Zacarías Colque was born on 8 February 1967 in Caripuyo, a rural locality situated in the Alonso de Ibáñez Province of northern Potosí, one of the most isolated and least economically developed regions in the country, home to the nation's most impoverished municipality: the very same Caripuyo. An ethnic Quechua, Colque spent his early life in rural poverty, making a living as an agricultural worker before becoming active in the regional's peasant labor movement.
