TAQUILE’S MANIFESTO / A while ago, the Quechua town of Taquile vibrated again with the strength
of Pachamama
, Mamaqota that lighted by taita inti breastfeeded the headquarters of the Organization of the Indigenous People, CISATN<1>. Therefore, the Statutory Forum, where both Quechua and Aymara people participated, was a success, and the Assembly ratified the principles that were approved in Ollantaytambo, Cosqo in 1980. Those principles define man as an integral part of cosmos and as a balance factor between Nature and Universe. We consider ourselves as Indian people, thus reassuring Indigenism, since it is part of our ideology of freedom.
The Assembly promulgated the Organic Statute that will rule the institutional life of CISA from now on. The previous statute did not convey the yearning and objective of this work. Such meeting is a step forward that strengthens the history of Indigenism and CISA which adheres to its people. Taquile is a Quechua speaking island located in Lake Titicaca, where the spirit of amarus and kataris still persist. This island town characterizes as being one of the last bastions of resistance to the Spanish invasion. At the beginning, the island was in the hands of King Charles V, who, years later, auctioned the island and gave it to Count Rodrigo de Taquila, whose surname was given to the island. Men and women were forced to dress using the old style clothes of the Spanish farmers, and this tradition has been kept until today. It was the imposed colonialism that forced to eliminate the original name of the town: INTIKA. The Quechua islanders, despite being stripped out of their language and clothes, still keep their language, their organizational social system based on the community and live under the moral code of AMA SUWA (do not steal), AMA SULLA (do not lie) and AMA QILLA (do not be lazy), being this the reason for the non-existence of dogs in the island.Nowadays, and despite the siege of Modernism, islanders have not changed their life system and still persists the collective organization as opposed to the individual, colonist and predatory culture.Taquile people live out of fishing, agriculture, handicraft and transportation of people who whish to know the island and its inhabitants’ traditions. However, private foreign companies are trying to make them out of business by using modern motorboats, which in the end will prevent islanders from their income as boatmen. On the other hand, our brothers from Taquile are denouncing that the water from the sacred lake Titicaca is under the threat of the systematic contamination of sewage water that flows into from the surrounding towns. Besides, people from Taquile are also denouncing that the reservoir that will carry out the binational project headed by Peru and Bolivia at Desaguadero River, claiming to regulate the waters from lakes Titicaca and Poopó, has the shady intention of transferring the water from the Titicaca’s watershed towards Pacific coasts. This will have terrible consequences in the life and habitat of the altiplano region, provoking an ecological disaster.For that and many other reasons, the Aymara and Quechua people insist on the importance of the Indian Council of South America, which must remain strong like a stone sanctuary, with the Indigenous people in favor of the defense and respect of their core rights. Intika (Taquile), February 1998 / TN<1> Indian Council of South America.