During the last few months there has been an increasing conflict between Argentina and Uruguay because of the construction of two paper mills (with Finnish capital) by the shores of the river Uruguay that divides both countries. For Uruguay it represents a big investment, and Argentina opposes these projects because of the pollution that will follow.
Briefly, argentine people have been blocking several international bridges to Uruguay. After some time, these protests were able to force Uruguay to postpone the construction for a period of ninety days in which it was supposed to study the effects it would have on the environment. Unexpectedly, Uruguay ended the negotiations, and decided to take it to the international sphere, and tried to have the Mercosur (the South American Common Market) to try to resolve the blockage of the bridges. Uruguay proposed a last minute deal, in which it suggested that they sign an agreement in which the mills’ construction were to go ahead, while the environment effects were to be analyzed. Argentina rejected such deal, and instead decided to take the matter to The Hague.
So, on May 9th, President Kirchner traveled to Vienna for the IV Summit of heads of state of the European Union, Latin America and the Caribbean. All 58 heads of state were about to have their photograph taken when Evangelina Carrozo, (25 years of age, a Green Peace activist, And also a Carnival queen for the province of Entre Rios) took her coat of, advanced in her carnival bikini and displayed a banner that read: “Enough of contaminating paper mills”. A security guard immediately grabbed her by the waist and took her away.
[For some reason I can no longer post photos , so if you want to see then, go here here and here]
Evangelina’s actions took everybody by surprise. At first everyone looked at this woman’s figure, only to notice a few seconds later the banner she was carrying. Tony Blair thought it was funny. Hugo Chavez laughed hard, blew a kiss to her and clapped. President Tabare Vazquez said : “beautiful woman with a great body”. Uruguay’s Minister of Environment qualified it as ingenious, audacious, and good humour. Kirchner made gestures as if saying: ” I had nothing to do with this.” On her way out Evangelina said: “Tabare should not lie to the people. The paper mills do pollute, and we don’t want them.”
Finally, Kirchner chastised the Europeans saying:” What we cannot allow is that those countries that have achieved a greater development, which many times have done it by the degradation of the environment, as evidenced in the climatic change, want to transfer the most polluting industrial processes to us. He also said that this was the case in which Europeans were trying to set up businesses that were trying to avoid norms that would have been applicable in Europe.
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