Aratiri plans to invest 2 billion US dollars in an open-pit iron mine, in 10,000 hectares of land in Valentines, to export 18 million tons of iron annually to China. They are already doing exploration works in the area.

In an interview published in Uruguayan newspaper La Diaria, Fernandez Huidobro said it is necessary to make sure that the Indian company Zamin Ferrous, of which Aratiri is a subsidiary, is a mining corporation, and not a shell corporation.

“It is under scrutiny nowadays. There are versions saying that the company is an intermediary company of minerals and does explorations to later sell them to other mining companies. The company denies this, but we have to be very careful”.

An investigation by Uruguayan journalist Victor Bacchetta published in the national weekly publication Voces, says Zamin Ferrous, which claims to be a family-owned business is actually a shell company of a big world market operator of raw materials. The CEO of the Indian company Pramod Agarwal, founder of Texuna International in 1981, a Hong Kong based company, leads a trade group in the Community of Independent States, in 10 of the 15 countries.

Texuna became a big network of the companies operating in the trade of raw materials between Asia, the Community of Independent States, Europe and the United States.

The biggest multinational corporations have used Texuna to enter the markets of the former soviet republics, according to Bacchetta’s investigation.

In the interview with La Diaria, Fernandez Huidobro added that the open-pit deposit with the dimensions planned in Valentines “is already a problem in itself” and “there are plenty of examples” in the world to illustrate the environmental impacts of large-scale mining.

Uruguay should “consider if there is a chance of this having some added value or if it is just exporting raw materials” he said. He went further in his analysis by questioning the development model that supports this mega enterprise: “This model is leading the planet to disaster. We just need to watch the news on TV.
We used to say that the enemies were imperialism and the bourgeoisie, and they continue to be so, but no one used to talk about ecology, depletion of resources or food crisis. This model is for a minority, while the rest of humanity is expendable. It is a future with no prospects”.

Fernandez Huidobro also made a self-criticism because of the lack of interest of the Uruguayan left to the demands of the ecologist groups, perhaps because “we never thought human stupidity could reach this point”.

In the recent years Uruguay has had a wave of investments from transnational corporations in the fields of agriculture, forestation, pulp production, mining and infrastructure.

In April of last year Huidobro had warned about some dangers of these investments in mega projects. He warned back then that the departments of Treinta y Tres, Cerro Largo and Rocha would be in trouble if these projects went ahead, and unless actions were taken to face their impacts.

He was cited by El Espectador radio station saying that with the new initiatives would come migration to these areas, and therefore, there would be terrible housing, health and sanitation problems. The MP considered that these departments are not ready to carry out the health and environmental controls needed.

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