 
 
I want to invite our next guest
who will take the mike
It's a woman who does not need introduction
This is not a national conflict; it's a regional conflict
And it's not a recent conflict. It's roots go really really far
We present now
Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, a big applause please
Thank you very much for being with us today, dear sister
 
I apologize for starting to speak
so early. I wanted to be
the last speaker.
But unfortunately I
haven't found any farmacy open
I haven't been able to take my anti-inflammatory
I have a very serious problem on my knees
They say it's a reflection of pride
I'm proud indeed
of being a woman, and also in a way
of having been quiet for so long
because the Pacha [Mother Earth]
granted me this accident
On the 23rd [Bolivia's elections] I fell in a ditch when my daughter and I
were sowing the land in Cochabamba
And that guided me into thinking
that there was a need of a political silence
I have suffered of an excess of
discursive politics
I admire the internet from far away
and love face-to-face conversations
That's why I preferred to come here
rather than doing it from home
Because I can look into your eyes and see them sparkle
I can feel your vibrations
I can even feel frustration towards me. All of that helps me
It helps me to be myself, to be humble
and gentle
instead of arrogant
I think the current moment
has left us a great lesson
against triumphalism
I don't believe in two hypothesis
that have been circulating
The triumphalism, that with Evo's fall
we've recovered our democracy
that to me is an excess, an analysis
that is out of focus
We need a lot more to recover
our democracy. We still need the painstaking task
a recognition of
how Ena Taborga [indigenous leader] and Rositas [hidroelectric dam] are
Our fellow women in Tariquía [community fighting oil pipelines]
Our fellow women of TIPNIS [natural reserve]
Doña Marquesa, Doña Cecilia [leaders in the fight in TIPNIS]
all our women fighters. Where are they?
Some of them were even candidates
We have the duty to take responsibility
of those realities
in which democracy is still a very distant objective
Because they are still being managed
by unions captured by misogyny
by all kinds of special interests
with sinister intentions
There are also people who have placed their bodies in the line
in the struggle, and whom however
when it was time to be recognized in the public sphere
their voices haven been silenced
as in the case of Tariquía
So I think this good, positive forum to take the first steps
to begin talking about
what Maria mentioned in her program
What do we understand by democracy?
But also, what do we mean when we say
I am indian or native
The second  mistaken hypothesis
that I see as extremely dangerous
is the hypothesis of the
coup d'etat
which seeks to legitimize
as a whole, inside a package
wrapped in cellophane
the entire Evo Morales government
even in its moments of greater deterioration
That is, to legitimize all that deterioration
with the idea of the coup is criminal
Therefore, we have to think about
how did that deterioration begin?
When I came in about an hour ago
I gave a couple people
photocopies of the newspaper
dated November 2nd
I don't know if someone has it. Could you please hand it to me?
I want to point out that
a whatshisname called Juan Ramon Quintana  [ex-military and Evo's senior advisor]
declared on November 2nd
the Vietnamization of the country
He was declaring what he has done
for years: indoctrinate
Placing indigenous people in the networks
of the military mafia
That happened with the Kakachacas [in Oruro]. That happened with many communities
Hugo Moldiz [Evo's ex-minister of interior] who worked with the so-called red ponchos
I used to know other red ponchos [who fought facism in the 50s]
I used to know brothers and sisters
who would go with their families to the Cajachaca mountain
I mean, Calachaca
to make a spiritual offering before going into battle
Those were the red ponchos I used to know
What Hugo Moldiz did on January 22, 2006
is to bring an army in uniform
many of them with ponchos bought in Juliaca
and armed for sure
to make us believe
that we were before a revolutionary government
We are taking risks for a leftists nostalgia
of a group of people
machos
who are not only macho Camacho
there are also those leftists machos misogynists
who treat us like cannon fodder and floor meat
to create those networks of perversion
of the working class
I remember very well
and a journalist needs to help me
to find that document
when the military did this huge orgy
with the COB (Bolivian Workers' Center), with women
in order to influence their destinies
What did we say back then?
I cried I was so angry
but we didn't realize that that was systematic
and that it lasted for years
and that this character and his military network
which includes the guy who owns the furnicular
I have witnessed the political use of the furnicular
when they gave away tickets so people would come down
to massacre
to destroy the Puma Kataris [public transport unoin workers]
All of that is part of a sinister network that includes
that mister...
a real buddy of Quintana
and owner of ANH [Hydrocarbons National Agency]
What is the ANH doing? Just recently
giving away little gas stoves during the fires [of Chiquitania]
That shameful behavior
which goes hand-in-hand with their defense of the fires
It's briging together women's struggles,
environmental struggles, struggles of the youth movement, struggles of old women
like me, who care about our destinies
and the water that their granddaughters will drink
and their granddaughters' daughters. That's why today, sisters,
I am very unhappy
because Evo is gone
but hope is not gone, of a pluricultural Bolivia
of the wipala representing us, in all its variations
Hope is not gone of ending with racism
And we have to continue our fight from the anti-racism trenches
And we have to continue bringing different forces together
in order to articulate a feeling
that we are getting back our democracy
on a day-to-day basis. I'm really sad
of what happened
I don't have any sense of triumph
I understand
because that began with Chi [Hyun Chung, a presbiterian pastor who ran as candidate]
Religion is not only Camacho
it's our struggle against the generalized drunkness
of the union work manipulated by the military and Quintana
who go visit people with cans of alcohol
That hurts me the most
it's the same mechanism used by
colonizers in the 16th century
Disarming communities with cans of alcohol
Big business and landowners also who wanted to get rid of
of agrarian reform, like Ponce Sanginés [Bolivian arqueologist of the nationalis elite]
an can of alcohol
and he had a whole state with folkloric indians
he could show off in museums
Please, we need to understand why people
are behaving in this reactionary way
They are fed up
of a quasi union type of politics, misogynists
that manipulates people
like sheep... And also
The fact that the women of Totora Marka
who had fought for indigenous autonomy
who were tricked
and they campaigned for the [2016] referendum
in a MAS-style, obviously
So it's really sad what has happened, my sisters
The triumphalism that we've recoverd our democracy
since Evo got on that plane
seems to me an extreme futile
and poor strategy
But defeatism of a coup
and that we've all lost is not true
It leads us to think that MAS
is the only thing we have as a possibility
of an interethnic, plural, pluricultural project
Not because we have a gay minister
and some women who defend him from their alleged lesbianism
Is that why
we should believe that
there is an amplitude and anti-homophobia
No. Those are just symbols
I am therefore with the Wipala, sisters,
And I know there are many wipalas
not just one
We know wipalas from ancient times
that had other colors
We need to recover that plurality
as well as our sisterhood
sisters and indians
and cholas. I've cried seeing
women of polleras bullied in the name of "democracy"
I've cried seeing young people
abused
saying that they are MAS and indians
 
The indian who lives inside us
hurts a lot. It's up to us
to liberate and make her/him happy
able to speak several languages
able to have a fine theoretical way of thinking
that's Indian for me.
Sisters, I feel defeated but also hopeful
because
we've put our bodies in the line for this process
and it has hurt a lot
the degradation by the military trained
in the School of the Americas
That military that have a lot to lose
after they lost those 30 Chinese barges [through corruption]
but they have all the lithium
that's what they want to plunder
I hope today we generate a space
to articulate unity against
the sinister forces that begin
with IIRSA [a mega-development project], the Initiative for the Integration of the Regional Infrastructure of South America
as well as the Chinese, Rusian money interests, and Venezuelan
if they have capital left, that is
There are mafia-like money interests
such as Carlos Gill [a Venezuelan investor who owns several train co.]
All of that mafia is our main enemy
and they are well and alive, as well as arming people
arming mentalities
Let's take care of each other
but also be aware that we can afford
a happiness because "the Indian is finally gone"
That is really sad for me
 
 
 
 
 
 
