In the end, the activist and future electoral candidate won, as the government pledged to destroy all the illegal farms around the Ovejas. The group demonstrated in front of the interior ministry for almost 20 days. At that time, she was targeting the illegal miners who had set up along the river, digging for gold and, above all, abundantly using mercury – an element that separates gold from water but also contaminates water and destroys biodiversity. In protest, Marquez organised the "turban march", which saw 80 women gather together to walk from Cauca to Bogota, a 10-day, 500-kilometre journey. Marquez didn’t become widely known until 2014. For the past 20 years, she has been fighting relentlessly against the multinational companies that exploit the area around the Ovejas river and sometimes force people to leave it. Learning about the project marked the beginning of Marquez's long struggle to defend the rights of Afro-Colombian communities and preserve their land. Living on the banks of the river since the 17th century, the Afro-Colombian community has been practicing agriculture and artisanal mining, its main sources of income, for generations. In 1996, when she was just 15, she learned that a multinational company wanted to launch a project to extend a dam on the region's main river, the Ovejas, which would have a major impact on her community. However, activism is just in some people’s genes, and Marquez is one of them. Pregnant at 16 with her first child, she was first forced to work in a gold mine a few kilometres from home to support her family and then hired as a maid. Born in 1981 in a small village in the southwestern Cauca region of Colombia, she grew up alone with her mother. There is nothing in Marquez’s past to suggest that she would embark on a political career. They also face the independent and outsider candidate Rodolfo Hernandez, who won endorsement from the French-Colombian former candidate and ex- FARC hostage Ingrid Betancourt on May 20. Petro and Marquez are running against the right-wing candidate Federico Gutierrez, a former mayor of Medellin, who is expected to gain around 27 percent support. He is expected to garner 41 percent of the vote according to the latest polls. The changed debate could well bring a political shift. Colombians go to the polls Sunday to cast their votes in the first round of the presidential election and the left-wing Petro, a former guerilla and mayor of Bogota who chose Marquez as his running mate, is the favourite to win. She has thus become a symbol of change for a new generation of voters. Within the space of just a few months, Marquez has managed to shake up Colombian politics, historically dominated by conservatives, by bringing racism and social inequality to the forefront, issues that were previously absent from the campaign debate. As a vice-presidential candidate in the presidential election, she always chants the same message: "It's time to move from resistance to power!" In recent weeks, Marquez has consistently appeared in public wearing brightly coloured traditional Afro-Colombian outfits.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |