MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Uruguay: Pulp mill controversy: “Only God sets an ultimatum” Mujica tells Timerman

Mujica instructed Uruguayan officials to avoid polemics with Argentina on the UPS issue

“Only God sets an ultimatum” said Uruguay’s President José Mujica in a laconic reply to Argentine Foreign Minister Hector Timerman demand (and countdown) to return to negotiations regarding the UPM pulp plant and Montevideo’s decision to allow an increase in production.

At the same time Mujica ordered his officials to maintain silence on the matter until Foreign minister Luis Almagro returns from an official visit in Japan.

“In this moment, the issue is not to be addressed. The president asked for silence, therefore, no response will be expressed in reaction to Timerman’s statements” according to sources from the Uruguayan embassy in Buenos Aires.

Last Wednesday, Timerman urged Mujica to “retract his decision” authorizing an increase of the former Botnia paper plant production, and requested him to “return to dialogue”. Otherwise in coming days Argentina would take the case to the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

On 2 October after much meditation on the issue, Mujica authorized the UPM plant to increase production by 100.000 tons (half the original request pending from 2011). He also conditioned the decision to some additional environmental measures at the plant referred to the temperature of the water dumped back to the River Uruguay which is shared with Argentina, and a lowering of phosphorus content.

This triggered an immediate reaction from the Argentine government and residents of Gualeguaychú, just across from Fray Bentos next to where the UPM plant operates and processes logs into pulp, since they reject point blank the mill on environmental arguments.

The opening of the former Botnia plant in 2005 turned out to be the worst bilateral conflict in decades between the neighbouring countries because of the blockade by Gualeguaychú pickets of the main international bridge linking Uruguay with Argentina.

In 2006 Argentina took the conflict to the International Court of Justice which in 2010 determined that the plant did not contaminate but that Uruguay had not informed Argentina accordingly of the construction details. The ruling also called for the creation of a joint commission to monitor and control potential pollution in the surroundings of the UPM mill.