Inca Congress

Bolivia's first Indian "congress" since the fall of the Inca Empire (1533) gathered in La Paz last week. Representing 70% of the population, they came from all parts of Bolivia at Government invitation and expense. About 20% spoke Spanish and wore European dress. The rest spoke only the ancient Indian languages, Quechua and Aymara. They wore native clothes--wide, multicolored belts, bright ponchos. Some of the men wore flat hats like Catholic priests. Others had "lluchus" (knitted woolen helmets) against the biting winds of the altiplano.

Most of the 1,500 delegates were "hilakatas," elected heads of rural groups of the ancient Indian communes which have survived from the time when the Inca Empire ruled the Andean upland.

Gravely the hilakatas listened to the welcoming speeches. Their own speeches had an archaic ring, like the protests of medieval peasants centuries ago. They protested against forced labor, rapacious landlords, priests who demanded disproportionate fees for religious services. They pleaded for popular education. They wanted schools, books, modern agricultural science. Said their leader, Francisco Chipana, an Aymara: "We must learn and work. . . . Soon we shall rise like condors above Mt. Illimani.... Through our own efforts, we can surpass those foreigners whose works we now admire."

The Government officials listened sympathetically. Said Hernan Siles, acting head of the dominant party, M.N.R. (Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario): "Land should belong to the man who works it." The crowd applauded. But in backward Bolivia some 90,000 proprietors own the land inhabited by a rural population of 2,500,000. Land reform was still a somewhat remote ideal.

But the Government promised several more immediate reforms. It abolished a long list of semifeudal laws which compelled the Indians, both men & women, to work for their landlords without pay, sometimes as much as five days a week. It agreed to enforce a longstanding, long-flouted law requiring landlords and mine owners to support elementary schools. The Government also threatened to punish "agitators"--which suggested that the proposed reforms were made to quiet rural unrest.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.