May 28, 2008
Colonial backlash
Through the grainy print, I could just make out three men in suits and hats haughtily bristling their guns. At their feet were a line of indigenous men and women on their knees, heads bowed, the gaunt look of humiliation etched on their faces. Beneath the photo the caption: “Capture of savages in Santiago de Chiquitos,1883.”
I meant to challenge the gentle motherly museum owner in the small village in the eastern region of Bolivia about the inscription, but shamefully didn’t. My silence scratched at my conscience for a few days like an infected insect bite.
What I never expected though was to see a similar image live on TV a month later. Yet three nights ago, I sat sickened and disturbed as I watched a line of campesinos kneeling, their shirts stripped off, forced into mumbling chants against Evo and in favour of Sucre whilst a gang of students deliriously shouted racist insults.
Other images flickered repetitively on screen – indigenous men stumbling pushed aggressively by angry crowds, bewildered farmers showing huge bloody gashes on their heads, a camera zooming in on an house on the hill surrounded by adrenalin-charged men accompanied by the flat tones of the news commentator saying that a few campesinos were hiding inside the house. Local politicians without shame justified the violence arguing that it was in protest at Evo Morales’ visit to the region scheduled for that day.
And then back to the square, and the loud war-cries of the noticeably mixed-race young thugs. “Este es Sucre, Carajo, Este es Sucre Carajo” (This is Sucre, goddamit. This is Sucre, goddamit.) Young urban men, some no doubt with campesino grandparents spitting out hatred directed at their own. Next to me watching the TV coverage, my Bolivian flatmate was crying.
Sadly this incident isn’t unique. I have heard of ever more examples of attacks on indigenous people and particularly any leaders associated with the government. Most are ignored by the press. Just two days before the recent events in Sucre, two Congress MAS deputies’ denounced the fact that they had been attacked and threatened on a visit to Sucre. It received two paragraphs in one of the national newspapers.
Whilst in Lima, I talked to Wilmer Flores, a MAS deputy from the Sucre region who recounted how he had been chased from the public square and cornered by a group of students who stamped on him, beat him, shouting “Kill the Indian. Let’s kill them all one by one.” It was as one of them started with broken glass to try and scratch his eyes out that a policeman happened to pass and the group escaped. His attempts to find his potential murderers have met a brick wall of complicity and evasion from all Sucre’s legal authorities.
Watching TV, I noticed that the brutalised campesinos were kneeling in Sucre’s central square, in front of the “Casa de Libertad” (Freedom House) from where Bolivia’s independence was declared. It was the same square where Deputy Wilmer Flores was seen, chased and almost lost his life. Similarly in Santa Cruz, various attacks have taken place in its main central square.
More:
http://www.nickbuxton.info/bolivia/2008/05/colonial-backlash.html~~~~~~~~~Added:
~snip~
“We’ve Got to Kill These Indians”
On May 24, Sucre once again exploded in racist violence. During Independence Day celebrations, groups associated with the Inter- Institutional Committee detained, robbed, and beat with sticks several dozen indigenous peasants, including the mayor of a rural municipality, who had come to the city to attend an event planned by MAS. The victims were marched around Sucre’s plaza half-naked, holding the flag of Chuquisaca, in front of the press and hundreds of spectators and were then forced to get on their knees and beg for forgiveness for supporting Morales. They then watched in shock as their ponchos and indigenous flags were burned amid shouts of “Dirty Indians”, “Long live the capital” and “We’ve got to kill these Indians.”
http://www.indypendent.org/2008/07/20/bolivia-divided/~~~~~~~~~~~Page last updated at 17:09 GMT, Thursday, 21 May 2009 18:09 UK
Colonial scars run deep in Bolivia
~snip~
Despite having a president, Evo Morales, who is an Aymara Indian, the indigenous groups of Bolivia continue to be among the nation's poorest, working as peasant farmers or cheap labour.
And according to Rafael Mora, negative stereotypes abound.
"There are many myths saying Indians are dangerous. From when they are very young, children in the cities are told "don't go there or the Indian will get you". In cities like Sucre, people panic if you say 'Indians are coming to take over'," he said.
"In the past, people were told Indians would come, rape the women and steal everything. Actually, it is the other way round. Even today young Indian girls working as maids are still sexually abused. It's common for young men to be allowed to use them to get sexual experience."
~snip~
At a local Quechua language radio station, Marianela Paco Duran, one of their journalists has just come off air.
She was attacked as she covered last year's Independence Day celebrations, along with other Indians who were beaten and stripped as they tried to march to Sucre's main square. They had been trying to demonstrate their support for President Morales' constitutional reforms, which give Indians many rights and which recognise their culture.
Merianela Duran still weeps as she recalls the humiliation inflicted on her people by those she considers colonialists.
"They said to us: 'Go back to your pigs, to the countryside and your cows.' We must never let them humiliate us like that again. It is still in their psychology. They behaved as if there were defending their own, as it if was their right," she said.
Bolivia, like many Andean countries, is struggling to address the imbalance at the heart of its society; here a minority seems unable to accept that the majority Indians are equal.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8061841.stm
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