Pulp Mill Dispute - February 2006

February 2006

On 6 February 2006 Uruguayan President Tabaré Vázquez acknowledged that he had spoken on the phone to Argentine President Néstor Kirchner the previous week, in order to look for a solution of the conflict. Regardless, he also announced that on any event the construction of the mills would not be halted by the Uruguayan government.

On 3 February 2006 members of the Gualeguaychú Environmental Assembly had started a long-term blockade of Route 136 that leads to the Libertador General San Martín Bridge and to Fray Bentos. Several votings were since conducted on the issue, in every case resolving to maintain the blockade.

At the beginning of the blockade, Jorge Eduardo Lozano, designated bishop of Gualeguaychú, stated that he supported the protesters because theirs was "a just cause", though he also spoke of the need to look for "reasonable alternatives". The archbishop of Montevideo, Nicolás Cotugno, offered to mediate.

In the meantime, the citizens of Gualeguaychú, after an assembly, rejected the mediation of the Nobel Peace Prize Adolfo Pérez Esquivel. Pérez Esquivel had asked them to end the blockades while talks were conducted.

On 12 February about 400 people, gathered by the Colón Environmental Assembly, went in nearly 100 vehicles from Colón (100 km north of Gualeguaychú) to the international General Artigas Bridge, demonstrating there and creating a traffic disruption. This temporal measure was followed, on 16 February, by a blockade of Route 135 and the bridge, which links Colón with Paysandú in Uruguay.

All these earlier actions were targeted to impact the public hearings of Cumulative Impact Study, held by IFC on 14 and 16 in both Montevideo and Buenos Aires.

On 20 February the Uruguayan government decided to accuse Argentina before the Organization of American States, for its lack of action on the matter of the blocks. The same day, the Supreme Court of Argentina rejected the case presented by Argentinians against Uruguay, returning it to Guillermo Quadrini, federal judge of Concepción del Uruguay.

The School of Chemistry of the University of the Republic, Uruguay, released an open letter to Uruguayan society on 22 February. They reported that TCF-derived paper can be recycled less times than ECF-derived paper. TCF process is 5% more expensive and needs 10% more fuel and wood to obtain the same quantity of paper than ECF process; therefore, it releases 10% more greenhouse effect gases. The letter stated that ECF and TCF are accepted as "best available technologies" in developed countries, and toxic emissions are minimal (specially dioxins), which implies that emissions depend on management and controls, not on whether TCF or ECF processes are used.