Features » April 3, 2006

Pulp Non-Fiction

A paper mill at the border of Argentina and Uruguay causes massive protests

By Kelly Hearn

To protest the construction of two giant paper mills, environmentalists have blockaded Rt. 136, one of the main roads connecting Argentina and Uruguay.

Stella Maris squeegees rain off International Route 136, a two-lane highway on the border of Argentina and Uruguay, currently blocked by tents, tractors, grain trailers and logs.

“I have been here for 11 days straight,” says the 46-year-old Argentine mother-turned-environmental activist, one of a handful of people camped among soybean fields, cow pastures, pine trees and eucalyptus stands. “I have had to leave behind everything, my job, my kids, everything. I didn’t care at first but then I started listening and realized it was worth it.”

The cause of her new mission is located 10 miles up the road, on the banks of the River Uruguay, a natural border between the two countries. On the Uruguayan side, a Spanish and a Finnish company are building two of the world’s largest pulp mills near a sleepy river port town called Fray Bentos. Supported by Greenpeace and Jorge Busti, the provincial governor here in Entre Ríos, Maris and some 1,500 people from the nearby city of Gualeguaychú, Argentina, are demonstrating against the mills as a looming environmental disaster.

Making paper requires bleaching a brownish pulp with chlorine or chlorine dioxide, both of which cause environmental damage. Though company officials and Uruguay authorities say the plants will use technologies that make it chlorine-free, environmentalists aren’t convinced and believe the plant’s exhaust will cause cancers and kill plants and animals.

In protest, they have blocked Route 136 and another key border crossing, turning back traffic that ranges from tourists to Chilean cargo trucks. The blockade is generating economic tremors in Uruguay, transforming a homespun environmental protest into a regional crisis. Governments are posturing as activists hunker down. Tabaré Vázquez, a popular former doctor and Uruguay’s first socialist president, has called on his Argentine counterpart to force an opening.

Argentine President Néstor Kirchner, a socialist up for re-election next year, balked for weeks. On March 11, however, the presidents made a shaky truce, promising to halt construction of the plants and to lift the blockades for 90 days. As In These Times went to press, the conflict was unfolding by the hour. Gualeguaychú’s protestors were unfazed by the truce and on March 13, La Nación, a popular Argentine paper, reported a potential new twist: Unions at the plants were thinking of taking them over to ensure their jobs weren’t lost.

The presidential agreement was preceded by weeks of diplomatic wrangling. The Kirchner government, with support of the Argentine Congress, had threatened to take the matter before the International Court of Justice at The Hague. For its part, Uruguay sent a delegation to Washington on Feb. 24 to meet with the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS). And Vázquez even threatened to leave Mercosur, a four-nation trading block formed by Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil and Peru, if the free flow of goods and people wasn’t restored.

The $1.9 billion plants represent Uruguay’s largest foreign investment. Spain’s Grupo Empresarial is building a facility to produce 600,000 tons of eucalyptus pulp annually. The facility of Finland’s Oy Mëtsa-Botnia AB and Kymmene Corp will produce one million tons annually.

What’s more, both pulp mill companies have a stake in Uruguay’s booming and controversial monoculture forestry program, which has turned millions of acres into commercial tree plantations with help from World Bank and Uruguayan government subsidies. In 2003 Botnia bought a 60 percent stake in the Uruguayan forest cultivation company, Compania Forestal Oriental, which at the time owned 48,000 hectares of land in the west of Uruguay, of which at least 32,000 hectares contained eucalyptus forest planted on grassland. Likewise, Grupo Empresarial has a stake in the forestry company Eufores, which has at least 40,000 acres of plantation. 

Meanwhile, the noose tightens around little Fray Bentos, where not far from the construction zones bony horses munch weeds along rusted railroad tracks and locals sip yerba maté in the town square. Mayor Omar Lafluf says the roadblock has hit hard, but that the plants have already brought in 6,000 construction jobs and plenty of collateral goodies like 300 new houses, an expanded pier, two logistical centers and the major remodeling of a hotel. Other locals at a recent town meeting complained of layoffs and cutbacks, vacant hotel rooms and empty restaurants.

But Martin, a 56-year-old cab driver from Gualeguaychú, stands firm. “We are in the hot zone,” he says. “If they build those plants, the contaminants will be in the river, the air, the animals and the people. It will kill our environment.”

Uruguayan and company officials argue that monitoring and technology will keep things safe. “The pulp mill will not produce any biological impact on the environment,” Bruno Vuan, a Botnia spokesman, wrote in an e-mail. “Botnia has experience in operating pulp mills in Finland, a country with the best environmental ratings in the world. As in Finland, in Uruguay we will apply the best available technologies according with the latest European Union regulations.”

Vuan says Botnia’s mill is slated to be the most modern in the world, and that his company has “carried out detailed environmental studies with the best Uruguayan and Finnish experts, studies that have been reviewed and approved by Uruguayan authorities.”

But Uruguayan authorities aren’t sleeping on Route 136. Those who are say they have been shown no proof of safety precautions and they fear that once the mills start, any related contamination will not be able to be stopped. As a result of the dispute, historically friendly relations are now sliding downhill. One 65-year-old Argentine at the blockade says she has family in Uruguay, and considers the two countries to be brothers. She says the issue is about the environment. But for Erica, 23, a Fray Bentos resident laid off from her job as a shop attendant thanks to the blockade, it’s more personal. She and her family say local Argentines have gotten aggressive, and that Uruguay is too often kicked around by Brazil and Argentina.

Does the recent presidential handshake mean a way out of the impasse? Experts say bilateral talks are the only solution because the OAS will not intervene without a request from both parties in a conflict, and The Hague will not rule on hypothetical claims of future environmental damage.

For now, tensions continue to mount despite the diplomatic overtures. While activists and editorialists pitch suggestions to solve the crisis, the Argentine protesters keep performing as a well-oiled grassroots democracy. Though the number of hardcore, round-the-clock protesters dwindles to as few as a dozen, supporters ferry supplies throughout the day and nighttime crowds still swell to more than 1,000 as families leave work, bring out barbeque and the kids, and meet as the Gualeguaychú Citizens Environmental Assembly. “There is no hierarchy,” says Martin of the assembly. “There are no leaders. It is purely democratic. We come out and we have an agenda for the day, which is usually how long the blockade will last. Then we vote.”

As this day’s assembly closes, the resolve behind those votes suggests that Ms. Maris and her squeegee will still have plenty more time to kill.

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• Reader Comments

  It’s interesting to read about this in the American press for the first time, though I’m sure it’s come up in some other print source I may have missed.  This article isn’t too bad as a starting point for the basic issue, but misses a much larger point.

  The Argentine goverment opposes the pulp mills primarily for economic reasons, rather than the purported noble environmental reasons.  Argentina already has 10 pulp mills whose environmental contamination has been well documented.  If Uruguay were to build these state of the art plants (Argentina’s pulp mills rely on outdated and heavily-polluting technology), it would represent an enormous amount of Foreign Direct Investment for the tiny nation and a coup for the Uruguay government.

  I understand the real concerns of the Argentine localities that will be close the paper mills, but the position of the Kirchner government is completely hypocritical and should be recognized.  If Kirchner administration is so interested in the environment, it should start by doing a better job of policing the great polluters it already has. 

  I understand that Greenpeace would get involved in this campaign, but the politicians in Buenos Aires are cynically exploiting the environmental movement for their own economic motives.

  Incidentally, this conflict perfectly illustrates why Latin America will likely never be in a position to significantly challenge Washington’s hemispheric influence.  Despite both countries being members of Mercosur, Argentina is completely willing to screw Uruguay over in this deal which would provide much needed FDI, for its own gain.  This shows that despite the ascendance of the left and the centrist left in Latin America, governments will still pursue self-interest politics at the expense of regional unity and economic improvement, all of which plays into the hands of Washington.

  (Full disclosure:  I was born in Uruguay and raised in the U.S. but go back every year and have most of my family there)

  Posted by Caschunk on Apr 3, 2006 at 6:41 PM

  Up here in northern Minnesota these multi-national corporations are also destyroying everything in sight that they can get their greedy hands on… the paper companies like the Finnish multi-national Sappi, mining companies like United States Steel, and the huge Canadian multi-national Berger out of Quebec Canada are all a part of the scheme.

  The Minnesota Commissioner of Natural Resources, Gene Merriam—- a long-time Democrat turned Republican who was always a servant for these big corporations—- has granted a permit to mine peat in the Big Bog, which is the last and largest of the bogs in the lower forty-eight ; bogs play a crucial role in fighting global warming.

  If this isn’t enough, United States Steel’s Minntac taconite producing operation has been granted permission to pump billions of gallons of contaminated industrial wastes, including mercury and heavy metals, into the streams, rivers, and lakes of northern Minnesota, and not one single elected Minnesota legislator has the courage to stand up and say that this insanity has to be halted.

  None of the three contenders for governor from the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party have spoken out. The present Republican governor is a Bush clone.

  Both the peat mining, and the dumping, are the hare-brained schemes of United States Congressman James Oberstar who brokered both deals behind closed doors in corporate board-rooms behind the backs of the people. Oberstar even came up with the name for the Environmental Impact Statement: Minntac’s Water Reduction Proposal, which would lead one to believe that the corporation just has too much water. The problem is, this water has been accumulating in a two mile by thre mile reservoir that United States Steel was forced to construct because the contaminents were too dangerous to allow into our environment. The problem, one finds after opening up the EIS is that Minntac is saying that this water has become so dirty that it is ruining their equipment and degrading the taconite pellets to the extent that the pellets are contaminating the steel making process of their customers.

  Oberstar taunts people with “jobs, jobs, jobs,” and has used the issue of “jobs” in much the way Joe McCarthy used anti-communism; smearing anyone who dares to challenge corporate rule with “destroying jobs;” this probably shouldn’t surprise anyone since Oberstar rose to power thirty years ago in a vicious red-baiting campaign against his opponent, George Perpich, brother of former DFL governor Rudy Perpich. Oberstar said that their father was a communist, as if this was some kind of crime. Now Oberstar, a worthless political hack who constantly attacks women’ rights and who has refused to introduce any legislation to protect jobs and workers in the workplace or their communities, has taken to referring to Bush as a communist—- apparently because he refuses to acknowledge the truth articulated by the elder Perpich that capitalism is the source of the problems working people experience.

  This contaminated water will flow into a pristine designated trout stream and much of this “dirty water” will end up in the Big Bog.

  Readers can help by boycotting all products sold by Miracle Grow and Scott’s Gardening Products.

  Of course, in the long run we need to get rid of capitalism and replace it with socialism. We should be taking some lessons from our neighbors to the south who are standing up to these multi-national corporations.

  Posted by alanmaki on Apr 6, 2006 at 4:35 PM

  Amen! God, what I would give to live in such rich and stable countries.

  Viva la socialism!

  Posted by Jay Cline on Apr 6, 2006 at 7:01 PM

  Shocking new revelations—more reasons to impeach Bush
  More conspiracies, lies and crimes revealed

  This ad has been placed in the NY Times,
  the SF Chronicle, and the Boston Globe

   

   

  The growing nation-wide effort to impeach George W. Bush and Dick Cheney is emblematic of a larger issue: what kind of country is the United States to become.

  Yesterday’s news brought out two explosive pieces of information:

  Lewis Libby, the indicted chief aide to Dick Cheney, has admitted under oath before a Federal Grand Jury that it was George W. Bush himself who authorized Libby to illegally “leak” classified information to New York Times reporter Judith Miller in July, 2003 in an effort to discredit Ambassador Joseph Wilson who had publicly stated that “there is nothing to the story” that Saddam Hussein’s government was trying to buy uranium for a nuclear weapons program. Wilson is the husband of Valerie Plame, the undercover CIA operative whose identity was revealed to the media as retaliation for Wilson’s contention that Bush’s assertions about Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction were false. The “classified information” that Bush and Cheney authorized Libby to plant in the New York Times turned out to be entirely false.

  
  Bush’s Attorney General admitted yesterday that Bush believes that he has the authority to personally authorize the secret wiretapping, without any court order, of any and all conversations and emails between Americans that occur exclusively within the borders of the United States. Earlier it was revealed that Bush set up a massive secret wiretapping operation monitoring a huge number of Americans, but he had asserted that it was only to listen in on conversations of people in the United States who were making international calls and emails.
  The fact that Bush has not already had articles of impeachment filed in the House of Representatives is clear evidence that the people must act forcefully as the true guardians of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. That is exactly what the ImpeachBush.org movement is doing. When impeachment looked remote, there were still tens of thousands of individuals who tirelessly worked to collect petitions, hold rallies, wrote and called members of Congress and donated so that we could place newspaper ads all across the country.

  Today, impeachment is not remote at all. It reflects the majority sentiment. Recent polls show that by 52% to 43% majority the American people favor impeachment if it is proved that Bush lied about the reasons for going to war. A nearly similar majority support impeachment if the President broke Federal wiretapping laws by authorizing the secret wiretapping of Americans without a court order when there is no evidence or inquiry of criminal wrongdoing. 

  Yesterday’s revelations confirm again that this is a lawless administration. Impeachment is imperative. This is a challenge for every person in this country who has a commitment to the Constitution. The people must continue to act rather than wait for the politicians to lead.

  Now that more than 700,000 people have voted for impeachment at http://www.impeachbush.org/ it is urgent that we do everything in our power to make the issue of Bush’s criminal conduct a major issue between now and the November Congressional elections. The newspaper ads are an excellent way to keep the issue of impeachment front and center. We have succeeded in placing more and more ads because of the donations of the people who are committed to this course.

  We want to increase the visibility in the weeks ahead with even more newspaper ads. Please continue to show your support by making a generous donation on-line or by learning how you can send a check. This is a grassroots people’s movement. It is historic and it can succeed with your help. Click here to make your contribution.

  -All of us at VoteToImpeach/ImpeachBush.org

  Posted by brian28 on Apr 8, 2006 at 3:42 AM

  Brian28,

  What the hell does a controversy over a paper mill in Uruguay have to do with impeaching the President?  Not that I disagree with you, but it’s this kind of thing that turns people off to your message.

  It’s the same phenomenon when you go an anti-war rally.  It turns out that in addition to Iraq, you end up protesting on Palestine, Agribusiness, Plan Colombia.  The lack of focus only hurts the original cause, whether its opposition to the Iraq War or support for impeachment. 

  It’s the equivalent of spam e-mail because it shows you’re not even paying attention to what the original thread of conversation was about.

  Posted by Caschunk on Apr 10, 2006 at 4:01 PM

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