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PULP FICTION and Corporate Surrealism

Finnish Pulp Mill CEO Errki Varis Heads Festivities in Sham to Cover up Unrest and Conflict

Fray Bentos Uruguay – March 1 st , 2008 – Finnish pulp mill CEO Erkki Varis, of Oy Metsa Botnia , finally got to cut the ribbon of his new billion-dollar pulpmill toy, throwing himself a party this weekend at one of the world's most conflictive corporate conflict sites, Fray Bentos Uruguay.

Rock bands, folk singers and locals gathered Saturday at a public arena in Fray Bentos, Uruguay, population 35,000, in a huge fest organized by Botnia (by order of Varis) to mark the launch of Latin America's largest pulp mill, which is expected to produce over 1 million tons of ECF pulp per year.

The mill, since its tempestuous origin, is also one of Varis' largest headaches. Some are asking if the pulp mill wont attract 1,000,000 marchers against it, before it ever produces a fraction of the expected 1,000,000 tons of pulp it is slated to spew out each year. Already more than 300,000 have marched, on only three occasions, to which another 100,000+ march will happen in April. These are merely but a few of the more populous massive public mobilization against Varis and his Botnia pulp mill. The number is already likely to have reached close to the million marker.

Varis had failed, to his embarrassment, to cut the ribbon for the mill, in a big fan far political brew ha ha with Uruguayan government officials last November, when he traveled to Uruguay from Helsinki, to officially launch the Botnia project. Botnia had forgotten (or intentionally ignored) that the King of Spain was trying to mediate a conflict between Argentina and Uruguay, who are in a diplomatic deadlock at the International Court of Justice over the legality of the Botnia mill. Midstream into the Uruguayan environment minister's speech announcing the Botnia launch, a call came in from the Uruguayan Foreign Minister to stop the announcement of the launch immediately. The Spanish king had thrown a fit. Botnia fumbled and stumbled with explanations about what had happened, but Varis ungraciously packed his bags, bowed his head, avoided comments to the press, and returned to Helsinki with no ribbon.

Now, three months later, Varis finally has his day and throws a party to commemorate it, and everyone is invited, … well not exactly everyone . The 100,000 people that live within 25 miles of the mill and are avidly and nearly unanimously against the project for fear that the stench and contamination of the pulp industry will undermine their tourism and agriculture, and present a large risk to human health, can't come, in fact they were expressly excluded from the public event. Botnia (and Varis) were relieved when the Uruguayan government sent droves of police and military to thwart all community stakeholder opinion from showing up at the festivities. Police and even military mobilization to protect the Botnia mill against protests are now commonplace for the Finnish company. Signs, megaphones, t-shirts and any other display of opinion are, as usual anywhere near the Botnia mill, prohibited.

The pulp mill party , and similar communication tactics are the strategy used by Botnia's PR gurus, led by Florencia Herrera (a local hire) and a cold and calculating Marco Janhunen, Oy Metsa Botnia's Vice President of Communications and Public Relations officer, hired over a year ago to attend to Botnia's slipping international image as an environmentally sound Finnish company, and becoming instead infamously known for spurring one of the world's most notorious international environmental conflicts. They have remained unfazed by protests, and simply ignore the ever-growing international conflict they have caused.

On November 20, 2006, just as the World Bank (pressured by Finland who presided the EU presidency at the time, and an unwavering IFC of the World Bank, who had faced a damning audit by it's own control agency, the CAO) approved a 170 million dollar loan to the company, local communities took immediately to the international bridge, and blocked overland traffic between Uruguay and Argentina in protest. They are still there!

Next month, on April 26, communities will flock to the bridge anew, for the forth consecutive year by the tens of thousands. Last year 120,000 came to protest against the corporate stubbornness of Mr. Varis and Oy Metsa Botnia . More are expected this year. Newly elected Argentine President Cristina Fernandez has pledges to continue diplomatic opposition against the Botnia project, and has agreed to let people express themselves, by not demanding they come down from the bridge.

There they remain, on the bridge, just a few kilometers away from Botnia and their festivities. On the day of the pulp mill festival they unfurled a monumental sign, saying, BOTNIA GO HOME. They could not hear the music from their vantage point, but were more than close enough to smell the rotten egg stench regularly spewing from the factory.

More Information

Jorge Daniel Taillant
Center for Human Rights and Environment (CEDHA)
Cel. 54 9 11 6729 5466
jdtaillant@cedha.org.ar