report:  http://pr.indymedia.org/news/2004/10/5069.php

pix:  http://pr.indymedia.org/news/2004/10/5077.php

 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/10/298971.html

 http://www.venezuelanalysis.c om/news.php?newsno=1385

Columbus Statue Toppled in Venezuela on Day of Indigenous Resistance
Wednesday, Oct 13, 2004

By: Robin Nieto - Venezuelanalysis.com

Caracas, October 13, 2004--Yesterday in Caracas, on what used to be celebrated in Venezuela as the day of the Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus, a group of young men and women tore down the statue of the 15th Century explorer during this national holiday that was renamed the Day of Indigenous Resistance.

The Pro-Chavez website, aporea.org, reported that several groups openly claimed responsibility for the action, which was done independently of any authority in order "undo the symbols of our oppressors."

The statue was located in downtown Caracas atop a 30 foot high pedestal. Protestors used thick yellow climbing ropes to bring down the 100 year old statue of Columbus and dragged the remains through downtown Caracas and towards the Teresa Carreño theatre, where hundreds of indigenous people presented their cultural songs and dance to each other and other supporters commemorating October 12. The protestors intended to ask indigenous people to bring Columbus to trial after 512 years.

While no indigenous groups were involved, a national youth organization supports the action. "It was an act of symbolic justice," said Angel Montiel, a member of the Organization of Indigenous Youth of Venezuela. Montiel said that the statue of Columbus symbolized colonialism on the continent. "It represented invasion and genocide in our land," Montiel said.

According to the opposition newspaper "El Universal," protestors hung the Columbus statue head down from a tree near the Teresa Carreño opera house and shouted, "Justice for the people, justice for the people!" Caracas police and the National Guard recovered the statue of the fallen Columbus and arrested 5 people.

Caracas mayor Freddy Bernal, a Chavez supporter, condemned the action, saying that the municipal government is looking into changing the symbols of the city, but not in "anarchic" ways. "These anarchic actions do not accomplish one possible objective. We agree that history has to be rewritten and we are doing it. We reject honoring Columbus, but that is one thing and anarchy is another," Bernal said.

Bernal attended an act of symbolic resistance yesterday in downtown Caracas, where indigenous people covered a statue of a pointing Columbus with a white sheet and presented the mayor with a formal request to replace the statues of Columbus from the capital city with those of Venezuelan Chief Guaicaipuro. Bernal accepted the request and said he will present the petition to the municipal government of Caracas, but said the process would take time as the decision is not his alone to make.

The tearing down of the Columbus statue was compared with that of the fall of the Saddam Hussein statue in Iraq by website aporrea.org. "Just like the statue of Saddam in Bagdad, that of Columbus the tyrant also fell this October 12, 2004 in Caracas," the website advertises.

 http://news.scotsman.c om/latest.cfm?id=3618274

Wed 13 Oct 2004
5:18am (UK)
Columbus Unhorsed in Venezuela

"PA"

While representatives of Venezuela’s indigenous groups urged a mayor to bulldoze a statue of Christopher Columbus in one Caracas plaza on Tuesday, radical government supporters leveled another statue of the Italian explorer to protest the alleged ”genocide” of South America’s natives under colonial rule.

Freddy Bernal, an ally of President Hugo Chavez and mayor of Caracas’ Libertador district, said five people were arrested after dozens used ropes to pull down the century-old bronze statue of Columbus in Caracas’ Plaza Venezuela and then spray-painted graffiti reading: ”Columbus Equals Genocide” and “The Resistance Continues!” on the statue’s foundation.

“We call on small groups that don’t follow the official government line not to take part in such acts,” Bernal told the state-run television channel.

Earlier on Tuesday, representatives of Venezuela’s indigenous tribes petitioned Bernal to take down a statue of Columbus in Caracas’ El Calvario park and replace it with the bust of the legendary Venezuelan Indian chief Guaicaipuro, who fought against colonists.

Chavez has glorified chiefs – or “caciques” in Spanish – such as Guaicaipuro, who is remembered for his attacks on the Spanish founders of Caracas, and Peru’s Tupac Amaru, an Inca leader who led the continent’s largest Indian uprising.

There are approximately 350,000 indigenous peoples from 28 distinct ethnic groups in this South American country of 25 million.

Columbus first stepped on Venezuelan soil on October 12, 1498, in what is now the town of Macuro, 300 miles east of the capital, Caracas.

Venezuelans refer to Columbus Day as The Day of Race, a reference to the day different races first met here and began to mix. The day was designated as such by dictator Juan Vicente Gomez in 1921.

Chavez, a self-proclaimed “revolutionary” who is wildly popular among most indigenous groups, signed a decree in 2002 changing the name of Venezuela’s October 12 Columbus Day to The Day of Indigenous Resistance. Joined by indigenous leaders from across the country, Chavez attended ceremonies to commemorate the national holiday on Tuesday.

Through a new constitution pushed through by his political allies in 1999, Chavez paved the way for bilingual education, the demarcation of “indigenous habitats” and gave indigenous groups representation in the legislature.


 http://www.voanews.c om/article.cfm?objectID=EB7A9D4E-2192-4618-B6C8B2B539B2FBC1&title=Venezuelan%20Protesters%20Pull%20Down%20Statue%20of%20Columbus&catOID=45C9C78A-88AD-11D4-A57200A0CC5EE46C&categoryname=Americas

Venezuelan Protesters Pull Down Statue of Columbus
VOA News
13 Oct 2004, 13:32 UTC

Supporters of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez have observed Columbus Day by pulling down a statue of the Italian explorer during a demonstration in the capital, Caracas Tuesday.

The protesters accuse Christopher Columbus of launching a genocide on Venezuela's native indian population. Officials say several of the protesters were arrested after the statue was brought down.

President Chavez himself has taken a hard line against honoring the memory of Christopher Columbus. Two years ago, the president changed the name of the October 12 holiday, declaring it a day of indigenous "resistance" to honor the indigenous groups which fought against would-be European conquerors.


 http://www.reuters.c om/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=6482069

Chavez Supporters Pull Down Statue of Columbus
Tue Oct 12, 2004 07:43 PM ET
By Pascal Fletcher

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Supporters of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez celebrated Columbus Day on Tuesday by toppling a statue in Caracas of the explorer whom Chavez blames for ushering in a "genocide" of native Indians.

Police firing tear gas later recovered parts of the broken bronze image, which was dragged by the protesters to a theater where the Venezuelan leader was due to speak.

Two years ago, Chavez rechristened the Oct. 12 holiday -- commemorated widely in the Americas to mark Christopher Columbus' 1492 landing in the New World -- "Indian Resistance Day."

The new name honored Indians killed by Spanish and other foreign conquerors following in the wake of the Italian-born Columbus who sailed in the service of the Spanish crown.

As the left-wing nationalist president led celebrations on Tuesday to honor Indian chiefs who resisted the Spanish conquest, a group of his supporters conducted a mock trial of a statue of Columbus in central Caracas.

They declared the image guilty of "imperialist genocide," looped ropes around its outstretched arm and neck and heaved it down from its marble base. No police or other authorities intervened as the protesters drove off in a truck yelling, "We've killed Columbus!"

"This isn't a historical heritage. ... Columbus is the symbol of a conquest that was a globalization by blood and fire, a cultural massacre," said Vitelio Herrera, a philosophy student at Venezuela's Central University.

Outside the Teresa Carreno theater, the protesters hung the statue from a tree and then let it fall to the ground. Police arrested several of them.

Chavez has called Latin America's Spanish and Portuguese conquerors "worse than Hitler" and the precursors of modern-day "imperialism" he says is now embodied by the United States, the biggest buyer of his country's oil.

The base of the toppled statue was daubed with slogans such as "Columbus = Bush. Out!"

The protesters, many who wore red T-shirts with slogans supporting Chavez, repeated the Venezuelan leader's fierce criticism of the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq.

"Didn't they tear down the statue of Saddam Hussein, the dictator of Iraq? For me, (U.S. President George W.) Bush represents barbarity and Chavez represents civilization," said 57-year-old Orlando Iturbe.

Some passersby were shocked. "I don't agree with this," said Jose Luis Maita, who watched with his wife and small daughters. (Additional reporting by Fabian Andres Cambero)

 http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php?story=04/10/13/2475446

...

Also in Caracas, a group of radical young people tore down a statute of Columbus. Several groups openly claimed responsibility for the action, which was done independently of any authority in order to "undo the symbols of our oppressors." The statue was located in downtown Caracas atop a 30 foot high pedestal. Protestors used thick yellow climbing ropes to bring down the 100 year old statue of Columbus and dragged the remains through downtown Caracas and towards the Teresa Carreño theatre, where hundreds of indigenous people presented their cultural songs and dance to each other and other supporters commemorating October 12. "It was an act of symbolic justice," said Angel Montiel, a member of the Organization of Indigenous Youth of Venezuela. Montiel said that the statue of Columbus symbolized colonialism on the continent. "It represented invasion and genocide in our land," Montiel said.

Caracas mayor Freddy Bernal condemned the action, saying that the municipal government is looking into changing the symbols of the city, but not in "anarchic" ways. Bernal attended an act of symbolic resistance yesterday in downtown Caracas, where indigenous people covered a statue of a pointing Columbus with a white sheet and presented the mayor with a formal request to replace the statues of Columbus from the capital city with those of Venezuelan Chief Guaicaipuro. Bernal accepted the request and said he will present the petition to the municipal government of Caracas, but said the process would take time as the decision is not his alone to make.

President Chavez declared October 12, Day of Indigenous Resistance three years ago. Last year Chavez launched the “Misión Guaicaipuro,” in honor of the indigenous leader. Guaicaipuro is a program meant to push forward reforms for indigenous people as specified in Venezuela’s constitution. The constitution of Venezuela respects the rights of indigenous people to traditional land, as well as rights to culture, language and spiritual beliefs.

The Guaicaipuro mission is meant to deliver the country’s new social programs in housing, literacy, education, and health, respecting the customs, languages and cultural identities of indigenous peoples in Venezuela.

In the impoverished southern Mexican state of Chiapas, home to the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), indigenous groups held protest marches in several towns, while native leaders from around the continent came together in a conference at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in the capital to reflect on the situation facing their people today.

Events like these also took place in Ecuador, Bolivia, Guatemala and Peru, the Latin American countries with the highest proportion of indigenous inhabitants.

Elsewhere in Latin America many protests were held yesterday against the so called neo-liberal policies of Washington. In Costa Rica, for example, numerous social organizations joined together Tuesday in a march to oppose parliamentary ratification of the free trade agreement signed between the United States and five Central American countries (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua), and to demand an end to the FTAA initiative.

Similar anti-FTAA demonstrations were held in Argentina, Ecuador and Nicaragua.

In Colombia, a group called the Democratic Coalition launched a national strike in opposition to negotiations for a Colombia-US. free trade agreement and to the tax reforms being pushed forward by the conservative administration of President Alvaro Uribe.

Roughly 223 million Latin Americans -- over 43 percent of the population as a whole -- live in poverty, and close to 105 million live in extreme poverty, according to statistics from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. And the region's 50 million indigenous people are among the poorest of the poor. Sources: Vheadlines, Venezuelanalysis.com, IPS, The Scotsman

 http://pr.indymedia.org/news/2004/10/5140.php

International Petition demanding the release of all O12 political prisoners in Venezuela.

On October 12, 2004, hundreds of people gathered in Plaza Venezuela in the center of Caracas around the widely-despised statue of Christopher Columbus (erected in 1904) to celebrate a “Day of Indigenous Resistance.” In a “Popular Trial,” those present found Christopher Columbus—symbolized by the bronze monument—guilty of genocide. A long, heavy rope was tied around the neck of the statue. It was then pulled to the ground by the effort of a majority of those present. The statue was then dragged through the streets, hung upside down from a tree for a brief period of time, and finally defaced and broken in half. At this time the Caracas Police, under the authority of Mayor Freddy Bernal of the Bolivarian government, attacked the crowd by firing tear gas and blanks. During the confrontation, the statue was seized and five people were arrested. Two were later released, but three remain in jail. Although their arrests were arbitrary, among a great number of us who participated, all blame is being placed upon them. They each face between 2-4 years in jail.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias himself, only one year ago, declared Christopher Columbus guilty of genocide, a criminal “worse than Hitler,” and officially renamed October 12 (previously “Columbus Day”) a “Day of Indigenous Resistance.” Despite this fact, a section of the Bolivarian government, under the authority of Mayor Bernal, has denounced our acts and pledged not only to prosecute the prisoners to the full extent of the law, but also to devote public funds toward the restoration of the statue.

It is true that the Bolivarian government has done a great deal to oppose the neoliberal agenda in Venezuela, and to improve the conditions of the poor. However we consider its recent statements against our actions, as well as its plans to restore the statue, to be hypocritical and counter-revolutionary.

We agree with Chavez's statements against Christopher Columbus, and find his accusations of genocide to be indisputable. Even the most apologetic historians cannot refute the evidence that supports our case: that in 1493, a year after Columbus's first landing, he returned with an invasion force of seventeen ships to the island currently known as Haiti/Dominican Republic; that he immediately declared himself “governor and viceroy” of the Caribbean islands; that he instituted the encomiendo system of slavery and a “tribute” system in which tens of thousands were slaughtered for their failure to deliver Columbus his arbitrary quota of gold every two months; that he instituted a systematic program of extermination that reduced the Taino population of the island he called “Hispaniola” from 8 million to 100,000 in seven years time; that the policies he instituted continued to be carried out on the island until the Taino population was entirely decimated; and that furthermore, this very model of slavery, tribute and extermination set the tone for future conquests that spread across the continent known to the indigenous as Abya Yala, culminating in the deaths of over 70 million inhabitants, and over 30 million people of African descent who were brought here as slaves; and finally, that the very same policies of domination and oppression continue to this day, in the neocolonialist practices of the global empire of Capital.

We want to make it clear that our action was carried out entirely autonomously, with no support from any government or political party. We considered it our moral duty as awakened historical subjects, with respect to our indigenous brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers, to take direct action on behalf of our own conscience. Had a statue of Adolph Hitler been erected in the center of Caracas, we would have torn it down with the same conviction and respect for history with which we acted on October 12, 2004.

Now is the moment for the Bolivarian government to show its true face, to demonstrate where it stands with regards not only to symbols of oppression such as this statue of Christopher Columbus, but equally importantly, with regards to the autonomous actions of the people that have, in the recent past, defended this very same government in the streets with their own lives. We want to remind the Bolivarian government that it is the people, not states, that make revolutions. The people make and destroy governments with their will and struggle. For the Bolivarian government to oppose the people is to oppose the revolution and, consequently, to oppose its own existence.

We, the nationals and internationals who were present in Caracas as participants in this action, we who hail from all parts of Venezuela, Spain, Italy, and the United States, we who on this same day were supported with solidarity actions in London, Athens, Barcelona, Puerto Rico, Zimbabwe and elsewhere, hereby call upon the international community to place pressure upon the Bolivarian government of Venezuela, to fulfill its intended role as a revolutionary force in this country, this continent, and this world, by signing the petition below:

WE DEMAND THE IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS ARRESTED FOR THE ACTIONS WHICH TOOK PLACE ON OCTOBER 12, 2004 IN CARACAS, VENEZUELA.

WE FURTHERMORE DEMAND THAT THE BOLIVARIAN GOVERNMENT CEASE ALL PROCEEDINGS AND INVESTIGATIONS INTO THE ORGANIZERS AND/OR PARTICIPANTS OF THE ACTIONS WHICH TOOK PLACE ON THIS DAY.

FINALLY, WE DEMAND THAT THE STATUE OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS NEVER BE RESTORED TO PLAZA VENEZUELA, CONSIDERING ITS REMOVAL A JUST AND LEGITIMATE ACTION OF THE PEOPLE.

Sign Here: www.petitiononline.com/ro12pp/petition.html

[Also, to directly contact the Office of Mayor Freddy Bernal, Mayor of Alcadia Libertador, responsible for arrests of prisoners and the restoration of the statue:
address: Palacio Municipal, Esquina la Manjas, Frent a la Plaza Bolivar, Caracas / Distrito Capital
phone: 058-212-545-4513/058-212-542-1711/058-212-409-8632]

"we are responsible" declaration from Venezuela:  http://pr.indymedia.org/news/2004/10/5142.php
thorough report of O12-caracas:  http://austin.indymedia.org/newswire/display/17833/index.php
new thread:  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/10/299062.html