MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine pickets insist with pollution controls inside Uruguayan pulp mill

Gualeguaychú Assembly lawyer Osvaldo Fernández confirmed the proposal will be considered Wednesday at an open meeting

Argentine pickets who have been blocking since 2006 a bridge leading to neighbouring Uruguay to protest the construction of a pulp mill on the Uruguayan side said they are open to negotiations.

On Monday and following on repeated requests and warnings, the Argentine government asked a federal court to officially notify several leaders of the protestors from the city of Gualeguaychú that civil and criminal charges had been filed against them.

Gualeguaychú protestors’ assembly lawyer Osvaldo Fernández confirmed they would send the Argentine government a proposal in which they agree to lift the roadblock on the border crossing if both Argentina and Uruguay apply a joint environmental supervision inside the Botnia paper mill.

Mr. Fernández explained they would all meet to “analyze the proposal,” before it was sent to the government. “We will be analyzing the proposal, which establishes that we will be lifting the proposal within a specific time period,” he stated. An assembly has been convened for Wednesday to analyze the latest events.

He added that their intention is to send the administration of President Cristina Kirchner “a series of proposals, demanding Uruguay to comply with the bilateral agreement signed by both presidents in the Anchorena Residence early June, so they can both control Botnia from within.”

The controls according to Mr. Fernández would imply running tests inside the paper mill and the River Uruguay, in order to have “concrete evidence” in their fight against the water and air contamination from the Botnia/UPM pulp mill.

“Both Governments are talking,” Fernández claimed, and recalled that the International Court of Justice's (April) ruling states that tests must be run within the mill.

“The judges have spoken, and they have been very clear. They talked about running tests in the river and within Botnia,” he remarked.

Regarding Monday’s encounter with the Argentine Gendarmerie that delivered the notifications, Mr. Fernández explained that they “read the judge's ruling out loud.”

Before closing, the lawyer explained that “no solutions have come from the political field, so the protest will continue with its social and environmental claim”.