MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Pulp mill protestors promise more trouble

Uruguayan authorities described on Monday Argentine pickets' decisions to block traffic on a bridge leading to Uruguay next weekend during the Ibero-American summit as “irrational”.

"It's an irrational decision. There are people who seem to have spare time to address the issue politically. I prefer a pragmatic approach to put an end to the blockading. However Uruguay will continue to claim the issue before international organizations and we're waiting for a meeting of Mercosur's disputes tribunal", said Uruguay's Foreign Affairs minister Reinaldo Gargano.

Argentine environmentalists and residents from Gualeguaychu are protesting the building of pulp mills just across the river Uruguay which acts as a natural border between both countries, claiming they will contaminate air and water plus harm the region's tourism and farming industries

The long standing dispute which has seen accesses to the bridge blocked during the southern hemisphere summer high season seriously impaired traffic and the massive flow of Argentine tourists to Uruguayan beaches.

The case has been under consideration in the International Court of The Hague and the Mercosur disputes tribunal but definitive rulings are still pending. However Argentina has been asked to guarantee the free flow of people and cargo across the river Uruguay, but the Kirchner administration has anticipated it will not use force against the pickets.

Meanwhile cumulative environmental impact assessments have been undertaken by autonomous contractors enabling the World Bank that has promised to partially finance the pulp mills to formally consider in November the loans to be granted.

Environmentalists or the Gualeguaychu assembly as the protestors group is known have written to President Kirchner requesting an immediate resumption of dialogue with Uruguayan president Tabare Vazquez. And if the talks are "not positive" Argentina must declare Uruguay an "aggressor country".

They also warned that a "compromise" solution which does not contemplate the end to the building of the pulp mills could lead "to undesired actions of violence".

Entre Rios province governor Jorge Busti in whose jurisdiction the conflict has erupted and who originally supported the protests said that "we don't share the announced blockade; it's an instrument which does not help Argentina's strategy in the conflict". He added that the protests put at risk a "friendly meeting of both presidents to address the issue".

Analysts believe that protestors want the pulp mills dispute to be forcibly incorporated to the coming summit's agenda when leaders of Latinamerican countries, Spain and Portugal meet in Montevideo next week end.