Members of the 7th March for Sovereignty to Lake Escondido denounced this Wednesday that nine protesters and a photojournalist were detained by rural laborers who respond to British magnate Joe Lewis after they tried to enter the Camino del Tacuifí, one of the accesses to Lake Escondido, which is prohibited for public transit.
In protest of these facts, the demonstrators made a total blockade of the national route 40 at kilometer 1960, at the height of the Tacuifí area, from where one of the roads that leads to the water mirror starts.
After noon, a group of protesters together with the photojournalist from the Bariloche de Télam correspondent, Alejandra Bartoliche, managed to enter through one of the sides of this road, which prompted the reaction of the rural laborers who respond to Lewis and Nicolás Van Ditmar , his right hand.
Likewise, Télam was able to confirm that among the detained protesters is the deputy and block leader of the Frente de Todos Parlasur, Gastón Harispe, leaders of La Cámpora and other movements.
“There are people with the Argentine flag defending an Englishman who is usurping land and who does not allow him to reach a lake, which belongs to the people of Río Negro and to the Argentines and to the whole world who wants to enter that lake,” the deputy told Télam. for the Frente de Todos (FdT) Daniel Gollan, who is in the march.
And he questioned: “What happens in Hidden Lake? What is hidden? Why are prosecutors, judges, people from the Federal Intelligence Agency (AFI) and media entrepreneurs coming? The people want to know what is happening.”
After noon, the members of the March for Sovereignty to Lake Escondido had tried to enter the Camino del Tacuifí, one of the accesses to Lake Escondido, which is prohibited for public transit by decision of British magnate Joe Lewis, which was prevented by part of rural laborers who work on the ranch.
In a climate of tension and with more than a hundred provincial police officers guarding the property, the protesters tried to advance along the path that leads to the Lake, but their passage was prevented by a thick fence that the tycoon maintains on the road.
The bars of the gate had been smeared with truck grease and barbed wire had been placed to prevent access by protesters.
Despite the attempts to knock down the gate, hitting it on several occasions with stones and even using a grinder, they were unsuccessful in trying to knock down the gate and there were incidents in the struggle between the laborers and the protesters.
During the struggle, one of the demonstrators was injured in the face due to a stone thrown by the rural laborers who respond to Lewis.
On the road there are at least 25 laborers mounted on horses and several others on foot, with whips and rubber bands, and they even fired pepper spray from inside the gate.
In this context, a person appeared claiming to be a lawyer and legal representative of Lewis and the neighbors, insisting that they wanted peace but that they were waiting for a definitive resolution of justice so that the traffic would be public.
Given this, the leaders of the march proposed setting up a dialogue table and are awaiting an answer to carry out a negotiation and that the mobilization can continue.
The protesters tried to enter through the Camino del Tacuifí as was resolved last night during an assembly of leaders from all over the country, who deliberated at the “El Pueblito” hotel-camping, in the town of El Bolsón, Río Negro, where different aspects of mobilization.
“We are not violent, we organize and mobilize in peace, with the objective of opening to the public the thick gate that is installed at the beginning of the Camino del Tacuifí (on Route 40), the defense of Lake Escondido and the National sovereignty”, reported Julio César Urien, head of the Interactive Foundation to Promote the Culture of Water (Fipca), at the end of the multisectoral meeting.
The Bariloche fair judge, Mariano Castro, yesterday urged the Executive Branch of Río Negro to take responsibility for “the physical integrity” of the protesters participating in the seventh March for Sovereignty to Lago Escondido, while the column “Juana Azurduy” he was preparing to start a nine-kilometer journey through water to reach that site.
The Justice of Bariloche responded in this way to an appeal filed by Fipca lawyers, who denounced that on Monday between 15 and 20 laborers, who respond to the orders of the English magnate Joe Lewis, prevented them from entering the Camino de Tacuifí to one of the columns of the Sovereign March to Lago Escondido.
As reported by the foundation, the magistrate’s decision “is based on the fact that the provisions of those who go the long way were calculated based on the return by the public path of Tacuifí, which is hindered by the security guard of Joe Lewis and Nicolás Van Ditmar, his right hand”.
With two columns of protesters, the seventh March for Sovereignty intends to reach the shores of Lake Escondido to denounce that in that area where Lewis has his stay there is a “British enclave” that functions as “the cave of a mafia power that seeks to condition democracy”, according to the organizers.
Lago Escondido I They demand the liberation of the Camino de Tacuifí in front of the Courts of Bariloche
✍️ Marcelo Cena, special envoyhttps://t.co/GzX4b2JoDD
– Telam Agency (@AgenciaTelam) January 31, 2023
Column 1, headed by Urien and other political, social and trade union leaders, arrived at Foyel on Monday, where the entrance to the Camino del Tacuifí is located, which leads to Lago Escondido, after traveling the 40 kilometers that separate that town. from that of El Bolsón.
Column 2 “Juana Azurduy”, which continued its march along the Mountain Road, longer and of medium difficulty, arrived yesterday at 4:30 p.m. at the western head of Lake Escondido, spokespersons for the demonstration told Télam. That column will have to travel 9 kilometers in a kayak until they reach the lake.
“That the mountain column has reached one of the shores of Lake Escondido leaves them one step away from fulfilling their objective: to exercise sovereignty and make use of their rights. It should be noted that, after communicating with the leaders of the journey, Sergio Cuestas and Alejandro Mayer, it was learned that a group of men mounted on horseback followed them and watched intimidatingly. Now it is up to the province of Río Negro to exercise sovereignty,” Fipca said on his Twitter account.
The Peronist leader Jorge Rachid and Father Francisco “Paco” Oliveira, a member of the group of priests of the Option for the Poor, participated there.
The leaders and militants of column 2 are scheduled to meet column 1 of the march.
Among the organizations that make up the seventh edition of the March to Lago Escondido are the CTA de los Trabajadores and the CTA Autónoma, the graphics union (Federación Gráfica Bonaerense), regional CGT north zone, the Federal Current of Workers and the October Movement.
Also part of the initiative are references from the Coordinating Table for the Defense of the National Sovereignty of the Paraná River and the Magdalena Canal, La Cámpora, Causa Nacional, Grupo por la Soberanía, Grupo Bolívar, Argentinos para la Victoria Provincia 25, Movimiento Popular La Dignity, Los Pibes Popular Movement and the Socialist Movement of Workers (MST) in the Left Front, among other political spaces.
“The integrity of the people was taken care of,” said Arabela Carreras
The governor of Río Negro, Arabela Carreras, defended this Wednesday the actions of the provincial police, within the framework of the 7th. She marches for Sovereignty to Lago Escondido, and she stressed that she seeks to take care of “the integrity of people and property.”
“That is our role. Take care of the integrity of people and property,” Carreras said in statements to Télam, after both yesterday and today the protesters tried to enter the Camino del Tacuifí, one of the accesses to Lago Escondido, making it that was prevented by the rural laborers who work on the ranch.
As explained by the governors, the province of Río Negro has around 24,000 million invested “in road works pending national financing,” and explained that these are rural and private roads that “become common paths as is this road to Tacuifí”.
Likewise, he added that the provincial routes or more official routes that need to be repaved are also included: “All that long list is what the people of Río Negro are demanding from us, within that claim is also Tacuifí, there are 24,000 million in investment that Río Negro needs on the roads,” he said.
The march, which is made up of organizations such as the Autonomous CTA, the ATE unions, UnTER and social organizations such as FeNaT and the CCC, and political parties such as UP, PTP and PCR, demand free access to the lake within the framework of the National Constitution.
Through a statement they denounced that “the Police and a fence prevented their passage to Lago Escondido” and affirmed that “the true usurpers of Argentina are the Lewis, the Benetton, the Zorreguieta.”
The Río Negro Justice ratified the order to open the Tacuifí road to access Lake Escondido through a ruling signed on September 22 by the Bariloche Civil and Commercial Court of Appeals.
