MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Mujica also wants Brazil in the joint monitoring of the River Uruguay

Uruguayan striker Diego Forlán, hero of the victory over the South African home team

President Jose Mujica said the Wednesday night decision by Argentine activists to lift the (four year) blockade on a bridge leading to Uruguay was ‘our team’s fourth goal’ (in reference to that afternoon’s 3-0 victory over South Africa at the World Cup).

However Mujica introduced a new element to the long standing difference with Argentina over the construction on the Uruguayan side of the shared river of a pulp mill which allegedly could be contaminating for the region, and which the pickets and the Argentine government wants to closely monitor.

“I think the next step is for a three-country monitoring process to ensure the river Uruguay does not contaminate and is not contaminated, and I mean Brazil where the river also covers quite a distance and brings along some things from the hinterland”, said Mujica.

The Uruguayan president described the Gualeguaychú activists’ decision to temporarily lift the blockade as “quite positive”, and even if it is for sixty days “we are in an irreversible stage, for me pre-announced, it was a question of maturing an idea and a strategy which did not come out of the blue”.

“We’ve had a lot of backs and forwards with this problem and I believe that with the Foreign Affairs ministry we managed to guide it with flexibility and great prudence. We must now follow this line and ensure we work on an agenda with which we can advance. For me it was the fourth goal in a sky-blue day (Uruguay’s football team colour)”.

Mujica insisted that he will be contacting Brazil for he believes that the monitoring should cover the whole river, from where it is born deep in Brazil, all the way to the River Plate, making it the second largest basin, behind the Parana river in the south of the continent.

The Wednesday decision to temporarily lift the blockade follows on civil and criminal charges filed by the Argentine government of President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner against activists’ leaders who are now requesting as part of the deal the annulment of those charges.

The Argentine government which originally sponsored and backed the bridge pickets to protest the construction of the pulp mill, gradually changed position as it lost control over the activists and a ruling from the International Court of Justice in The Hague stated the mill, according to the parameters presented did not contaminate, and strongly suggested joint monitoring (Argentina and Uruguay) to avoid further differences. The case was taken to the The Hague by Argentina.

Presidents Mujica and Cristina Kirchner had previously agreed that they would abide by the (April) International Court ruling, whatever it was, accepting it as the first step to end the conflict and to re-launch deteriorated bilateral relations.

However pickets remained and the Argentine government had repeatedly promised it would not use force to remove the blockade; thus the appeal to federal justice to proceed with the removal and the filing of charges against picket leaders.

Mujica helped by insinuating the joint environmental monitoring could also be done inside the pulp mill, as demanded by the activists.

But on this point Mujica was also straight and clear: “to the Botnia/UPM plant they are not going in nor are we, no activists, no politicians: only technical staff. It is science that will decide whether the plant contaminates or not. We only have to agree conditions and guarantees, and then the best (environmental) scientists will move in and decide. All the rest are speculations and small thinking”.

Mujica also recalled that according to a bilateral agreement with Argentina, (dating back to 1975), for the joint management of the river a specific commission for that purpose exists, the Managing Commission of the River Uruguay, CARU, which will be responsible for that very anticipated task, “with no need of government meddling or naming other commissions”.

The Uruguayan president said there are standard procedures for this kind of monitoring “which we will apply all along the river. That’s where Brazil comes in. We want to prove we have nothing to hide, nothing to conceal, so now the job is to agree on how to monitor the whole water course, not only in Fray Bentos (where the pulp mill is located)”.

Although the controversy has been focused in the Uruguayan pulp mill it is known that both Argentina and Brazil have industries further up the river and apparently there are no contamination controls.