We Are Native Venezuelans, And We Want To Continue Existing As We Are

Note: With full appreciation of the urgency of the native struggle described below, and concerned for the danger inherent in their isolation from wider communities of resistance, the Indigenous Solidarity Working Group of Rising Tide North America is organizing a support project to help raise funds for an indigenous delegation from Venezuela to participate in the Zapatista / "Other Campaign" Intergalactic Gathering in Chiapas, Mexico, December 31-January 2, 2006, to help connect their indigenous Venezuelan communities with others also fighting government repression and neo-liberal development policies that threaten to destroy their land, and eradicate their culture. If you are able to contribute to our efforts to bring our delegation of Venezuelan indigenous brother and sisters in resistance please contact: Cristian Guerrero- guerrero(@)riseup.net

We Are Native Venezuelans,
And We Want To Continue Existing As We Are.

Our words summoning Help with our independent struggle to Defend our Land, to realize our Right for self-determination, to Unmask and Defeat the neo-liberal, genocidal energy policies of the "Bolivarian Revolution."

Written by Wayuú (native Venezuelan) professor Jose Angel Quintero with the Commission of Venezuelan Indigenous Peoples in Defense of the Land, representing Wayuú, Barí, Yukpa, Pumé, and Pemón indigenous Venezuelan nations

Translated from Spanish by Rising Tide North America

We Are Native Venezuelans,
And We Want To Continue Existing As We Are.

Part 1.
Venezuela: A country of fabricated identity.

Until very recently, our country Venezuela was seen by the world to be a nation whose main offerings on the international stage earned us the reputation as:
a) the grand producer of petroleum at a global scale and one of the principal energy suppliers of the United States;
b) the grand producer of short-stops for the Major Leagues of North American baseball; and
c) the grand producer of Misses for the Miss Universe beauty pageants.

In other words, until the 27th of February 1989, date of the great popular rebellion against the "structural adjustment" of economic measures imposed in our country by the International Monetary Fund, Venezuela was considered to be a "solid democratic" country, one where people had in their hearts the "reason" of and the "respect" for the democracy of the political parties that traditionally traded governmental powers for over 40 years.

So until that date, the people and country of Venezuela only generated glances of interest in the eyes of petroleum analysts, baseball scouts, or fashion magazines. The indigenous communities of the country did not even exist in the imagination or recognition of the global community. And since then, the so-called international "intellectual" sectors, all convinced that the moment of social, political, and economic transformation has now come, emanating progressively from the "revolutionary" government of Chavez, have universally disregarded us indigenous as also representing a point of reference for social movements in our country.

In any case, this fabricated cultural and economic identity that had been created for Venezuela not only responded to the commercial, political and energy needs of those in power, but this false face was really for us indigenous a non-face, which denied and still continues to deny us our existence. Adding to this situation of neglect against indigenous Venezuelans was our "scarce" presence or our lack of numerical importance, or the lack of importance of our contribution to the national economy, which is to say the continuation of the false face that has been made for our country. And now, it has been decided that we should be completely decimated, denying our right to inhabit our ancestral territories where we have traditionally lived and where, at this moment, our struggle is rooted.

We Are Native Venezuelans,
And We Want To Continue Existing As We Are.

Part 2.
The new face: the "Bolivarian Revolution"

The coming of Hugo Chavez's government provoked a sense of hope in a majority of the national social sectors (including us). The promises of transformation of our society into a true democracy of participation and respect, with liberty and dignity for all, were a catalyst for the social support that we all gave to the government of the so-called fifth republic.

However, after 8 years of being established, and after instituting the new national Constitution, we the indigenous communities and a good part of Venezuelans in general have become aware that the changed features the new Constitution has given to the country represent nothing more than make-up to hide the same old wrinkles that our country still wears.

In our case, the new Constitution clearly states that it cannot afford us the consideration as indigenous communities in the terms that international law gives to this recognition. In other words, we are not given authentic rights of self-government and autonomy inside our territories: instead we are given small "habitats," where we can biologically reproduce, but never exercise our political rights.

Further, the new Constitution says that the state and its classes in power are the true owners of land and of the subsurface, and with this they reserve the rights to exploit the mineral resources, the petroleum, the gas, and all the biodiversity that can be found within our ancestral territorial spaces.

As such, attending to the neo-liberal dictates of Plan IIRSA (the Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America) and the recommendations of the World Bank advocating a "territorial reconfiguration" to make use of Venezuela's "competitive advantages" and thereby improve the level of national economic efficiency and productivity, the government of the Bolivarian "revolution" has decided to come and seize control over these so-called "habitats"- the territory that we defend as our land.

For the government of the Bolivarian "revolution", its aim is to legalize the entrance of multi-national corporations onto our land- and with this, Chavez finds common ground with his worst enemies of the traditional ring-wing in the country. That is to say, by taking our last spaces of survival the government and the opposition concur, because for either of the two the game is the same: generate foreign investment and the exploitation of our natural resources for the sole purpose of generating a "profit"- and it doesn't matter if the indigenous communities of this country are harmed by these plans.

This is the context of our current struggle. In this struggle we have been alone until now; because, as we have said before, in these neo-liberal plans for development, the government of Hugo Chavez and his opposition are in business together. And the mass communication networks, both of the government and of the opposition sectors, silence our words and minimize our actions.

That is why we consider urgent our task to communicate our struggle and words in as many spaces as possible- nationally and internationally. We are also aware that the reality that indigenous communities in Venezuela are living is not a problem that is exclusively our own, but rather it is a continental reality, and as such we must join our struggle with the rest of the indigenous communities, who like us, and in these times of globalization, are struggling to sustain their very survival and with it the life and liberty of all communities.

We Are Native Venezuelans,
And We Want To Continue Existing As We Are.

Part 3.
Breaking the silence of our words. Joining our struggles.

The loneliness of our struggle becomes big and heavy, because we have to fight against the imposed silence of our words and protests in the mainstream news networks. We've had to fight against the campaigns of defamation on the part of the mining and oil companies that try to discredit us and our leaders, and try and take our land by way of concessions given out by the government of the fifth republic. We fight against the ignorance of those who merely do not know- but at other times we must clearly confront the accomplices, the intellectual sectors, the social movements, and even brother and sister natives, indigenous blood, in other countries, who have not been able to understand how it's possible that a government whose main reputation is its popular discourse against Bush and imperialism, and at the same time, internally, yields to the appetites and impositions of imperial multi-national corporations, including those that the Bush family has stock and interest in; capital. And if that wasn't enough bitter ironies, all this comes at the detriment of us, the indigenous- us who Hugo Chavez publicly says he is "defending."

It is against this enormous contradiction within the government that we have been struggling against for the last five years- demanding the demarcation and recognition of our territories, and that it suspend all territorial concessions awarded to multi-national mining, gas, oil, lumber, and even tourism corporations that it has signed behind closed doors and without our consent. But as we've said before, we're not only up against the government; we also have to struggle against the government's worst enemies. In the end, it is here with these projects that government and opposition coincide, and in this sense the government has shown it is open to continuing the same neo-liberal plans and politics as before.

All this said, it is a crucial step for us to break the silence of our words. And now with the opportunity offered by our Zapatista brothers and sisters, (who with their struggle and the defense of their dignity, have become for us a point of reference in the sustenance of our own)- with their invitation to the international gathering/meeting of pueblos and communities in resistance in Chiapas this New Year, it is a very important scenario for us and our objective to let others know about the true reality that people's struggle of Venezuela in general, and the indigenous communities in particular are going through in these times.

For this purpose we have prepared a Commission of Venezuelan Indigenous Pueblos in Defense of the Land, made up of 6 representatives from the ethnicities: Wayuú, Barí, Yukpa, Pumé, and Pemón- and accompanied by a group of non-indigenous allies, to be present at this Intergalactic Gathering, to express our voice and words, and to join our struggle with all the peoples and communities who will be present there.

However, to attain these goals we have to find the financial resources necessary so that these compañer@s representatives can make their journey from Venezuela to Mexico. In this endeavor, we present this document you are reading, accompanied with a list of expenses (available upon request), so that any organization, social movement, or personalities with good hearts, who are friends to our struggle, may collaborate with us and take on as your own our struggle to break the silence of our words that aim to defend our territories, our liberty, our dignity and autonomy.

If you are able to contribute to our efforts to bring our delegation of Venezuelan indigenous brother and sisters in resistance please contact:

Cristian Guerrero- guerrero(@)riseup.net
www.risingtidenorthamerica.org