World’s highest city site of historic reconciliation ceremony
POTOSI, BOLIVIA – Potosi, Bolivia, the highest city in the world at 4000 meters in altitude, was the site of a historic event today (March 31, 2006) aimed at reconciliation of indigenous Quechua and Aymara peoples with Spanish and Bolivian officials and the Roman Catholic Church.
More than half of Bolivia´s people are indigenous Quechua and Aymara people, and for them Potosi symbolizes historic oppression through Spanish exploitation of indigenous people in past centuries. Millions of indigenous people and African slaves died working in the once famous silver mines of Potosi´s Cerro Rico (“Rich Mountain”) which greatly contributed to Spanish wealth 450 years ago. Now a a historic colonial city of more then 100,000, many of Potosi´s residents still work the mines of Cerro Rico in often terrible conditions.
A Quechua leader pointed out to cheers from the audience that the Spanish must recognize the anger of Quechua people about the killings of the past. An Aymara leader told the Spanish representatives that his people were “tortured and killed — treated as animals and beasts. We feel very hurt,” he said. “If we talk about reconciliation, Spain and our authorities have to engage in restoration of our culture and world view.” A representative from the African-Bolivian community told about her ancestors who survived physical mistreatment and exploitation. “They were slaves of persons who acted without conscience, and their children and grandchildren still hold resentment,” she said. “On behalf of my people and ancestors who were slaves at one time, I give you our sincere forgiveness at this time.”
Visiting First Nations leader, Dr. Richard Twiss, from the Lakota and Sioux Nations in the United States, pointed out that “reconciliation involves in part recognizing the sins in our own history, and then for the offending to the offended it involves asking forgiveness for the past. Reconciliation is not complete until we have policies and actions to put reconciliation into effect.”
Twiss described how indigenous people in the United States and Canada “have suffered as Europeans assumed they could take our land and use it for their purposes. We were once millions of people, and now only a few million are left. Although our people live in the richest land in the world, we still suffer. While Europeans became rich, we became poorer and poorer.”
Twiss added that because of terrible atrocities and many massacres, “our land has become defiled. Reconciliation is a step for healing our land so that it can become a place of peace for all its people.”
Catholic Bishop Gustavo Rivero Montecinos asked the indigenous and African-Bolivian for forgiveness because “we did not show God´s love in our encounters with indigenous peoples,” adding that members of the Roman Catholic church often did not “demonstrate the Gospel of Jesus in our own lives.” He asked for forgiveness and mercy “because we say these things after so many centuries”.
Speaking on behalf of Spain, Juan Diego Ruiz Cumplido, a representative from the Embassy of Spain, stressed “an attitude of going forward” and announced its commitment to continued cooperation with Bolivia, including several development projects. He said that in the information they received about the reconciliation event, there were ideas with which Spain disagrees. However, Spain plans an encounter between historians of Bolivia and Spain to analyse the past “in a serious way”.
The coordinator of the Reconciliation event was Canadian church worker Jurgen Schultz, who has lived in Potosi for 17 years.
“The main purpose of this meeting is peace and reconciliation,” said Schultz. “We want to heal the wounds of the past and move on to the future.”
Catherine Morris is a director of Peacemakers Trust. She visited Bolivia March 21, to April 5, 2006.
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