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Uruguay Expels Argentine Media at Botnia Port Inauguration

Gunshots Fired over Stakeholders

August 30 2007 – Nueva Palmira Uruguay (photo: AP)

At high noon yesterday, the President of Uruguay, Tabaré Vazquez, held the inaugural ceremony for Botnia's export platform (Ontur) at Nueva Palmira from which Botnia will export one million tons of cellulose each year for 40 years. Local community groups crossed the river to protest and were scared off by gunfire. Argentine media sources were surprisingly barred from the ceremony .

Some 25 boats from Argentina (one can be seen in the photo confronted by Uruguayan security) showed up for the security air tight inaugural Botnia ceremony at Nueva Palmira port. Some of those boats, claims Marcelo Larrobla of the Uruguayan Army, may have crossed into Uruguayan waters, which is demarcated at 250 meters from the coast. Other sources in Uruguay indicate that several boats actually made it all the way to the port dock, and were only a few meters from the Uruguayan President when he touched down by helicopter. According to witnesses, the stakeholders were able to transmit verbally to the president, and he was able to hear, their concerns over the legality of the investment. According to other sources, the Uruguayan forces fired warning shots over the community groups so that they would remove themselves.

The tight exclusion zone imposed by Uruguayan authorities for the inauguration not only excluded argentine stakeholders by water, but also those arriving by land. In the words of Walter Zimmerman, the local mayor, he would not let argentines attend the inauguration. However, what most surprised everyone, even Uruguayan journalists, was that the Uruguayan government chose unexplainably to exclude Argentine press from the ceremony. Journalists who traveled to Uruguay to cover the event were physically excluded from the port facilities during the ceremony.

Argentine government authorities indicated that the participation in the inauguration by Tabare Vazquez, Uruguay's President, was a provocation, which derails attempts by the Spanish King to mediate in the bilateral dispute, and which constitutes an aggravating circumstance in the open trial at the International Court of Justice, something the Court had requested both parties avoid.

Community stakeholders which have blocked border traffic between Uruguay and Argentina now for ten months, since the World Bank Board of Directors decided to give Botnia a US$170 million dollar loan, protested peacefully before the port and according to Gustavo Rivollier, member of the Citizen's Assembly of Gualeguaychú, "the boats had all the necessary permits to cross into Uruguayan water”.

Argentine media groups, who have been largely neutral in the reporting of the conflict since it started, and who were not allowed into the port area were surprised by the Uruguayan measures to bar their entry. Representatives of the port facilities indicted that the Argentine press was excluded because “they only come to create problems, they don't care for the port, and only want to focus on the protest”.

Uruguayan media strongly rejected the measures and blamed the media shut out on the Tabaré Vazquez administration. “What has occurred is a violation of the right to free speech. Everything indicates that the government did this so that the Argentine media would not have their own view of events”, claimed Uruguayan journalist Diego Martínez, of Radio Centenario - Montevideo. Sergio Israel of the weekly publication BRECHA, also an Uruguayan news source indicated, “the government paranoia around possible attacks by Argentines led to this lamentable episode”. [1]

[1] http://www.lanacion.com.ar/politica/nota.asp?nota_id=939102&origen=relacionadas

More Information

For more information contact:

Jorge Daniel Taillant
jdtaillant@cedha.org.ar