The elected vice president of Colombia, France Marquezinvited this Monday the Bolivian government and people to “collectively build” a Latin American region “with social justice” in the framework of his visit to Bolivia. Márquez, who in a few days will become the first Afro-descendant to assume the vice presidency of Colombia, began her agenda with the participation in the rituals for the month of Pachamama in La Paz. Subsequently, the Vice President of Bolivia, David Choquehuanca, together with Foreign Minister Rogelio Mayta, some ministers and the entourage that accompanies Márquez moved to the headquarters of the Vice Presidency, where she was honored with dances such as the Afro-Bolivian saya. From there, the activist and human rights defender expressed that Pachamama is the “major uterus” that is dying at the mercy of the neoliberal system.
Meetings with Arce and Evo
The president of Bolivia, Luis Arce, met this Monday at the Casa Grande del Pueblo with the elected vice president of Colombia. “We embrace our sister, Francia Márquez, with great affection”Luis Arce wrote on his social networks, accompanying his message with three photos of the meeting. With the Afro-Colombian in the vice presidency, “the winds from the south blow more strongly and strengthen the Great Homeland”added the Bolivian president, who confirmed his presence at the investiture of the new authorities in Colombia.
The social leader also met privately with former President Evo Morales, the first Bolivian indigenous president (2006-2019) and current head of the ruling Movement for Socialism (MAS). According to the cocalero leader’s team, “they discussed different issues, such as regional integration through Plurinational America.” For his part, Morales stressed that they shared “experiences of the long struggle for the rights of the poorest and those excluded from neoliberal policies”.
A Latin America “united, in peace and with social justice”
Márquez previously participated, together with the Bolivian Vice President David Choquehuanca, of an offering to the Pachamama. To the rhythm of the panpipes, a wind instrument of Andean origin, Márquez and Choquehuanca danced the typical saya when the Afro-Bolivian dance corps entered, with its instruments, in a meeting that took place at the seat of government.
After the dances and the gifts, Márquez gave a speech in which he invited the Bolivian government and people to “collectively build” for a “Latin American region, the southern region, united, in peace and with social justice.” The Colombian people have “had to attend to a policy of death, which in recent years has sown barbarism”with an “absurd war that should never have been, that has cost the lives of thousands and thousands of Colombians,” he said Marquezwho comes from Cauca, one of the regions hardest hit by the conflict in the country.
In that sense, he mentioned that Together with Petro they have the “challenge of restoring dignity” to Colombia and that his election is “historic”. Colombia “is a country with too many social movements in resistance” and “as indigenous peoples, as Afro-descendant peoples, we have had to face the structural racism that kills us or leaves us to die, that is why our presence today is historic,” said Márquez.
The 40-year-old feminist lawyer stressed that Gustavo Petro is a “revolutionary leader who has always defended social justice, life, peace” and that for this reason “it honors the peoples” that he is the new president. For this reason, he will accompany his work from the vice presidency “from an ancestral legacy” of those who “have been treated like nobodies, who have been dehumanized”.
Colombia “world power of life”
Marquez reiterated that the “bet” of the future government of Colombia will be “good living towards tasty living” and clarified that this message “as peoples rooted in Mother Earth, in cultural, ancestral and spiritual identities and practices, we know that living tasty is nothing more than living in dignity, in harmony” and with rights.
“Living tasty is recognizing ourselves in our ethnic, cultural and gender diversities. In that sense, our government program creates Colombia’s program, a world power of life, which we are preparing to build hand in hand with the people,” Márquez said. That is why he said that his government has “an enormous challenge to restore peace ” to Colombia “and that implies government actions focused on social justice”.
Visibly happy about Márquez’s visit, Choquehuanca said in his speech that “the sun is going to rise for our peoples. We are going to rebuild our Abya Yala, our integrity, for that we have come, to build harmony and reintegration of our peoples and rebuild the culture of peace.” The Bolivian vice president also maintained that it is necessary to “weave unity and harmony” and that now from Colombia “those meeting spaces, exchange of experiences, exchange of knowledge, construction of new knowledge and generate revolution and ideas” will be reactivated.
Francia Márquez visited Bolivia as part of a tour of Latin America that has already taken her to Brazil, where she met with the presidential candidate and former president Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva, to Chile, where she was with President Gabriel Boric, and Argentina, where held meetings with Alberto Fernández and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. The 40-year-old environmental activist will take official office as vice president on August 7, when Gustavo Petro takes office as president, the first from the left in Colombian history.