The Rocha Deep Water Port Project in Uruguay: Local and National Environmental Resistance to the Governmental Agenda
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The Rocha deep water port project in Uruguay: local and national environmental resistance to the governmental agenda Germán Bidegain Universidad de la República, Uruguay Martín Freigedo Universidad de la República, Uruguay This is a preliminary draft. Please do not cite or circulate without authors’ permission Introduction During the last decade, Uruguay has experienced an unprecedented process: the emergence of a significant environmental national social movement that questions the entire partisan system, including the center‐left Frente Amplio which governs the country since 2005. This vibrant environmental movement has accused the Frente Amplio of perpetuating the extractive policies fostered by previous right‐wing administrations. The disputes on extractivism are recent in Uruguay, a country which ‐ in contrast to its neighbors‐ is not used to environmental conflicts and has not received much attention by the academic literature. This reality contrasts with the historical alliance between the Frente Amplio and the traditional social movements (labour, students, cooperativism, etc.), a peculiarity that has been underlined by the literature as a possible explanatory factor to account for the stability of the country in a region used to social and political turmoil (Filgueira, 1985; Moreira, 2004; Bidegain and Tricot, 2017). How can we explain the rupture of the traditional socio‐political intermediation channels that characterized the country since 1985 democratic transition? What are the factors that account for the emergence of a social movement directly confronted with the historical partisan ally of social organizations? In this research we propose three main reasons to explain for this situation. In the first place, we highlight a contextual factor. The Frente Amplio embraced the increasing foreign direct investment propositions related with natural resources exploitation as an opportunity that should be seized to enhance the country’s development. Secondly, in contrast with the relevant participative mechanisms promoted by the government to discuss the reforms of several public policy sectors (health, education, labour) , the spaces promoted to debate on environmental issues were not perceived by the organizations as truly decisive. In the third place, this social movement has very different characteristics regarding the traditional ones that remain close to the Frente Amplio. The environmental movement articulated different organizations and local stakeholders, many of which were related to the productive activities that took place in the potential affected territories. They had very different political backgrounds and in several cases, lacked previous militant experience and ties with the Uruguayan traditional social organizations. Nonetheless, we will show that some unions and student organizations joined the environmental cause, provoking tensions in the traditional social organizations fields. This paper is divided in three sections. In the first one, we propose a general introduction to environmental conflicts in Uruguay and the specific debate around the Aratirí project, the milestone that sparked the current environmental movement. Secondly, we develop the governmental agenda regarding the Rocha deep water port project and the dynamics of protest that took place to confront it. We characterize the stakeholders involved, their repertoire of actions and highlight the efforts made to connect this conflict with other conflicts in different territories. In this way, we show the interplay between local and national conflict arenas. In the third section, we deal with a peculiarity of the environmental movement in the Uruguayan political context: its relative isolation regarding the traditional alliance between the Frente Amplio and the traditional social movements (labour, students, cooperativism, etc.). This historical alliance has been underlined by the literature as a peculiar feature of the Uruguayan political system (Filgueira 1985; Moreira 2004; Bidegain and Tricot 2017). We will show how the recent turn of events affects the classic sociopolitical intermediation Uruguayan model and brings the country closer to the continental debates on social discontent with the political system (Aylwin et al. 2013; Joignant, Morales, and Fuentes 2017). To test our argument we focus on a specific territory and campaign: the opposition and mobilizations against the deep water port of Rocha, which was associated to the mega mining Aratirí project. We follow a qualitative approach that combines secondary data analysis with interviews to local political and social actors. Our fieldwork was conducted in Montevideo and Rocha in order to grasp the local and national dimensions of the conflict. We interviewed 18 persons involved with the subject (4 local political actors and 14 environmental activists). The disputes on extractivism are recent in Uruguay, a country that hasn’t received much attention by the literature due its relative lack of environmental conflicts. In this research we aim to analyze how the recent turn of events question the classic sociopolitical intermediation Uruguayan model and bring this country closer to the continental debates. I. Uruguay in the Latin American context Research has remarked the existence of two parallel phenomena related to the economic, political and social reality in Latin America at the beginning of the XXI century. On the one hand, it is observed what has been called a “turn to the left” and, on the other hand, what is known as “Commodities Consensus” (Svampa 2012). With reference to the first phenomenon, throughout the first decade of the XXI century, the vast majority of Latin American governments present a progressive or popular “orientation” known as “turn to the left” as it was previously mentioned. In spite of the differences among countries ‐that have led to a wide academic discussion (Arditi 2008)‐ in 2008 eleven out of eighteen Latin American governments were in the hands of center‐left or left‐wing presidents (Stokes 2009). The second phenomenon refers to what the academic literature has called “Commodities Consensus” in order to make clearly explicit that Latin America has joined a new political and economic world order due to the increase of the international prices of both raw materials and consumer goods highly demanded by central countries and emerging powers. As a result, Latin American countries have progressively adopted a model of development based on extractivism (Gudynas 2009). This new development pattern has affected the economies across the whole region irrespective of the political orientation from each government. In fact, “the current situation not only shows a steady combination between extractivist neodevelopment and neoliberalism (Perú, Colombia and México would be the main examples of this phenomenon), but it also casts light on the link between extractivist neodevelopment and progressive governments in a context of strengthening of state capacities (…)”1 (Svampa 2011, 188). Uruguay has experienced both phenomena. After 150 years of traditional parties governments (Colorado Party and National Party), a left‐wing party, Frente Amplio (FA), won the national elections in 2005. The left‐wing coalition was founded in 1971 and it has governed the country in the last three terms. Since Frente Amplio came into power, several and different projects have been developed based on large‐scale natural resource extraction as a consequence of the arrival of important foreign investment. To understand the origin of this phenomenon, it is essential to address the Uruguayan economic context during the early years of the XXI century. From 1999 to 2003, Uruguay faced one of the most important economic crises of its history2. It was estimated that the GDP fell approximately by a 15% in those years which negatively impacted on the macroeconomic stability as it caused currency devaluation, rising inflation, a constant 1 Our translation, original in Spanish. 2 In this text the causes of the economic crisis will be not be deepen. For further information about this issue, see Mordecky (2015). fall of real wages and an increase of public deficit (Mordecky 2015). This crisis, logically, also took a toll on the social welfare of the population. For example, unemployment steadily increased until it peaked at 20, 4% in September 2002 while poverty and destitution also reached historic figures for Uruguay (40% and 4, 7% respectively). In this context, national elections were held in 2004 and the FA achieved the government for the first time by a large margin of votes. This victory allowed the left‐ wing coalition to carry out its development agenda which has been initially marked by the tension between two models: “Uruguay Natural” and “Uruguay Productivo”3 (Santos 2017). The former has its roots in the early 1990s and, thanks to a major boost under Jorge Batlle government (1999‐2004). “Uruguay Natural” has been gradually ingrained in the public discourse and in national and international tourist promotion campaigns that aimed to position the country as a natural destination. In this regard, Renfrew states that “the Uruguay Natural campaign responds to a United Nations‐inspired form of sustainable development. This is the broad discourse that has its origins in the perceived crisis of nature and development as recognized at the 1972 Stockholm UN Conference on the Environment” (Renfrew 2009, 90). Thus, the model was focused on valuing the authentic natural wealth of Uruguay and, to do