VENEZUELA: Indigenous Women Declare War on Acculturation

By Estrella Gutiérrez Reprint | | Print |

Estrella Gutierrez

CARACAS, Jul 5 1996 (IPS) - Indigenous women declared a “war” against any attempt to acculturate – or wipe out – Venezuela’s 38 indigenous groups, in their first nationwide meeting that ended Friday.

“This is a women’s war,” said Isoris Tovar, after discussing ways to keep indigenous people from being stripped of their land, and how to fight malnutrition, the imposition of “white” religions, alcoholism, sexual violence, the presence of drug trafficking, neglect by the State and the lack of bilingual education.

Venezuela, which has a total population of 22 million, is home to 316,000 indigenous people (49.9 percent women), who inhabit 10 of the country’s 22 states. The most numerous are the 180,000 Wuayuus, with a similar number in neighbouring Colombia, according to a special census in 1992.

The two-day meeting ended Friday with the creation of an indigenous women’s network, concrete actions to confront the problems plaguing the country’s ethnic communities, a campaign for laws on indigenous women and children, and a declaration addressed to the State and the population at large.

The dozens of indigenous women who came to Caracas for the event – many of whom travelled several days to get here, and participated with their small children – were also informed of the decisions in defence of their rights that were adopted at the September 1995 Beijing women’s conference.

On the first day of the meeting on Thursday, reports by state of representatives of the various ethnic groups highlighted the emergence of new problems jeopardising indigenous cultures and ways of life, while expressing the women’s renewed determination to lead the rescue of their identity and ancestral rights.

Tovar, a member of the Pume ethnic group, which inhabits the western state of Apure bordering Colombia, stressed the age-old matriarchal system that has governed the Wayuus and other groups, the common belief in Mother Earth as the origin and purpose of indigenous life and culture, and the existence of numerous goddesses.

Other leaders underlined that when the environment is damaged, women are the first to feel the consequences, because – for example – they must walk much farther to get wood for their fires. And with men’s increasing difficulty in finding animals to hunt, family nutrition goes downhill, illnesses thrive and people increasingly resort to emigration.

“We are peaceful people, but we declare ourselves at war for our survival,” said the participants.

Tovar said drug trafficking reigns in neglected indigenous areas of Apure. And women are forced by the lack of economic alternatives to take work as domestic help on “haciendas” (large ranches and estates), where they are often raped by the owners and the workers, leading to a forced “mestizaje” (mixture of races).

She added that public officials working for the defence of indigenous people have also been guilty of sexual harassment and rape, which was confirmed by government delegates taking part in the meeting.

The presence of New Tribes, a religious sect from the United States that was officially expelled from Venezuela in the 1970s and which is accused of being a group governed by economic rather than spiritual interests, also leads to “the undesired bilingualism of indigenous people, who no longer know their mother tongue and speak English,” Tovar charged.

Rising alcoholism among men has accompanied the increasing uprooting of the communities, the women leaders said, while in the oil-rich northwestern border state of Zulia, home to the Wuayuus, the luring of women to work as drug smuggling “mules” has been added to the list of new problems.

There are 75 Wuayuu women inmates in Zulia’s largest prison, 80 percent of whom were caught smuggling drugs from Colombia, said Zeneida Fernandez, a Wuayuu economist.

And physical abuse of women, formerly uncommon among indigenous people, is becoming more and more widespread, even in the matriarchal Wuayuu community.

In the northeastern Caribbean state of Monagas, with its newfound oilfields and prosperous agriculture, the Kariñas have an even more basic problem, Adelaida Garcia reported: regional authorities deny their very existence.

The Kariñas and the Waraos who live in the southern part of the state are having an increasingly hard time remaining on their ancestral land, after a local government decision declared it uninhabited common land due to the alleged disappearance of the indigenous groups – a claim that contradicts the 1992 census.

A claim filed years ago before the Supreme Court is still pending, as is a lawsuit by the 19 indigenous groups of the southern state of Amazonas, the new territorial division of which was carried out without taking indigenous settlements into account as stipulated by the constitution.

Indigenous peoples’ rights to their land, which are recognised by several laws, are threatened by the oil and mining sectors, as well as tourism.

A high-ranking leader of the Pemon people, Emilia Castro, reported that although the Gran Sabana where they live in the eastern state of Bolivar has been declared a national park, permits for major tourist developments have been granted over the past two years, which the state’s 18 indigenous groups have been uable to prevent.

According to Esteban Monsonyi, Venezuela’s top expert on native languages, the country’s ethnic groups are experiencing a particularly tough time because the government of President Rafael Calera is “anti-indigenist and anti-environment.”

Monsonyi pointed out that ministers have publicly called the pro-indigenous movement dangerous, because “it aims to create a State within another State” – in spite of the fact that the 1961 constitution is clear with respect to preserving the rights of ethnic communities.

Noeli Pocaterra, Wuayuu vice-president of the World Council of Indigenous Peoples and the driving force behind the Caracas meeting, frequently says that “everyone born in the country has a drop of Indian blood.” “Let’s make that drop a flood,” declared the indigenous and non-indigenous women participants on Friday.