A Crashing of Mountains

Futbol often seems more important to Latin Americans than birth, marriage and death. It is the mania that lifts a campesino from the daily treadmill, that causes a President to put aside affairs of state and listen to a play-by play broadcast, that brings an entire city to a standstill on the afternoon of an important match. "They don't think it's a game. They think it's a war down there." says William Cox, president of the International Soccer League. And in a war it's not how you play the game, it's whether you win or lose.

Nothing else mattered in last week's clash between Peru and Argentina. Na tional teams from the two countries were playing in a continent-wide round robin to decide on two teams to represent Latin America in the Olympic Games in Tokyo. Argentina, with a 5-0 record, seemed a shoo-in. Peru had two wins and a tie, but with three to play, still had a chance--if it could get by the tough Argentines. Scalpers had a field day.

Bleacher seats went for as much as 30 soles ($1.00) apiece, twice the regular rate and equivalent to a full day's pay for many a Peruvian laboring man. By game time, 50,000 fanatic soccer fans had crushed into Lima's National Stadium to howl for a home-team victory. Wild-eyed aficionados were already jubilant and confident of the win.

The Bomb. All through the scoreless first half, the Peruvians matched the smoother Argentines with a spirited attack that drew wild cheers from the crowd. Then halfway through the second half, Argentina scored to take a 1-0 lead. At last, six minutes from the end, a Peruvian forward battered his way past an Argentine defender, toed a loose ball in front of the goal, and booted it home for the tying score. A roar like thunder burst from 50,000 throats. Then there was stunned silence in the stands. Referee Angel Eduardo Pazos, a Uruguayan, signaled a foul against Peru and disallowed the goal.

Suddenly, everything that could be pulled loose in the stadium--cushions, bottles, shoes, even bricks broken out of a wall--rained down on the field. A huge Negro, Matias ("Bomba") Rojas, with a police record for previous attacks on referees, came scrambling over the 9-ft. barbed-wire-topped fence separating the stands from the playing field. And the cry went up: "Ahi va Bomba [There goes the Bomb]!" The cops caught him just before he could reach the referee. "I hate to see Peruvians lose," he muttered as the police hustled him off the field. "I don't know what happens to me. I get hot all over."

Following the Bomb's lead, other fans got hot all over and raged onto the field. The terrified ref hurriedly called the game, giving Argentina a 1-0 victory, and fled to the security of a steel-doored dressing room. At that, the entire crowd went berserk. In the center of the field, a small knot of beleaguered cops started lobbing tear-gas grenades into the onrushing mob. Trying to restore order in the upper stands, a hapless policeman was seized by his hands and feet, swung back and forth and hurled to his death on the concrete 50 ft. below; another was strangled with his own necktie.

"Wave in a Bad Sea." The mob's fury turned to blind panic. "A horrible noise, like the crashing of mountains, went through us," said a 16-year-old student. A few men stood firm, shouting, "Calma, calma." They were swept aside and trampled in the stampede for the exits. A woman knelt to pray with a baby in her arms; both were stomped to death. Recalled Leonardo Cevallos, 37, a fisherman who brought his whole family to the big game: "The people came at us like a wave in a bad sea. My wife and my five children are gone--all of them."

At the stadium's north end, three of the five steel doors leading out were still inexplicably closed. One theory was that the gate attendants had deserted their posts to watch the game's climax. Rank upon rank of screaming, struggling humanity crashed against the steel until the doors burst open and the mob surged over the crushed bodies in the corridors. Strips of skin clung to the walls, and in places the corpses were six deep. The death toll at the gates alone was 200. Outside, the rioting crowd rolled on through the streets, smashing windows and burning vehicles, forcing police reinforcements to fire into their midst. Small parties of ghouls scurried around, looting the dead.

All through the night, ambulance sirens wailed through Lima. By morning the toll stood at 293 dead, nearly 500 injured. President Fernando Belande Terry decreed a week of national mourning and suspended constitutional rights for 30 days to prevent leftist agitators from taking advantage of the situation.

Even taking into account the fervor of futbol fans, why had this happened? Jorge Basadre, Peru's foremost historian, tried an answer: "Our people, especially our lower classes, are full of tensions and frustrations, dark, pent-up passions and angers. This situation is becoming acute under the impact of the population explosion and the poverty of the masses. Add to this the Communist contagion. These people have lost some of their faith and hope. When this happens, then sometimes people will behave more like brutes than men."

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