In the heart of the big island of Tierra del Fuego, 11 km north of the town of Tolhuin, less than 600 meters from national route No. 3 and on the premises of Estancia El Relincho , the Leolabs radar is installed . A radar or ground station owned by the English and Irish subsidiaries of the North American company Leolabs , with dual-use, scientific-military capacity.
A condition that the management of Governor Gustavo Melella flatly refused to recognize for more than a year, until 20 days ago, the company itself whitewashed itself by announcing that it had made a strategic alliance with the Space Department and the Ministry of Defense of Great Britain. Britain , to assist the new English satellites that will be launched into space in the context of the Russia – Ukraine war, or rather, the war caused by NATO, against Russia.
The radar did not only reach Tierra del Fuego. Nor was it installed by an exclusive agreement between the company and the owner of the Estancia.
In a first stage and in total official silence from the Province, Leolabs managed during 2022 for the Fuegian government to register the company with the General Inspection of Justice (IGJ), grant it an environmental authorization at light speed and extend an electrical network of high voltage, for its operation.
Meanwhile, skipping the procedure and interventions of the Ministry of Defense, the Chancellery, Customs, the INVAP, the CONAE and other organizations, the Head of the Cabinet of Ministers granted it in November 2022, the precarious authorization for its installation, in Tierra del Fire.
The announcement in the US and silence in Tierra del Fuego
It was not until March 2023 that this radar began to gain public notoriety. When the CEO of Leolabs Dan Ceperley , from the Argentine embassy in the US, announced having obtained authorization from the government of Alberto Fernández , to build the radar in Tierra del Fuego - which was already built -, with the supposed purpose of carrying out the monitoring, from the southern hemisphere, of space debris in the lower atmosphere of the earth, between 200 and 300 km high.
Strikingly, despite the international announcement, the government of Gustavo Melella remained strangely silent, even though 72 hours before the statements by the CEO of Leolabs, the US ambassador was visiting Ushuaia and met with him. in Argentina, Mark Stanley.
It was only on June 15 of last year that the presence of this radar changed its appearance, when the Radar International website reported that the large device did not belong to an American company, but to its British and Irish subsidiaries. And that, furthermore; It not only served to monitor space junk, but also; to detect satellites and missiles in low space orbits, and provide information to the space intelligence system of the United States Department of Defense.
The danger of the Irish and British radar on Fuegian soil
A week later Agenda Malvinas certified that, in the registration files of the company established in the IGJ of Tierra del Fuego, the radar was 95% Irish and another 5% British. Hours later, the Ministry of Defense asked the Chief of the Cabinet of Ministers to suspend the precarious authorization granted to Leolabs, arguing a “matter of Public Interest.”
On July 9, Lieutenant General Juan Martín Paleo, Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Armed Forces, denounced that the presence of the radar violated national sovereignty and was against the security provisions issued by the President of the Nation. And on August 3, the Ministry of Defense itself published a lapidary 23-page report listing all the reasons for carrying out the disarmament of the radar due to the violation of the security of the Nation.
However, the government of Tierra del Fuego, before agreeing with the opinion of the Ministry of Defense, criticized the statements of the Chief of the Armed Forces and continued to deny that the radar had a dual function, scientific and military; and before acting in accordance with the report, he maintained a favorable opinion of the company under the argument that, since it had not been a project of the military area, the military leadership was opposed, inventing unrealistic foundations.
Days later, the Head of the Cabinet of Ministers definitively removed the authorization and asked Governor Melella to withdraw the environmental authorizations, the registration in the IGJ of the province, cut off the electricity, the broadband internet service and order the disarmament. of the radar. Requests that the Fuegian government fulfilled half-heartedly, reluctantly and several weeks later.
Look without seeing, listen without hearing
It took several weeks to actually cut off the electricity. He ignored the interruption of the internet and disarmament; It removed the environmental authorization, but not the registration in Legal Personnel.
By September of last year, in the middle of the electoral race that later put Javier Milei as president, a fierce fight broke out between the governor of Tierra del Fuego Gustavo Melella , with the Minister of Defense Jorge Taiana and the Chief of Staff led by Agustín Rossi regarding who was responsible for disarming the radar. Which, even with demonstrations by war veterans and camps, is still standing, despite the fact that all of them; both the governor and national officials; They were members of the same political coalition, contradictorily called “ Union for the Homeland.”
When the issue became relevant in the national media and the demonstrations intensified; The company representative Pablo Bilbao sent a note to Governor Melella, telling him that, to remove any suspicion that the radar continued working, he was going to remove electronic components.
But neither the Melella government nor the company ever technically and publicly demonstrated that the radar is not in operation. Because they never demonstrated that the electricity was actually cut off, what the electronic components were and what function they fulfilled.
And in that situation we reached July 17 of this year, when the company Leolabs itself announced that it had made a military space control alliance with Great Britain.
Melella and his entire government were left without arguments, and without any other alternative; 24 hours later the governor said that he was going to announce the urgent disarmament of the radar. A week later the government of Tierra del Fuego said it was going to initiate legal action. Although the truth is that 20 days later , Melella has not proven that he had or intimated the disarmament of the radar, nor what judicial action he took.
The Leolabs radar constitutes the most evident act of British espionage in Argentina, after the Malvinas war. Because in addition to occupying the Malvina Islands archipelago and 1.6 million km2 of the South Atlantic, Great Britain, the US and NATO managed to install, with the support of a governor who set himself up as champion of the defense of sovereignty, and a charlatan government like that of A lberto Fernández, a radar with military capacity in the province of Malvinas.
An incomprehensible and reprehensible attitude, which leaves the door open to the possibility that, after the supposed all-out defense of the demonstrably English and Irish radar, the most disgusting acts of corruption could have been woven in the name of the Homeland.
Next week we will let you know all the actors that allowed the existence of this radar and the plot that was woven to make invisible what the company itself decided to whitewash a few days ago.
