Central American governments since 1978. Some have been rejected by the region's authorities, but others are currently being implemented. If drastic measures are not taken, Central America could become the model dumping ground for the developed world.
JOAN PALOMES*
T'S a familiar story: the developed world generates dangerous and radioactive toxic wastes which is explained as the price of industrialization, the production of consumer goods and high standards of living. But, paradoxically, part of these wastes are transferred to countries that have not industrialized and whose people do not enjoy consumer goods and a high standard of living. This is the price of under-development.
The way in which the environment has become a subject of controversy highlights the terrible inequality and injustice that characterizes the relationship between these two worlds; the environmental question now appears on the agenda of highlevel summit meetings only because East-
West tensions, which had dominated all other questions, have faded. Today, the
North is forced to deal with these problems.
There is an enormous contrast between the North and the South concerning hunger and misery, science and technology, austerity and the market. The degradation of the environment has become emblematic of the unequal dialogue between the North and the South. This dialogue has highligh-
Victims of insecticides ted the relations between the two regions and the long history of degradation and
Monocultures have exhausted the land. Pesticides and fungicides are poisonous. Dangerous industries have been transferred to the Third World and have been responsible for veritable genocides. Forests as large as some countries have been blindly destroyed in order to furnish northern homes or to print large editions of newspapers that denounce the destruction of these same forests. The never-ending mining of underground riches has exhausted mineral deposits. The sea, the air and life itself
Central America has not escaped these phenomena. Exhausted gold mines, sea life on the verge of extinction, vast areas razed. Fertile lands have been condemned to single crops such as bananas or cotton. All this is the consequence of an international economic disorder; of a civilization of waste; of a culture based on profit.
According to the United Nations Commission on Environment and Development, 90% of toxic waste is produced by the industrialized countries. It is estimated that in 1984 nearly 400 million metric tons primarily in northern European countries; tanks and surface barrels where 75% of toxic waste is deposited; surface dumping sites; the discharging of waste into the sea (in international waters); and finally, the most practical and economic method of waste disposal: the exportation of industrial waste to other countries, particularly the Third World.
Between 1986 and 1988, more than three million metric tons of dangerous waste was sent to developing countries. According to Greenpeace, "this figure is an underestimate, for the real figure is much higher due to the illegal and clandestine traffic in wastes." Environmental legislation in the industrialized countries is strict enough to inspire many industries to opt for this cheap solution. The high costs of depositing waste, obligatory security guaranties in the northern countries, and the ambiguity, if not the absence of environmental legislation in the underdeveloped countries, are factors that encourage this process.
An interesting precedent
As far as environmental legislation is concerned, there is an interesting precedent in the Third World: the 1991 Bamako accord, according to which the countries of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) adopted a total ban on this type of traffic in toxic wastes. According to a report by Greenpeace, "this is the most thoroughgoing legislation that exists in the field of toxic and nuclear wastes and is an example for the Central American region."
Only Belize has passed what could be described as useful environmental legislation. Guatemala and Costa Rica have incredibly weak environmental laws. These laws allow the importation of toxic waste to be used for "commercial and
NEARLY two thousand banana workers from Costa Rica have registered a complaint against several multinational firms, including the Standard Fruit company and Shell Oil, both of whom were responsible for the use and distribution of the pesticide DCP in Guatemala.
More than three thousand agricultural workers became sterile after the use of DCP in the 1970s in Standard's banana plantations on Costa Rica's Atlantic coast (DBCP was outlawed in California in 1977). Even if these workers win their suit in the first such action that has ever taken place in the United States, no compensation can ever rectify the personal anguish that this forced sterilization has caused: alcoholism, suicide and so on. Other workers were not sterilized; they were merely "contaminated". This could have unknown consequences on their off-
DCP is a particularly effective insecticide against the insects that attack bananas, but it is also a poison for human beings. The company tection whatsoever. 18 From Pensamiento Propio. * scientific use" or "recycling". Panama, El Salvador and Nicaragua are still waiting for their parliaments to pass laws concerning the traffic in toxic wastes. Honduras still has no law whatsoever on this ques-
The most insidious aspect of the hidden elements of the traffic in toxic waste involves the juicy contracts made by large north American and European companies specializing in the traffic in this material. The profits made by prosperous local businessmen who serve as intermediaries for these companies are not to be sneezed at. According to Erwin Garzona, leader of the campaign against the traffic of toxic waste in Central America, "the profitability of
The Central American dumping ground
GREENPEACE recorded twelve cases of toxic waste traficking in Central America for the period between January and August 1991 alone.
Guatemala: In January of that year Terra International Services of
CENTRAL AMERICA this traffic appears shocking, the fact that they are presented as "developmental projects" is nothing less than cynical. The importation of toxic waste is generally associated with plans for the installation of incineration factories and other technolo-
Miami, Energy Resources, and the N.V. and Trade Company from New
York put forward a proposal to build an incineration factory in Guatemala that would use 1.2 million metric tons of fuel per year made up of halogenic solvents with a benzene base from Bayer and Dow company. This project could also include the recycling of used solvents and the generation of "drinkable water". It also involved building cheap housing with the ashes. In spite of its rejection by the national environmental commission, this offer still stands for Guatemala, El Salvador and
Costa Rica.
In September of the same year, several loads of radioactive waste entered Guatemala via Mexico, and were deposited in the Department of Peten. According to several sources, the labels on the barrels falsified their actual contents. In March 1991, the Mexican press and a
Guatemalan deputy revealed that the Armin trading company of New
York had sought to deposit waste from Japan in a ravine near the capital and in the vicinity of a highly populated section of the city — in spite of the opposition of the residents. The municipality of Guatemala and the Agency for International Cooperation had signed an accord - in contradiction to Guatemalan law, which states that dumping grounds have to be located far from populated city areas. The plan was finally cancelled after a public outcry.
El Salvador: In April 1990, a Miami firm announced that it had received authorization from president Cristiani and the army to export ashes from a factory garbage incinerator in Philadelphia; it was destined to be used to build roads. This project was rejected by El Salvador and then by Nicaragua. In October 1990, a Houston factory offered several metric tons of toxic ashes, industrial and radio-active waste from Europe and the United States for construction projects in the Gulf of Fonseca. The ecological and sanitary consequences for this closed and humid ecosystem would have been drastic. A private group from the United States was ready to finance the construction of 500 lodgings, schools, clinics and sporting institutions on land in the Gulf region. The project was rejected by the Salvadoran government.
Nicaragua: In December 1990, a Miami firm made a proposal to the new government of Violeta Chamorro to import tire and rubber refuse to be used for fabricating fuel in an already existing electrical energy factory. This would have produced organochlorure, heavy metal and ash pollutants.
Honduras: In Honduras, a Florida firm discharged one thousand cases of cardboard that had previously been used to pack radio-active material. The normal inspections were not carried out and the boxes
(From: The toxic waste business in Central America: an activity to ban, Greenpeace). * these actions is more than guaranteed. The firms pay $1,000— and often more — per ton. And we have many examples of loads of waste that are more than 1,000 metric tons."
The firms which are the most involved in exporting waste products are based in Miami. One consortium in particular involves several firms including Energy Resources, Terra International Services, Amin Trade Company and World Wide Energy. It is run by two Cubans, Roberto Gurin and Evelio Lopez. Garzona explained that they "establish contracts with European and North American industries. There is also a special contract with the United States army for the transfer of waste products."
Their Latin American counterparts have no ecological scruples when profits are concerned. In general, the transactions are negotiated with functionaries or entrepreneurs very close to the governments involved such as Leonardo Callejas, economic councillor to the president of Honduras, and Emin Abufelle, director of La Mosquita Investments, a firm that has imported toxic waste and residual ashes from the United States. The rich Guatemalan businessman Isidro Kisillos, director of the Amy Drive company, is also involved with toxic wastes as are all the sectors of the country tied to the beer industry.
If the lucrative "mercantile" aspect of gies that present a modern image of development of these activities. The waste traffickers claim that their actions will lead to the creation of more jobs, the construction of an infrastructure, infusion of hard currency etc. They even go so far as to claim that thanks to the use of industrial waste as a substitute for oil, the incineration factories could fabricate cheaper energy.
### Immense pollution
The amount of pollution that these industries produce will be immense: gas leaks, ashes — with a high rate of doxine - and underground infiltrations of waste will occur and cause incalculable damage
The ashes discharged from the factories of large cities in the United States have been frequently offered "free" to Third World countries in order to build roads and cheap housing. It must be pointed out that these ashes contain high rates of heavy metal, furano, and doxine, all of which are active carcinogenic agents. This is called "social and economic development". Nothing is said about the incalculable damage to the environment that these wastes cause, nor on the harmful effects they have on human health: cancer, genetic mutations, sterility, damage to the nervous system and so on.
According to the latest Greenpeace report on the traffic in toxic waste, among the waste "offered" to Central America are "asbestos, toxic ashes from incinerating plants, rubber waste, industrial chemical products, nuclear waste, sewage sludge, lead residue, and toxic paint waste." Together, all this contains highly toxic substances, and in the worst of cases, highdensity radio-active elements which will be toxic for 100,000 years — a thousand
Energetic and detailed legislation on the environment must be passed that leaves no room for ambiguity. As Erwin Garzona has pointed out, "local and regional legislation on the environment is essential.
"But a systematic campaign to educate public opinion is also necessary. The media, ecological groups, and environmental movements have an urgent task ahead of them." * * This article first appeared in the September 1991 edition of Pensamiento Propio, published in Mama: 1 9 gua.