Hey Argentina, leave Uruguay alone!
Kirchner who is displaying an ever increasing mania as his most poignant personality trait has taken to sponsor protests shutting down the borders between Uruguay and Argentina. This row is over a paper mill being built in Uruguay, marking the largest chunk of foreign investment in that nation’s history. This will be an investment that will generate hundreds if not thousands of jobs and millions of pesos in revenue. The complaint by the Argentines is that the paper mill will pollute the river marking the border of the two nations of which both countries have joint custody and stewardship.
Blocking borders however, violate the Mercosul’s treaties concerning the free movement of goods. The company, Botnia, is from Finland, responsible for building a paper mill in Helsinki that is ten years older than the one being currently built in Uruguay As a matter of fact that mill lies next to the river that provides Helsinki with all of its drinking water and in ten years there have been no problems of pollution or contamination.
The technology being used in the Uruguayan paper mill is actually 10 years more advanced and safer than the one currently being used in Helsinki. Finland is also a EU member, which means its companies have to abide by extremely strict rules of environmental conduct. This is just another populist move to rile up support by Kirchner, whose egomania knows no boundaries and who is deadset to getting his wife elected in the next Argentine general elections. It’s bad enough when big government encroaches on the rights of individuals and businesses but it’s worst when it’s another country’s big government doing the encroaching. If this mill was being built on the Argentine side of the river, I guarantee Kirchner would have done absolutely nothing about it except welcomed the investment with open arms (and pockets).
