Among Latin American missionary groups, it is a regrettable trend that the more evangelical or fundamentalist is a group's theology, the more compliant or even supportive it tends to be of repressive right-wing governments. A fine new book by David Stoll, "Is Latin America Turning Protestant? The Politics of Evangelical Growth" (University of California Press) details the support by prominent evangelical churches for the Pinochet repression in Chile; their blessing of the massacres of Guatemalan Indians under the "born again" dictator Rios Montt; and the eagerness with which many evangelistic groups became willing tools of the CIA in the Contra war against Nicaragua.

But Stoll also points out that such connections, while too common, are not universal. There have been evangelical mission groups that were supportive of human rights and the preservation of native cultures. And he is cautiously hopeful that, in time, the evangelical heritage of more Latin Americans could become an asset in struggles for liberation and dignity.

Bucking An Unhappy Trend

"The history of social movements is replete with shifts from a redemptive (saving one's soul) to a transformative (changing the world) emphasis, or vice versa," Stoll writes. (Incidentally, this aptly describes early Quakerism, which evolved from an insurgent radicalism to a secluded Quietism in 50 years.) And Stoll quotes a Presbyterian mission scholar as advising, "You have to take a long perspective, because in the short term, yes, evangelical religion is reactionary. But a lot of the second and third generation lose their spiritualism and start asking different questions of the Bible."

The Bolivian Evangelical Friends Church (INELA in Spanish initials), about 7500 strong, is a notable exception to this melancholy trend of evangelical mission support for reaction. In normal circumstances, INELA would be poised to achieve great things. But it and Bolivian society are caught between the rock of debt-fueled depression, and the hard place of the cocaine trade. If there is a way out for Bolivian Friends and their country, it has thus far eluded even the most sympathetic observers.

The first American Quaker missionary in Bolivia, from Oregon Yearly Meeting, ran right into the stereotype of the evangelist as exploiter: "The missionary is suspected of being an ally of the wealthy plantation owners, or of the 'capitalistas de Wall Street,' and forerunners of Yankee imperialism," wrote Carroll Tamplin, the first Oregon Friend to work in Bolivia, in 1932. "They cannot imagine anyone coming to them without selfish motives!...This suspicion must be broken down before any basis of confidence can be found. We must love as Christ loved. Our reward--souls saved and songs of praise!"

As Tamplin's work took root among the Aymara Indians, Bolivian Friends proved fortunate in their missionary heritage. Oregon Yearly Meeting, while staunchly evangelical, even fundamentalist, still retained meaningful Quaker testimonies on equality and peace, features all but lost by most other evangelical Friends and fundamentalists generally. They acted on them, too: When they bought a large farm in 1947 to support a Bible school for native pastors, they shocked local officials by freeing the 33 native families that "came with" the property, like serfs, and giving them the land they had been working.

Useful Peculiarities, Indeed

These missionaries also had early opportunities to call on the Peace testimony, as many of their first Aymara converts were unwillingly drafted into the bloody Chaco War(1932-1935) with Paraguay. Others went into hiding to avoid the draft, which made no provision for COs.

"Their hearts are torn!" Carroll Tamplin wrote home in 1934. "Has not Christ taught them to love their enemies? And though they protest--what can an Indian expect from the superiors? Upon protest they are immediately despatched to the front line where they must either fight in self-defense or submit themselves to brutal killing. But they write that God has protected them and that they are continuing steadfast."

Thus, while hardly radicals, the Friends missionaries were not among those who preached the standard evangelical message that Romans 13:1 ("Let every soul be subject to the authorities...for the powers that be are ordained of God.") automatically meant they must pick up a weapon whenever demanded by adventuristic regimes. And Francisco Mamani, who until earlier this year served as Presidente of INELA, speaks gratefully--and without fear of being judged unsound--of the revolution of 1952, spearheaded by leftist tin miners' unions, which led to the enfranchisement of the Aymara and other oppressed Bolivian native groups.

The Oregonians' peace witness and commitment to equality, plus their more typical evangelical emphasis on personal moral uplift, added up to more than simply a bulwark of the status quo. Additionally, their equalitarianism included women: Francisco Mamani reported in a recent interview that there are INELA women pastors, church officers, and graduates of their Bible school. This is a remarkable achievement in what he affirms is a mucho macho Aymaran traditional culture.

A Very Special Meeting

The distinctive character of INELA evangelicalism was dramatically demonstrated when Pope John Paul II visited Bolivia. Catholic officials in La Paz invited all of the dozens of Protestant and evangelical groups in the country to send representatives to meet with the pope. The evangelical groups, which have a long history of anti-Catholic attitudes, all refused--except for the Quakers. As reported in AFL #86, Mamani was the sole Bolivian evangelical to meet with the pope.

Mamani hastens to add, however, that he attended the papal reception not only as a Friend, but on behalf of the Aymara people. And he speaks warmly of the spreading efforts among his people to "rescue" their long-suppressed culture from the overlays of centuries of oppression. Asked whether this indicates Bolivian Friends are interested in liberation theology, he demurs, pointing instead to a developing "Andean theology" which he says is focussed on seeing the gospel through indigenous eyes, and working to revive and develop a native Christian identity.

They will need good theology, and more, to weather Bolivia's ongoing ordeal by cocaine. When George Bush was in Colombia on 2/15 for his big anti-drug summit, Francisco Mamani recalls that there was a huge demonstration in the Bolivian capital of La Paz. The rally was against Bush and pro-coca; and it ended with a huge, technically illegal coca leaf "chew-in."

The march and its masticatory civil disobedience were only one of a long succession of similar protests; and while Mamani did not join the rally, he did feel some empathy for the marchers. After all, the coca leaf is used in scores of native herbal medicines, and it has been a part of most social/cultural rituals there for centuries. In fact it is only recently that the smoking of coca paste, mixed with tobacco in pitillo cigarettes, has become a serious, gringo-style "drug problem" in Bolivia.

On the surface, INELA maintains a clear and positive testimony regarding the use of coca as a drug: They're against it. Bolivian Friends are exhorted not to grow or use it (except medicinally), or smoke it in pitillos. In short, they are urged to keep clear of the crop that is their nation's biggest export and its most dangerous product.

Finding Work Where You Can

But look a little closer, and the picture is not so clear. It is clouded above all by the bust and boom that has been whipsawing the Bolivian economy. INELA Friends are part of the poor majority in what is the poorest country in South America. Moreover, through most of the 1980s Bolivia has been stuck in the deepest depression of this century. Prices for its old exports (especially tin) have been low; foreign debt payments are crushing; inflation and unemployment are very high. Everywhere you look, the Bolivian economic landscape is almost unrelievedly bleak--everywhere, that is, but in the coca fields. There the money is flowing; there people can find work.

Between 1978 and 1985, while tin mining and other legal industries were collapsing, the amount of land devoted to growing coca plants in Bolivia increased almost seven-fold, to as much as 200,000 acres; and coca leaf production went from 35,000 metric tons to 150,000 metric tons. As many as 80,000 peasant farmers grow coca. Cocaine products bring as much as $300 million dollars a year into the Bolivian economy, more than any legal export. (This data supplied by Kevin Healy, a Bolivia specialist with the Inter-American Foundation.)

But while the cocaine traffic has been growing, the Bolivian government has faced mounting pressure from the United States to stop the coca exports, by any means necessary. In theory, this was to be achieved by a carrot-and-stick mix of coca eradication plus American-financed crop substitution.

But the cost of meaningful crop substitution is large: $2500-$3000 per acre, several hundred million dollars in all. The Reagan and Bush administrations, with their bottomless budget deficits, have never come up with anywhere near that amount; and what few crop substitution efforts have been tried have been plagued by corruption and mismanagement. Furthermore, none of the proposed substitute crops: coffee, citrus fruits, cocoa, commands anywhere near the export price of coca.

What Would Gandhi Think?

With the carrot a failure (or not really tried), Washington has relied on the stick, pressuring the Bolivian government into heavy-handed crop eradication programs, involving agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration and on one occasion some U.S. troops.

These eradication programs have not succeeded either, not least because the Bolivian government, itself riddled with drug money, has not been serious about losing its best export. They have also evoked strong social protests. In fact, for advocates of nonviolent direct action, it is a paradoxical and somewhat embarrassing fact that one of the most intensive, sustained and disciplined campaigns of nonviolent action in this hemisphere in the 1980s has been the Bolivian pro-coca movement. Well- organized bands of thousands of militant peasant growers have repeatedly occupied government offices, blockaded roads to and from major cities, and sup-ported their leaders in hunger strikes, all to preserve what they call "the sacred leaf" from official efforts to suppress it.

No wonder one scholarly observer recently reported that "Bolivian officials say privately that forcible eradication would precipitate a civil war between coca farmers and the government...." Such an outcome would return the country to one of its most melancholy distinctions; as Kevin Healy puts it: "Bolivia's political system holds the world record for changes in government by way of the coup d'etat"--close to 200 since independence from Spain.

Thus far, miraculously, Bolivia has escaped the fate of Peru and Colombia, where the struggle over cocaine has produced widespread terrorism and guerilla violence. But the possibility of sliding into such bloodshed and chaos hangs over it like a cloud.

And under present economic conditions, can Bolivian Friends really keep clear of the coca trade? After all, they do not live in an ivory tower. And in Bolivia, there are many ramifications to the industry beyond growing or using the plant. For instance, such everyday items as toilet paper and kerosene are used in the first stages of cocaine processing, and some estimates are that over half of the toilet paper in Bolivia is consumed in little kitchen coca cookers rather than its bathrooms. Thus, every mom and pop tienda and gas station is indirectly tied into the trade.

A Pastor Bounces Back

Intensifying all this is the fact that temporary work is easy to get as a pisadore, or leaf-stomper, spending hours stomping bare-footed on coca leaves; or as a sepe, carrying a 50-kilo bundle of leaves through the forests to clandestine processing labs. The pay is good, and you can come and go.

Under the circumstances, it is no surprise to learn that a few years ago, an INELA pastor was arrested and jailed for transporting coca paste, another one of the migrant worker-type jobs. A disgrace, yes; but ever the evangelical, the pastor began his rehabilitation by promptly organizing a Friends church inside his penitentiary. With this kind of spirit, in the face of the havoc produced by the "war on drugs," maybe INELA will make it after all. With that spirit, and their progressive evangelical faith, maybe Bolivian Friends, with God's help, can survive the cocaine wars. Let's hope so.

Copyright © by Chuck Fager. All rights reserved.

Back to top

Back to home page