Double defeat for Bolivia: fending off the demons - Column

Christian Century, Oct 19, 1994 by Wilson T. Boots

For Bolivia, the poorest country in South America, the opening event of World Cup Soccer in June was of extraordinary importance. Historically the country has been looked down upon by other nations for a variety of reasons. And its soccer team had never before earned a place in World Cup competition.

But after a heady show of skill and determination (including a victory over Brazil), Bolivia was selected to confront Germany (three-time World Cup winner and five-time finalist) in the opening Cup game. It was David against Goliath - a poor, Third World country against a First World giant.

When the momentous day arrived, Bolivia called upon the pride of its cultural heritage, the legendary "Devil Dancers" from the mining province of Oruro, to dance through the streets of Chicago. Bolivians thus would seek to claim the psychic energy of their Andean heritage for the coming confrontation, "exorcising" the "demons" of the strong and swift Nordic opponents.

With everyone who could get near a TV (they are widely available even in rural areas) watching and cheering and praying, Bolivia valiantly held the heavily favored Germans to one goal, losing 1-0. Although keenly disappointed, Bolivia celebrated the moral victory of playing well against the formidable Germans.

Meanwhile, however, a truly "demonic" activity was happening on the high Andean plains of Oruro. Even as the German and Bolivian teams were playing some 4,000 miles to the north, a fleet of trucks carrying 472 tons of toxic mineral residue shipped from Germany rumbled across the deserted roads of the isolated mining province and through the abandoned streets of Patacamaya. They dumped their toxic load of antimony and arsenic ore on empty lots behind the small town's makeshift barriers.

The dumping went unnoticed for several weeks, until a number of people in the community began to experience nausea, vomiting, headaches and fever. Patacamaya's mayor, whose property was utilized for the dumping, resigned. Community leaders pressed the government to remove the toxic residue.

Over the next several weeks the dangerous cargo was moved to three other Oruro communities, and each time people quickly organized to have the material removed. As of late August the poisonous materials, known as the "train of death," were being shifted from one freight terminal to another to avoid detection.

Indigenous leaders of the Oruro region have threatened to deposit the material in front of the presidential palace in La Paz if it is not sent back to Germany. Several government commissions are now involved in investigations, and there is mounting evidence of substantial financial payoffs. First World economic power and affluence can often "buy" access to major areas of the earth for such purposes.

Other recent threats to the health and safety of Bolivians from international dumping include the construction of a cargo airfield by U.S. military personnel in a remote mountain area near Potosi where abandoned mine shafts might be used for nuclear radioactive waste. Metallurgical dust was sent to Bolivia from England last year. In late August a Croatian ship with 97 tons of industrial waste declared "toxic" by Colombian authorities was seeking to unload its cargo in Bolivia's new free port of Ilo on the Pacific coast.

This threat to the world's environment is making headlines just as U.S. citizens are becoming increasingly aware of the grave reality of "environmental racism" - depositing dangerous waste materials in and around areas with racial/ethnic populations. The alarming increase of waste dumping in Bolivia and other Third World countries points to the globalization of this problem.

The World Watch Institute, based in the U.S., estimates "that by the year 2,000 the industrial countries mill accumulate 193,065 tons of nuclear waste." They plan to dispose of it by 2040 with "|geological burials' in different parts of the world." Geologist Konrad Klauskopt of Stanford University warns:

There is no scientist or engineer who can guarantee that the radioactive residues will not some day filter in dangerous quantities through the most secure deposit vaults, given the capacity of subterranean waters to corrode the most solid containers; also, buried residues produce gases and hydrogen explosives that are very dangerous to all life.

Catholic and Protestant church leaders throughout Latin America are protesting international dumping and other forms of ecological abuse. Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff has spoken of the demonic powers at work. An ecumenical Earth Council, headquartered in Costa Rica, is mobilizing religious communities across the continent in preparing a "Letter from the Earth" to be presented to the United Nations General Assembly next year. And a recent Declaration of the Evangelical Methodist Church of Bolivia calls the church and other religious communities to address the environmental crisis both local and global:

[Pollution] is the result of the thinking and practice of the powerful, who view creation as only an object for buying and selling, guided by their interests of financial gain and profit. This abuse of creation is in reality sin, since "the whole creation has been groaning" (Rom. 8:22) and demands that "creation itself will be set free" (Rom. 8:21).