.

The Port "Out of Control": A Dangerous Confession

Interestingly, in its injunction, the Province warns that the port has been left "without controls" over hydrocarbons and hazardous materials, alerting to the risk of spills . If this is true, it's an admission that the province has lost total operational sovereignty. But it's also a contradiction: just a week ago they were saying the port was operating with "standards of excellence." So which is it? Is it a record-breaking port or an environmental hazard?

The end of autonomy due to a lack of foresight

Gustavo Melella seems not to have understood—or worse, appears to be complicit in—the policy of state dismantling spearheaded by Javier Milei . By failing to provide effective responses to the requests of the National Administration of Protected Natural Areas and by ignoring warnings, the Tierra del Fuego government allowed the most important strategic asset of the bicontinental province to be seized by Buenos Aires centralism.

Sovereignty is not defended with belated injunctions, but with solid docks, transparent accounts, and a maritime policy that Melella never had. Today, the "indirect federal intervention" denounced by the governor is the result of his own strategic abandonment. Tierra del Fuego no longer manages its own port, and the one responsible for handing over the key, through action or omission, resides in the Government House in Ushuaia.