Julio Accavallo. Former national deputy and head of the Frente Grande.
BARILOCHE
On February 5, 1998, alerted by some residents of the area, we went with the provincial legislator, Eduardo Chironi, the councilor of El Bolsón, Raúl Prytula, and a group of journalists to the gate of the Joe Lewis ranch to verify that the road access to Lake Escondido had closed the pass.
When we arrived, the members of the private guard of the ranch prevented us from passing, when we asked them that we only want to enter a public lake such as Escondido, they told us that we couldn’t because the path was built by Lewis and later consulted by the manager of the ranch, he repeated the same.
After that incident, Lewis’s extortion of the provincial government continued, saying that if we “disturbed” him, he would not build a hospital that he had promised in El Bolsón and began with a patronage strategy of distributing funds and perks through his own foundation to conquer to the population of the area.
What did not change during these 25 years was the political protection and impunity that the English tycoon obtained from the different governments that passed through the province of Río Negro and later from former President Macri, not only to maintain the privatization of Lake Escondido but also to “legalize” the irregular purchase of the 12,000-hectare ranch that he made in the 1990s.
This privileged situation also helped him to obtain tax benefits in the construction of a hydroelectric dam on his ranch and to lubricate the contacts that allowed him to be one of the main shareholders of the company Pampa Energía.
The latest information revealed regarding the fact that the Lago Escondido ranch was used as a meeting and recreation place for federal judges, Macrista political officials and directors of the Clarín group indicates the strategic importance of the English tycoon for the red circle or the real power of our country.
What continues to be permanently demonstrated with legal actions or through popular mobilization is that they are not going to give up and that, despite the impunity and protection that Lewis maintained these 25 years, at some point in history Argentine society He is going to make Lake Escondido public once again and for the national State to reaffirm sovereignty in that border area.