The Colombian Ministry of Culture removed statues of 15th-century explorer Christopher Columbus and the late Spanish Queen Isabella for fear of being overthrown.
Government officials removed the statues from their pedestals in the capital Bogotá on Friday after local Colombian protesters tried to overthrow them on Wednesday.
The attempts sparked tension with a fringe group of white supremacy, who subsequently attempted to attack the Misak protesters from southwest Colombia.
White supremacy in Colombia | Part 1: Kill the Indians!
According to the Ministry of Culture, the statues erected in 1906 were brought to a safe place for a “restoration process”.
(Image: Wikipedia)
The National Patrimony Agency announced it would hold talks with various social sectors about the future of the European explorer and the late monarch who funded the naval adventure that took Columbus to America.
The statues were erected to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the “discovery” of the western hemisphere by Columbus centuries after the Viking explorers from Iceland.
The native Colombians celebrated the decision on Saturday by victoriously climbing the empty podiums of the late Italian explorer and his Spanish patron of finance.
Misak protesters in Bogota
The Misak people have overthrown statues associated with the Spanish colonization of America and the annihilation of indigenous peoples since the anti-government protests began in late April.
The statues of the Spanish conquistadors have long been deeply offensive to many native Colombians, but were not targeted by native Colombians until this year.
The collapse of the statues sparked mixed reactions, as the late conqueror Sebastian De Belalcazar was both the founder of cities as Potash and Popayan and one of the most notorious leaders of the Holocaust of the Colombian Native Americans in the 16th century.
Overturned statue of Sebastian de Belalcazar in Cali
In a statement on Saturday, the Misak said they would continue to assume their “ancestral responsibility to cleanse these clean colonial wounds and seek the healing of all colonial wounds.”
History is an instrument of power told from the voice of the oppressors, which is why we have been forced to reconfigure the colonial past to reflect practical ideologies and actions aimed at destroying diversity.
Misak spokesman
Columbus fell from grace after evidence confirmed that the Vikings were the first Europeans to cross the Atlantic, and many countries in Latin America began celebrating their native and black people on what is known as “Columbus Day” in the United States.
Some among Colombia’s white majority continue to view Columbus and even controversial characters like Belalcazar as part of their cultural identity.
