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Last Update: May 21, 2008
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Uruguayan President Slams Botnia!
Following a serious string of accidents at Pulp Mill Botnia Project Threatened
August 22, 2007 – Following a string of accidents which have lead to serious injury and death at Botnia's controversial pulp mill in construction on the Argentine-Uruguayan border, President Tabaré Vasquez of Uruguay threatened Botnia they would have to le ave if they cannot provide a safe and secure working environment. In his own words, “Botnia is finished if it doesn't function properly”.
The aggressive and direct presidential threat to Botnia's CEO in Uruguay, is extremely revealing and marks a shift in the Uruguayan position, as the Uruguayan government has been a staunch defender of the Finnish mega pulp mill project, even against tens of thousands of local protestors who have been calling for a relocation of the mill since they found out it would come to their neighborhood. Argentina has also filed a complaint against Uruguay at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) claiming the border project is unfit, illegal, and should be relocated.
Tabaré's harsh words to Botnia reveal his frustration with the Finnish mill. He believed Botnia's International CEO, Erkki Varis, when he traveled to Uruguay and insisted that Botnia had a top-notch operation with no social or environmental risk. Global financial institutions like Calyon, Nordea, NIB, the Finnish state-owned Finnvera, and the IFC (of the World Bank Group) were also convinced. ING Group of Netherlands, a multinational financial institution that had pledged US$480million to the Botnia project, had a different take on the project and sustained its commitment to only finance projects that are socially and environmentally sustainable, pulling out from the investment, following an Equator Principles Compliance Complaint filed by the environmental and human rights ngo CEDHA as well as a scathing audit against the Botnia project by the World Bank's own Compliance Advisory Ombudsman (CAO).
With dozens of injuries, worker limb amputations and even death, local communities are saying, “we told you so!” Botnia is now having to come out on shaky grounds to explain that its rushed construction schedule to try to beat an ICJ ruling that may order the dismantling of its hastily constructed facilities, is not the cause of a series of systematic work related accidents, which have resulted in serious injury and death.
The Uruguayan President is clearly showing signs that he now doubts he made the right choice in defending an industrial environmentally sensitive multinational corporation over regional stability and good neighborly relations. The conflict caused by the Botnia mill is not only an international dispute, but has shaken regional stability within the MERCSOUR, and soured cross-border and community relations, critical to the local economy and regional politics.
Tabaré Vasquez convened his ministers to review Botnia's lackluster performance, and failure to meet up with their own claims of serious professionalism (they call their own workers “Botnians” which are above the quality of workers found in Uruguay and Argentina [1] ), faultless performance and care for worker safety and the environment. A recent inspection following the latest accident by the Uruguayan National Worker Safety Agency, did not convince the inspectors. The President himself communicated publicly that Botnia's recent accident involving 30 workers, two of which had to be hospitalized with serious toxic injuries, were “inadmissible”.
The Labor minister, one of Tabaré's top aides labeled the intoxication as a “grave error, which should not occur”, and then called for a suspension of construction and stronger control of safety regulations, while the SUNCA Labor Union representing the affected workers called for a general workers strike against Botnia, until safe working conditions could be guaranteed.
Across the border, where only a few days ago, a new mass mobilization including upwards of 15,000 people claiming for a relocation of the Botnia mill, amassed on the MERCOSUR international highway, blocking traffic over the weekend, and now, rallied by the evidence that their claims of Botnia's unsafe operations are indeed coming true, are planning further international road blockages. The principle road block at the international bridge linking Uruguay and Argentina that went up November 20 th , 2006, is now in its tenth month of existence. No traffic has crossed between Argentina and Uruguay overland since.
[1] This statement was made by Botnia's head of Enviornment, Kaisu Annala in Helsinki in May of 2006 to civil society organizations that traveled to Helsinki to file an international complaint against Botnia.
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