MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Pulp mills conflict in Summit's unofficial agenda

Argentine pickets took to the roads Friday and blocked bridges leading to Uruguay to protest the building of pulp mills.

The protest blocking all traffic across the river Uruguay which acts as a natural border, will remain until next Sunday in coincidence with the Iberoamerican summit currently under way in Montevideo.

The ongoing dispute between neighboring Uruguay and Argentina over the pulp mills which Argentine environmentalists insist are contaminating, this time had a more dramatic touch and message.

Protestors blocked the access to the international bridges with symbolic brick walls in direct reference to the main issue addressed by the XVIth Iberoamerican summit: "migration and development".

The summit is expected to agree on strong statements calling for migrants to be treated as human beings and all their rights respected. A strong message directed to United States which recently signed a bill to build a wall along the border with Mexico, and to Spain that has begun to expel Latinamerican immigrants.

The dispute which has caused a diplomatic rift between Argentina and Uruguay has worsened in the last week when it became known that Uruguayan officials authorized Finnish company Botnia, building a huge pulp mill in Fray Bentos just across from Gualeguaychu in Argentina, to double its intake of water from the river Uruguay for the pulp making process.

Environmentalists have requested President Kirchner to meet with his Uruguayan counterpart, but President Tabare Vazquez has said no dialogue is possible "while bridges remain blocked".

There was speculation that the presidents could hold a private meeting during the three days summit but President Kirchner arrived in Montevideo after the official inauguration and is scheduled to leave early Saturday instead of late Sunday.

Argentine sources said Kirchner's brief visit in Montevideo is more linked to the farewell dinner from the Latinamerican block to outgoing United Nations Secretary General Kofi Anan than to his interest in meeting with Vazquez.

Another significant absence from the summit was Brazil's Lula da Silva who most analysts believe has the power to defuse the Argentine/Uruguayan conflict.

Nevertheless, sources from the summit in Montevideo said Spain could play a mediation role in the conflict. The Iberoamerican summits are a Spanish initiative, mostly financed by Spain, King Juan Carlos is a respected figure and Uruguay has some requests regarding Uruguayan migrants that are being expelled from Spain.

President Kirchner is also scheduled to meet with Spanish president Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to talk about debt repayment and privatized (and mostly in Spanish hands) public utilities rates.

Meanwhile from Buenos Aires it was announced Environment Secretary Romina Piccolotti will be traveling to Washington next week to lobby against loans requested by the Finnish firm Botnia from the World Bank.

The loans have been requested by the company to complete the construction of the pulp mill in Uruguay which is at the heart of the dispute.

Picolotti, a renowned environmental lawyer and activist, will attempt to convince World Bank officials that the loans will fund a highly polluting project, said the sources. However she will be facing a report by an International Finance Corporation, the World Bank's private sector arm, stating the plant would not pollute the River Uruguay shared by the two feuding countries.

Uruguayan Foreign Affairs minister Reinaldo Gargano said he would refuse a confrontation with Argentina after his Argentine counterpart, Jorge Taiana, released a letter accusing the Vázquez administration of "once again" violating the 1975 River Uruguay Treaty to regulate the river.

Taiana said Montevideo had allowed Botnia to double the amount of water it would take from the river.

Gargano said he was willing to work on a solution for the conflict but criticized pickets, which he described as "deplorable", and recalled that they had been declared illegal by a Mercosur court.

Hernán Patiño Mayer, the Argentine ambassador in Uruguay, said the roadblocks would not help bilateral negotiations but added that Uruguay's reported decision to allow Botnia take more water from the river would worsen the pulp mill conflict.