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ARGENTINA-URUGUAY: Pulp Mill Conflict Takes on Int’l Dimension

Tito Drago

MADRID, Feb 23 2006 (IPS) - The escalating conflict between the Argentine and Uruguayan governments over the installation of two pulp mills on the Uruguayan side of the border between the two countries has gone all the way to the Organisation of American States (OAS).

During an official visit to Spain, Uruguayan Foreign Minister Reinaldo Gargano told IPS Thursday that he spoke with OAS Secretary-General José Miguel Insulza late Wednesday to brief him on the dispute.

At the same time, Uruguayan President Tabaré Vázquez sent Deputy Foreign Minister Belela Herrera on an official mission to Washington Wednesday to meet with Insulza and convey to him her government’s “utmost concern” over the Argentine government’s failure to ensure the free circulation of persons, as guaranteed by article 22 of the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights.

Since late December, local residents from the Argentine city of Gualeguaychú have been blocking bridges across the Uruguay River, which forms part of the border between the two countries, to protest the construction of the two paper pulp factories.

The protesters, who have the support of provincial and national authorities, complain that the plants will pollute the jointly administered river, as well as the soil and the air in the area.

The roadblocks have intensified over the past few weeks. The current blockade of the bridge linking Gualeguaychú and the western Uruguayan city of Fray Bentos has stretched on for 20 days in a row. Upriver, the bridge between the cities of Colón and Paysandú has been blocked for eight days.

Asked whether OAS mediation is being sought, Gargano said the most important thing is that Secretary-General Insulza is well-informed, because the regional body is one of the entities to which his government is thinking of turning.

The other scenario in which Uruguay is carrying out its new diplomatic offensive is Mercosur (Southern Common Market), the free trade bloc linking Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.

Before heading to Washington, Herrera sent Argentine Foreign Minister Jorge Taiana a letter requesting the formal start “of direct negotiations in accordance with the provisions outlined by the Olivos Protocol for the Settlement of Disputes in Mercosur,” states a communiqué released by the Uruguayan government.

Montevideo is invoking the dispute settlement mechanism due to Argentina’s violation of the right to free circulation “in contravention of Mercosur rules,” said Gargano.

The roadblocks have begun to have an impact on tourism, bilateral trade, and trade with other countries, like Chile. They have also affected supplies of a number of products.

The Argentine government of Néstor Kirchner has justified its failure to act against the blocking of traffic over the bridges as part of an overall policy against cracking down on protest demonstrations.

Road blockades are a tactic frequently used by organisations of the unemployed in Argentina to draw attention to their plight and voice their grievances and demands.

The intensification of the roadblocks has been timed to coincide 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.

Gargano noted that trucks transporting beef – one of Uruguay’s main exports û to Chile were blocked from crossing the Fray Bentos bridge on Wednesday. The bridge is one of the main routes connecting Uruguay with Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay and Peru.

The Chamber of International Automotive Land Transport of Uruguay (CATIDU) has decided to take legal action against the Argentine government for the losses suffered by its members when their trucks have been blocked from crossing the border, reported the minister.

He stressed that the truckers suffer not only financial losses but “human damages” as well, because they are detained in “inhuman” conditions.

The Kirchner administration insists that the Uruguayan government violated the treaty governing the joint administration of the Uruguay River by authorising two foreign corporations û Botnia of Finland and the Empresa Nacional de Celulosa de España (ENCE) of Spain û to build pulp mills on the banks of the river without first consulting Argentina.

On Wednesday, the Argentine Senate pledged its backing to the executive branch in the event that it files a complaint before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, “should this prove to be necessary.”

During his brief stay in Madrid, Gargano did not meet with ENCE executives, nor did the pulp mill issue form part of the agenda for his meeting with the Spanish Foreign Ministry.

In the absence of Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos, Gargano met with Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Ibero-America Bernardino León.

Sources at ENCE refused to respond to the question of whether they consider negotiations between Uruguay and Argentina to be necessary and possible. The Spanish company’s pulp mill in Uruguay is being built with an investment of 600 million dollars and will have the capacity to produce 500,000 tons of pulp annually.

The pulp mill being built by Botnia, meanwhile, will be one of the world’s largest, with an annual output of 1.5 million tons a year. The Finnish company’s investment in the plant is estimated at 1.2 billion dollars.

Environmentalists in both Argentina and Uruguay maintain that the mills will release dangerous substances like organochlorines, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen and phosphorous.

Uruguayan Minister of Housing, Territorial Planning and Environment Mariano Arana told a local radio station that the mills would not affect the quality of the air in the surrounding area or the water in the Uruguay River.

“If I had the slightest doubt that this could harm the environment or human health, particularly among the most vulnerable sectors of society, I would not be in this ministry, nor would I be defending the matter with the emphasis with which I have defended it,” he declared.

Unless the two governments sit down to negotiate a solution, the dispute will now move into the international arena, from Mercosur up to the Hague, passing through the OAS along the way.