In August 2019 two Femen-activists performed a manifestation outside the Swedish embassy in Paris.
The message was ”toxicjustice” and they presented claims that Sweden shall take responsibility for Boliden’s toxic waste in Arica, Chile.
FEMEN is an international group of activists fighting sexism, homophobia, prostitution and religion. Their messages are written on their bodies and bare breasts which gets attention and is meant to mobilize people.
Read about their demands here (the text is recently updated):
”SWEDEN MUST TAKE RESPONSIBILITY!
Two Femen activists demand #ToxicJustice outside of the Embassy of Sweden in Paris and Sweden’s delegation at OECD the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and demand that;
Sweden must take responsibility for Boliden’s toxic waste in Arica in Chile and give support to the victims! #AricaVictims
We ask ambassador Anna Brandt as Permanent Representative of Sweden to the OECD and UNESCO to push for a solution for the #AricaToxicScandal.
We demand that the Swedish government take responsibility for the Arica toxic waste scandal in Chile were the Swedish company Boliden dumped 20,000 tonnes of toxic waste.
The Prime Minister of Sweden Stefan Löfvén and Per Bolund, Minister for Environment and Climate and Deputy Prime Minister, must contact the Government of Chile and take responsibility to solve the Arica toxic scandal.
“The consequences of this brutal act of contemporary colonization and irresponsible capitalism are still visible and painful: many adults developed several forms of cancer, babies were born with birth defects and thousands ended up breathing large amounts of arsenic.”
/ https://cineuropa.org/en/newsdetail/395604
“ARICA – A Toxic Waste Scandal” #AricaFilm(www.aricafilm.com) is the new legal documentary by Lars Edman and William Johansson Kalén following up the “Toxic Playground” film (www.toxicplayground.online) and its Swedish Premiere is tonight March 9 2021 at Tempo International Documentary Film Festival Tempo Dokumentärfestival with Laika Film & Television AB.
SUPPORT ARICA VICTIMS!
Generations of born and unborn children in Arica have been affected, but are not recognized and and nobody is held responsible.
Why?
Because Boliden Mineral AB, which has a turnover of approximately SEK 50 billion, since its plan to get rid of toxic waste on the other side of the globe never intended to lose any of its profit from caring for poor people. So when Sweden’s environmental laws were tightened after the 1970s, the country’s most environmentally hazardous company chose to dump its deadly 20,000 tonnes of toxic waste from Rönnskärsverken, in Chile 1984 to 1989.
A military dictatorship notorious at the time where thousands of people “disappeared” under the iron hand of Augusto Pinochet.
Suitable for the Nordic region’s largest producer of copper, lead, silver and gold to contact and pay SEK 10 million more, to make their problem disappear and to be able to free their hands from just in time for the OECD Basel Convention on Transboundary Waste Transport to take form from 1984 to 1989 when its final resolution was written and later became binding.
The overarching objective of the Basel Convention is to protect human health and the environment against the adverse effects of hazardous wastes. The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal was adopted unanimously by the 116 States, including Sweden, participating in the Conference on 22 March 1989. It entered into force on 5 May 1992.
http://www.basel.int/…/Overview/tabid/4325/Default.aspx
Instead of stopping Boliden, Sweden pushed for stricter environmental requirements and supported Boliden with more than SEK 300 million so that employment would not be stopped.
Three ships came loaded!
With what?
Swedish welfare’s death caravan and corruption!
3,500 tonnes of pure arsenic in open piles became a children’s playground mixed with lead, cadmium, mercury, copper and zinc,
which resulted in miscarriages, developmental disorders, cancer and lifelong health problems for the socially disadvantaged whose residential area was built there among waste.
That Pinochet & Co with Promel could process value for other than their own pockets from the toxic waste, was fake news. Boliden knew that the waste had no commercial value, and saw during visits that the poison dust could blow around from nasty piles, which happened until the spring of 1998 when Pinochet’s power as army chief since 1973 began to weaken. Permits between Sweden and Chile were granted on false grounds. But in 1999, the “New Boliden” was restructured, which with its environmentally friendly profile, its sustainability experts and lawyers denies responsibility and which in court says that the consequences in Chile were “completely impossible for us to predict”! .. Meanwhile, Boliden processes for world-unique final disposal of 400,000 tons of toxins with arsenic that are enough to kill the earth’s population several times over, mixed with mercury and lead, whit a toxicity that does not subside, infused in closed rooms 350 meters below Boliden’s smelter, without a statute of limitations. That’s were the toxic waste that went to Arica should go now.
In Arica, it lay in open mounds with children playing for a decade until it was buried a few meters underground and the residents were evacuated. There it is, still a health hazard, for how long?
In the legal process that has been going on since 2013 when around 800 of Arica Victim’s filed a lawsuit against Boliden started (with Femen making two action against the mining business and its lobbyism in the Swedish government during a panel with Boliden’s CEO and during the Prime Minister’s speech in Almedalen summer 2014 *) the company with the District Court and the Court of Appeal on its side, claims that it can not be proven that the so-called #ToxicPlayground in Arica led to illness for the children, but that they probably got sick from eating too much contaminated fish, even if they can’t afford to eat fish and almost eat no fish at all..
THIS IS MODERN COLONIALISM AND ABUSE OF POOR PEOPLE! #ToxicColonialism
FEMEN firmly believes that it is completely irresponsible that a large transnational company in the mining industry claims to lack insight into the high toxicity of its toxic waste and its impact on the human organism, and that the Swedish District Court and Court of Appeal also play dumb regarding arsenic toxicity, which was described described already in papyrus scrolls 1500 B.C..
The Swedish National Food Administration regarding arsenic: “Getting high levels for a long time increases the risk of cancer in the skin, lungs, bladder and probably also in the liver and kidneys. It can also lead to cardiovascular disease, liver damage, chronic cough, diabetes and skin changes. Sensitive groups: Fetuses and children are most sensitive to arsenic. Arsenic passes through the placenta, but very little passes into breast milk.
Arsenic can affect the development of the nervous system and the immune system. The fact that fetuses and young children are particularly sensitive to such effects is due to the development of the brain ”.
It is ridiculous that the Swedish Court of Appeal then leaves a court decision that the case with a claim for damages of 120,000 SEK / person is statute-barred because it is more than ten years since the crime was committed and that Swedish law should apply – although the damage occurred in Chile and Chilean law should apply.
FEMEN supports Arica Victim’s appeal to the Supreme Court with a demand that the case be returned to the Court of Appeal for the necessary examination of the case in substance and that the victims in Arica should NOT have to pay any SEK 36 million to Boliden.
FEMEN believes that Boliden should take back its toxic waste, and do everything in the company’s flourishing power to do for the lives they have ruined and destroyed. But as Boliden refuses to do so, and now instead demand money from the #AricaVictims (!!)…
“As of today, the Swedish Supreme Court has not granted Arica’s victims leave to appeal and Boliden is threatening to sue Arica’s lawyers to make them pay the legal costs, a sum close to 5 million dollars.”
https://cineuropa.org/en/newsdetail/395604
THE SWEDISH GOVERNMENT MUST STEP IN AND STEP UP AND TAKE RESPONSIBILITY NOW!
FEMEN #FemenSweden
http://www.business-humanrights.org/…/lawsuit-against…/
The first negotiations in Swedish court were held late summer of 2014, which FEMEN referred to in a broad international action #LobbyistsGoHome against the lobbying of mining companies towards the government, during Prime Minister Reinfeldt’s speech in Almedalen, and in a pre-action together with environmental activists at a seminar a few hours before were Boliden’s CEO attended. Our actions targeted transnational mining companies’ lobbyism that aim to gain the right to commit human rights abuses. In particular, the actions wanted to draw attention to the ongoing mining exploitation projects in Ojnare and Kallak / Gallók, as well as to the Swedish company Boliden and justice for their victims. Not only are Boliden responsible for poisoning Chile, which they refuse to take responsibility for, but they are also responsible for the destruction of Spain’s Doñana National Park where they are required to pay 89 million euros for the damages from the Los Frailes mine and the #DoñanaDisaster, which they refuse to take responsibility for.”
Read more about Femen here: https://femen.org/
Fotocred: Dorothée Fagard-Jol