EFE | THE HOMELAND | Bogota
He removal of a statue of the bullfighter César Rincónduring an official event in Duitamasparked a controversy this Wednesday in Colombia where bullfighting fans consider it to be an affront to history and animal rights activists defend the action as a step to transform the bullrings.
The statue was located in front of the César Rincón Bullringfrom that town in the department of Boyacá, a setting that will now be used as a market and cultural venue.
The mayor of Duitama, José Luis Bohórquez, expressed during the event that the statue could not continue “in contradiction with the spaces we have to celebrate life”so it will be located elsewhere in that municipality.
“Today we are not going to destroy, not to violate, because we did not come from that culture, but we are going to say that everything in life has its spaces and the space of that statue has already passed, as the space of death has already passed in this space “added Bohórquez.
In the act The director of the Department of Social Prosperity (DPS), Gustavo Bolívar, and the official senator Esmeralda Hernández participatedwhich promoted in Congress the law approved this month that banned bullfighting throughout the country.
“With the removal and transfer of the monument to the bullfighter César Rincón from the Duitama bullring We take the first step to transform these spaces of torture. Together with Gustavo Bolívar and José Luis Bohórquez we announce the investment of resources so that the places belong to everyone,” Hernández expressed on his social networks.
This month, the Colombian Congress approved the bill that prohibits bullfighting, after several years of failed attempts.
Bullfights, traditionally popular in Colombia, were losing followers and currently there were only them in the bullrings of La Santamaría, in Bogotá; in Cañaveralejo, Cali and in Manizales Bullringa city that has the largest fans in the country, as well as in some provincial squares.
You may be interested in: Manizales Fair without bullfights: the proposals for change, at Un Café catimor.
Questioned decision
The senator María Fernanda Cabal, from the opposition Democratic Center party, criticized that the Government removed the statue at the same time that the president, Gustavo Petro, recognized, Just a few days ago, the hat of former guerrilla leader Carlos Pizarro, assassinated in 1990 and last commander of the April 19 Movement (M-19) of which the current president was a part, was “protected” as a piece of property.
“The logic of the leftists in power. They destroy the monument of the bullfighter César Rincón in Bogotá (sic), but they praise the hat of the terrorist Carlos Pizarro of the M-19. The inversion of values is becoming more and more absurd,” said the congresswoman in X.
The Toro de Lidia Foundation of Spain described what happened in Duitama as “the true image of savagery.”
“They can throw away all the sculptures they want, but the anti-bullfighting people will not be able to break the memory of the Colombian people,” this organization added on its social networks.
The most important bullfighter in Colombia
Born in 1965 in Bogotá, César Rincón began to be interested in the world of bullfighting through his father’s profession, who was a bullfighting photographer.
On December 8, 1982, he took the alternative in the Colombian capital 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 bullring on September 23, 2007 in the Plaza Monumental in Barcelona and said goodbye definitively to bullfighting in Santamaría, Bogotá, in February 2008, although he is still active with a fighting bull livestock.
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