Felipe Quispe

Felipe Quispe
Member of the Chamber of Deputies
from La Paz
In office
6 August 2002 – 1 June 2004
Personal details
Born
Felipe Quispe Huanca

(1942-08-22)22 August 1942
Achacachi, La Paz, Bolivia
Died19 January 2021(2021-01-19) (aged 78)
El Alto, La Paz, Bolivia
Political partyJallalla La Paz (2021)
Pachakuti Indigenous Movement (2002–2005)
EducationHigher University of San Andrés

Felipe Quispe Huanca "Mallku" (Quechua language: "condor"[1]), (22 August 1942 – 19 January 2021) was a Bolivian historian and political leader. He headed the Pachakuti Indigenous Movement (MIP) and was general secretary of the United Union Confederation of Working Peasants of Bolivia (CSUTCB).[2]

Biography

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Quispe founded the Tupak Katari Indian Movement in 1979 and the Tupak Katari Guerrilla Army in 1990. His honorific name, Mallku, refers to the spirit of the mountains that surround and protect the People, and therefore is the source of life. "Mallku" means "peak" both in geography and in hierarchy.[3]

In 1984, he was one of the leading organisers of the Tupac Katari Guerrilla Army, a failed armed insurrection against the government. Quispe was arrested for his involvement in the movement on August 19, 1992. Quispe has worked for the establishment of a Tawantinsuyu republic — which would take the name "Collasuyu" — in the Aymara-majority regions of Bolivia.

Quispe was a staunch opponent of the neoliberal Washington consensus, and was also strongly against U.S.-led schemes toward coca eradication, which he sees as destroying a critical part of Aymara culture. He was involved heavily in the Bolivian Gas War.

Quispe ran a failed campaign in the 2005 presidential elections, which saw the victory of indigenous Evo Morales, leader of MAS (Movimiento al socialismo). Quispe was a vocal critic of Morales' government, characterising it as representing "neoliberalism with an Indian face".[4]

Quispe died on 19 January 2021 in El Alto from cardiac arrest.[5]

References

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  1. ^ Noam Chomsky, Lois Meyer, and Benjamin Maldonado Alvarado (2010). New World of Indigenous Resistance. City Light Publishers. p. 291. ISBN 978-0-87286-533-4.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  2. ^ Teo Ballve and Vijay Prashad. Dispatches from Latin America. LeftWord Books. p. 158. ISBN 81-87496-58-4.
  3. ^ New world of indigenous resistance : Noam Chomsky and voices from North, South, and Central America. Meyer, Lois., Maldonado Alvarado, Benjamín. San Francisco: City Lights Books. 2010. ISBN 978-0-87286-533-4. OCLC 456178314.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  4. ^ Farthing & Kohl 2014, p. 148.
  5. ^ "Fallece Felipe Quispe, "El Mallku"". www.paginasiete.bo (in Spanish). Retrieved 20 January 2021.

Bibliography

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Farthing, Linda C.; Kohl, Benjamin H. (2014). Evo's Bolivia: Continuity and Change. Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0292758681.
[edit]
Party political offices
Preceded by
Political party established
Pachakuti Indigenous Movement nominee
for President of Bolivia

2002, 2005
Succeeded by
Party dissolved
Preceded by
Political party established
Jallalla La Paz nominee
for Governor of La Paz
Died

2021
Succeeded by
Santos Quispe