There is a whole controversy over the removal of the statue of the bullfighter César Rincón that remained in the bullring of the municipality of Duitama in the department of Boyacá.
In dialogue with Mañanas Blu, the senator of the Historical Pact Esmeralda Hernández spoke about the removal of the statue as part of a cultural reconversion regarding bullfighting.
The senator explained that since 2020, the municipality of Duitama has not held bullfights because they do not meet the requirements established by the Constitutional Court. Given this situation, the cultural transformation and reconversion of the spaces used for bullfighting was proposed.
He assured that the initial proposal was to move the statue to another place, but due to the controversy it was decided to remove it. He emphasized that the removal of the statue was a symbolic act and authorized by the Duitama mayor’s office.
He also noted that the statue was not damaged during the procedure and will be restored.
In that sense, he explained that the cultural reconversion proposal seeks to take advantage of the spaces used for bullfighting and convert them into places to hold concerts, vegan fairs, peasant markets and other cultural activities.
He monument to the bullfighter César Rincón was carried on shoulders on several occasions, it was torn down in the middle of the launch of the Transformations for Life program, that seeks to ensure that these places have other types of activities from now on, the image would be relocated.
“Here we are not destroying, here we are removing the sculpture of the bullfighters, because this “It will be a space that will celebrate life, sports, and farmers, so it would not be coherent,” clarified José Luis Bórquez, mayor of Duitama, after the retreat.
The most important bullfighter in Colombia
Born in 1965 in Bogotá, César Rincón began to be interested in the world of bulls through the profession of his father, who was a bullfighting photographer.
On December 8, 1982 he took the alternative in Bogotá with Antonio Chenel “Antoñete” as godfather and José María Manzanares, as witness.
In 1991 he left through the main door of the Las Ventas Bullring in Madrid during the San Isidro Fair.
Rincón retired from the arena on September 23, 2007 in the Plaza Monumental de Barcelona and said goodbye definitively to bullfighting in Santamaría, Bogotá, in February 2008, although he is still active with a fighting bull farm.
Listen to the interview here:
