IN STEREO

We have had no conscience for Potosí since the Spaniards came in. After that, all the people – the unions and all that – they only take care to make money. This has been the core ambition since the Spaniards came in. Before, silver was taken out only for our clothing, for our elderly people, for the mallkus [chiefs]. Besides that, it was a big sacred site. Then came the silver ambition. Everyone wanted silver. All this is the product of all that. Ambition is what has led to this: the personal ambition to have a Hummer, to have a house in Sucre. But this is not the reality in the place where I lived with my father. Me, I am not [originally] Potosíno, but my father was a miner. If my father worked before, it was out of necessity – only to a certain extent, not to become a tycoon. It was out of necessity. Everything significant in Potosí is transmitted here because the mountain represents all the Potosínos. But most people don’t see that, much less the trade unionists. And Manquiri mining corporation] has a lot to do with it. What they see is money, and they exploit those who come from the countryside. They are simply toys to them. But this is not going to stop. When is it going to stop? If the Potosínos had thought carefully 10 years ago… [My friend] Amilcar will give me the reasons we can’t leave here: it is very difficult, the sources of work and all that. But if we continue here, [the mountain] is going to sink more. Really, [we should] keep everything that refers to the colonial area, all our deities. [And the mountain] is a deity, it is a god. [But] where is the balance going to? A person who wants to preserve all the idiosyncrasy of what has existed since their childhood, or a person who wants to become richer? It is a stick of dynamite. The wick was lit by the Spaniards. – Lucho