Indigenous Resistance Day: Chavez grants Bs 7.8 billion of communal credits

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias has spent Columbus Day, or as it is known in Venezuela, Indigenous Resistance Day, in the Guajira region of Zulia State, north of Maracaibo.

In Cojoro, Paez municipality, the President has granted all indigenous peoples of Venezuela, credits worth 17.8 billion bolivares to develop works and projects agreed to in the first Mobile Cabinet of Ethnic Communities.

* Indigenous groups in Zulia have received almost 5 billion bolivares and the President has ordered the purchase of a drinking water plant for the Guajira region.

Next week, the President confirms, the foundation stone of the second bridge across Lake Maracaibo will be placed and announces that the bridge will bear the name of a native Venezuelan and not one of the Spanish colonizers.

During a visit to Fuerte Mara garrison in Maracaibo, the President states that in Venezuela another coup d'etat is out of the question.

However, he contends that he has proof that some politicians in Zulia have been trying to infiltrate the garrison, offering big-money to military officers.

National Assembly (AN) indigenous committee president, Wayuu indian Nohely Pocaterra recalls that many indigenous groups were treated as illegals in their own country before the arrival of the Bolivarian Revolution.

"Indigenous communities are living a new stage in Venezuela's history after being included in the new Constitution."

Pocaterra has highlighted the importance of an indigenous ID card ... other benefits the revolution has brought are: habitat laws, demarcation of communal lands and other laws in defense of ethnic communities.