Digital compass
Vice President David Choquehuanca upholds the indigenous identity in his recent public speeches and yesterday was no exception. He presented and praised Santiago Mamani, denounced for damaging the statue of Christopher Columbus in the city of La Paz. “Our wawa (son),” he stressed.
Mamani was a guest of honor at the “celebration of the life of the Awicha Uma Mama (Mother Water, in Aymara)” that took place in the municipality of Copacabana, La Paz.
“Our wawa has been born, from the Aymaras, we are talking about Santiago, get up brother,” the vice president invited Mamani to stand up so that the audience can see him amid applause. “Our wawa” he repeated several times.
You can also read: Arias to the Aymara who challenged him to take him to jail: “He is already a prisoner of his own hatred”
He recalled that Mamani himself “has said (that) if someone touches the wawa of a community, the people will rise up.” “If someone touches him, we Aymaras are going to rise up, brothers, the people are going to rise up,” Choquehuanca threatened.
çOn August 2, 2021, Mamani, combo in hand, tried to destroy the head of the effigy along with other activists who promote the destruction of “colonial” statues as an act of justice.
The Mayor’s Office denounced the perpetrators of the outrage and the Prosecutor’s Office formally charged Emma María Rada Villarroel, Leonardo Inti Arenas Holguín, Carla Pamela Casa Guarabia and Santiago Rolyn Mamani Salas, for the destruction and deterioration of the aforementioned monument.
The self-identified Aymara challenged the mayor of La Paz to imprison him. “Let’s see if he’s going to be able to, because if he tries to hurt a wawa from a community, the towns are going to rise up, that’s just a warning,” he said on Tuesday of last week, according to the ANF agency.
You can also read: Four people are charged for damaging the Columbus monument in La Paz
The mayor responded through his Twitter account: “Why go to jail if you are already a prisoner of your own hatred, racism and ignorance?”
Choquehuanca promotes cultural identity in his last speeches to confront the indigenous people with those he calls q’aras.
“Brothers, in this process of change, cultural revolution and decolonization there are issues that we need to decolonize, (for example) how to stop being racist, and when we say that the q’aras die, because our fight is against the q’aras , white, because we are not racists,” he said Friday at a conference he gave in Cochabamba.
As he explained, he calls q’aras people who “have no principles, no values, no feelings, no ethics; these are the q’aras and our fight is against them,” he insisted.
