By Estrella Gutiérrez
CARACAS, Mar 5 1997 (IPS)

The 19 indigenous groups of the Venezuelan Amazon agreed to divide their territory into municipal areas, in an unprecedented move yet to be approved by the white authorities.

The plan established by the indigenous people of the state of Amazonas came in response to a sentence passed by the Supreme Court of Justice, which recognised its right to participate in the territorial division of this entity annuling the previous municipal law for being passed behind their backs.

Some 300 delegates of the 19 ethnic groups came together from the most far-flung reaches of the state of Amazonas more than 1,000 km south of Caracas, in a landscape dominated by an impressive waterfall known as ‘El Tobogan de la Selva’ (the water chute of the forest).

“A form of ancestral municipal division was defined, respectful of the environmental limits, the cosmovision of each people, their sacred places and their independent governability,” said Guajibo representative Guillermo Guevara, general coordinator of the Regional Organisation of the Indigenous People of the Amazon (ORPIA).

ORPIA has been organising the 19 groups’ battle “against the new attempt at conquest” over the last three years in order to defend their constitutional right to a special exceptional regime in the municipal divisions to be established in Amazonas, a former federal territory converted into the 22nd state of the nation in 1992.

“The imposition of creole (white) style municipal areas on a purely indigenous territory is a new form of colonisation, which also endangered the survival of many of our peoples,” Guevara said in a telephone interview.

The Amazonas Extraordinary Indigenous Council “was a great success, given the outcome and experience of this week in Tobogan,” said Luis Bello, from the Catholic Human Rights Office in Puero Ayacucho, the capital of the Amazon state.

The meeting, held in the last week of February, ended with a mass march to Puerto Ayacucho where regional Parliament was presented with the proposal document, which will now become a bill to be presented in Congress with the support of sympathetic members.

“Not only did the leaders of each people arrive but (also) entire councils of elders, giving the meeting great strength and legitimacy, while the discussion showed political maturity and the cohesion reached over the three years of fighting,” said Bello.

The proposal established the creation of seven new municipal areas, one more than under the annulled law, including the suggestion of a special separate area for the Yanomami, one of the oldest peoples in the world, living on the border of Brazil and Venezuela.

Another resolution proposed a form of collective government, where the mayor is substituted by a coordinator “who will act as a servant who will encourage activity and defend the rights of the community,” said Guevara.

“We want to have a government of the communities, with indigenous fora and interethnic councils, where all the people will have their representatives, even if they are only a few people” substituting the traditional councillors.

Religous groups and organisms in the zone have supported the indigenous battle against the state Legislative Assembly, which split the region into the six areas irrespective of the ancestral divisions.

These artificial municipal divisions split some ethnic groups and forced others to live with their ancestral enemies. They also violated several articles of the national constitution and that of Amazonas itself, which respected the indigenous interests.

The Amazonas constitution defines the state as multiethnic and pluricultural consecrating respect for the cultures, traditions and collective land tenure of the indigenous peoples, protected by reserves, national parks and bars on mining activity until the year 2050.

The Venezuelan Constitution also allows for different forms of municipal regime and sets an exception for the indigenous communities, and both national laws and international conventions signed by the nation guarantee the ethnic groups’ right to the land and their traditional ways of life.

The repealed law ousted by the Court last December contained many controversial articles based on political and economic designs for an almost virgin area, stuffed with biogenetic and mineral wealth, and home to nearly 50,000 indigenous people.

Amazonas covers 175,750 km sq – or 19.2 percent of the total area of the nation – with a population of less than 100,000 people, 49.7 percent of whom are indigenous.

But outside the state capital, Puerto Ayacucho, the indigenous people make up 95 percent of the population, according to the 1992 indigenous census. This survey also showed there were 316,000 native people out of a total national population of 22 million.

This city therefore holds the bulk of the creole population, and was already a municipal area before the creation of the state.

One of the worst points of the annulled law was clause on the creation of the ‘ejidos’ or common lands, whereby “waste lands” became the property of the municipal adminstrations, which basically meant the ethnic groups could be ousted from their ancestral lands as most had no property deeds.

Bello said the new proposal reaffirmed the collective territory rights of the ethnic groups and eliminated the threat of later sale to private owners, the strategy behind the ‘ejidos’ idea, which promoted the banned mining activity and intensive farming or agricultural production.

Guevara explained the annuled law had also helped the “imported” authorities to expropriate land, an option not available under the proposal by the Extraordinary Indigenous Council.

The Court said the new municipal law of Amazonas must be ready in three months’ time, with new elections in four months, although these deadlines are not yet properly established, as the Legislative Assembly is awaiting clarification from the Court this month, according to information the Court provided IPS.

This legal body took 22 months to decide on the indigenous peoples’ claim, which meant municipal elections were held in Amazonas in 1995, installing mayors from outside the communities.

But the Court came out firmly in favour of the indigenous claim, praising “its high legal and humanistic value,” in a verdict which establishes jurisprudence and encourages change in other states with an indigenous majority.

Bello said the achievement of the Amazon peoples marked a step forward in the general battle of the indigenous peoples of Latin America, which has already given some fruit in Bolivia, Colombia and Mexico, and which will now be able to build on the precedent set in Tobogan de la Selva.

Guevara concluded “when we fight for the security and defence of our rights, the indigenous people are fighting for the security and defence of humanity.”

Excerpt: