Development & Aid, Environment, Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean

ARGENTINA-URUGUAY: Main Roadblock in Pulp War to Be Lifted

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Mar 21 2006 (IPS) - The conflict between Argentina and Uruguay over the installation of two paper pulp factories on the Uruguayan side of a border river entered a new phase Tuesday after local residents of Gualeguaychú, a nearby town in Argentina, decided to lift a roadblock that has been stopping traffic over a cross-border bridge for 46 days.

The measure was one of the conditions set during months of secret conversations between the two governments aimed at paving the way for formal negotiations.

But the traffic blockades have not been completely lifted, and the second condition for negotiations to start – a voluntary suspension of construction of the plants on the Uruguay River – has not yet been announced.

The northeastern Argentine town of Gualeguaychú is located on the river of the same name – a tributary of the Uruguay River – 25 km from the plants being built by two foreign companies: Botnia of Finland and ENCE of Spain.

Despite their Monday night decision to lift the roadblock, the members of the Gualeguaychú Citizens Environmental Assembly made it clear that they will continue their fight against the pulp plants.

They also expressed scepticism with regard to the Uruguayan government’s pledge to support an independent environmental impact study that would determine whether the plants are being built with the cleanest available technology and will be subject to strict controls to mitigate the impact on the environment.

The two plants under construction near the town of Fray Bentos in western Uruguay will produce a combined total of 1.5 million tons a year of cellulose (the raw material used in the production of paper), double the total output of the nearly one dozen pulp mills currently in operation in Argentina.

Residents from the town of Gualeguaychú have led the resistance to the plants, which they say will pollute the river, emit bad odours – a smell of rotten eggs, characteristic of pulp factories – and deter tourism.

The Argentine government has backed the protesters’ demands, complaining that Uruguay violated the treaty governing the joint administration of the Uruguay River by authorising, in 2003 and 2004, the installation of the pulp mills as well as a privately-run river port without prior approval from the Uruguay River Administrative Commission, made up of officials from both countries.

The conflict heated up when demonstrators from Gualeguaychú decided in late December to block one of the three bridges connecting the two countries across the Uruguay River. The traffic blockades were intermittent throughout January.

The measure coincided with the southern hemisphere summer, when thousands of Argentine tourists cross the border to vacation on Uruguay’s beaches and Uruguayans living in Argentina drive home to visit their families. Besides having a major impact on the tourism industry, bilateral trade was also heavily affected. . After a binational commission that met for six months failed to produce a report that was acceptable to both governments in late January, the activists decided on Feb. 3 to block traffic between the two countries indefinitely.

The Argentine experts sitting on the commission complained that Uruguay had not provided sufficient information to allow them to reliably determine the extent of the impact of the plants.

The protest was joined by the people of Colón, an Argentine town upstream along the Uruguay River, who have blocked the bridge leading to the Uruguayan city of Paysandú for 40 days, and have refused to lift the blockade.

The Uruguayan government reacted cautiously. On Monday night, Deputy Foreign Minister Belela Herrera said the announcement that the roadblock near Fray Bentos would be removed was good news, but pointed out that the issue was being dealt with directly by the president.

On Tuesday, two Uruguayan ministers merely said that the situation had not been completely clarified, since the traffic blockade remained in place on the bridge near Colón.

On Mar. 11, Presidents Néstor Kirchner of Argentina and Tabaré Vázquez of Uruguay had asked the two companies to suspend work on the factories for up to 90 days, and urged the demonstrators to remove the blockades, to allow the governments to hold talks.

Before reaching a decision, the demonstrators waited for more details on the proposal. But Vázquez took a tougher stance against the roadblocks and in defence of construction of the plants.

Finally, the protesters decided in an assembly held next to the highway Monday night to suspend the blockades.

Argentina’s cabinet chief, Alberto Fernández, who is heading up the conversations with Uruguay, said he was “pleased” by the news, and added that “now it is the companies’ turn.”

Gualeguaychú Mayor Daniel Irigioyen said the companies “should respond to the commitments assumed by the presidents,” and bring construction to a halt. “The aim here is the same objective we have been pursuing for three years: compliance with the Uruguay River treaty,” he added.

Irigioyen pointed out that the treaty “clearly stipulates that when an investment is made along the river, the decision should be shared by the people and the governments of both countries, and an environmental impact study should be previously carried out, to guarantee that the investment will not compromise the future of the region.”

In an interview with IPS, Daniel Pérez Mollemberg, a member of the Gualeguaychú Citizens Environmental Assembly, said the protesters “needed to make a gesture to prove that we are not intransigent, and that we have always been in favour of dialogue, over the past three years.”

He clarified, however, that the nearly 4,000 residents of Gualeguaychú taking part in Monday’s assembly voted unanimously to continue to oppose the installation of the plants. “Uruguay violated the Uruguay River treaty. If it had lived up to it, those factories could not have been built there.”

Another member of the Assembly, agricultural engineer Osvaldo Moussou, told IPS that the position that gained the widest support among the demonstrators was to lift the roadblock in order to allow the presidents to negotiate, although some of the local residents wanted to wait until the companies froze construction before actually doing so.

Moussou added, however, that “Uruguay has proposed continuing construction on the plants while closely monitoring them. But what we want is an environmental impact study. Because if the factories continue to be built and then pollute, the companies will merely pay the fines, while it will be us who will be affected by the pollution.”

Moussou said the residents of Gualeguaychú will stay on the alert next to the highway connecting the two countries, and will block trucks attempting to carry construction material to the plants.

He also said they would continue to press for an environmental impact study to be drawn up by experts from the University of Buenos Aires and Uruguay’s University of La República. “We don’t want high-profile figures, we want independent specialists,” he underlined.