Argentina Replaces Columbus Statue with Indigenous Heroine

[Judi Lynn]

Argentina Replaces Columbus Statue with Indigenous Heroine



The statue of Juana Azurdy is a gift from Bolivia to Argentina. | Photo: telam

Published 15 July 2015

Juana Azurduy was a South America guerrilla military leader and critical figure in the South American struggle for independence.


Bolivian President Evo Morales' visit to his Argentina counterpart Cristina Fernandez Wednesday will focus not only on bilateral agreements between the two nations, but also South America's independence history, Cuban news agency Prensa Latina reported.

The two South American leaders will inaugurate a monument to independence heroine and South American guerrilla military leader Juana Azurduy.



Argentina President Cristina Fernandez and Bolivian President Evo Morales participate in a homage to Juana Azurduy in Bolivia in 2010. | Photo: EFE

The 15-meter high (52 feet) bronze statue has been erected outside the presidential palace in Buenos Aires in the place that a monument to Christopher Columbus once stood.

More:
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Evo-Morales-Unveils-Independence-Heroine-Statue-in-Argentina-20150715-0004.html

(The other man standing behind Cristina Fernandez, to her left, is Álvaro García Linera, Bolivia's Vice President.)

[forest444]

1. A historic day - and 94 years to the day the Columbus monument was unveiled.

Here are a few photos from today's festivities: https://www.flickr.com/photos/culturaargentina/sets/72157653607717073

And old Columbus didn't fare too badly either: the monument and pedestal - both the work of Italian-Argentine sculptor Arnaldo Zocchi - are being restored and reinforced for the first time in their 94-year existence, and will moreover have new digs overlooking the Río de la Plata (appropriately for a seafarer like Columbus):

[Judi Lynn]

2. Amazing! I just discovered your link you posted in July. How did I miss it?

Absolutely astonishing spectacle created for Argentinian people to witness at the event. I have never seen anything like it! Spectacular.

I am so lucky fortune compelled me to stumble across this thread when I had never seen your post added to it.

Gotta add this to my files to keep perpetually.

I have to wonder what Cristina thought when she discovered what Bolivia had prepared for this occasion. I'll bet it was a night many people will never forget.

Belated thank you, forest444.

( I remember studying the photo of the new site for the Colombus statue, and thinking about your comment, but I entirely forgot to click on the link.)

[center]~ ~ ~[/center]

(By the way, I have heard from a couple of people who lived in Argentina during the Dirty War that the military dictatorship also threw suspected leftist dissidents out of airplanes into the Rio Plata. They spared no expense in destroying imagined leftists. Probably spent hundreds of times more money torturing and killing them than they ever spent in social programs for the poor.)