The Indigenous World 2024: Venezuela
Of Venezuela’s total population of 27,227,930, some 724,592 are Indigenous (2.8%), belonging to 51 different peoples and mostly concentrated (85%) in Zulia state and the Amazon region.
In 1999, the constitutional process ensured that the fundamental rights of Indigenous Peoples and communities were guaranteed in the Constitution and that a set of legal and regulatory provisions were established to broadly protect them. These included the Law approving ILO Convention 169, the Organic Law on Indigenous Peoples and Communities, the Law on the Cultural Heritage of Indigenous Peoples and Communities, and the Law on Indigenous Languages.
However, the successes of this legal framework in terms of protecting nature and Indigenous Peoples do not tally with some of the public policies in recent years, which have opted to promote an extractive development model with the aim of alleviating the country's difficult economic situation. Mining is detrimental to the physical and cultural survival of Indigenous Peoples and contradicts established guidelines and land-use planning.
In addition to their own struggles for autonomy and defence of their territories and ways of life, many Indigenous Venezuelans face the same problems as the rest of the population: high levels of poverty, poor services, insecurity, etc. A lack of adequate services, especially in health and education, results in migration to the cities or urban areas. Often, however, this is not a solution as the problems simply become more acute as they distance themselves from their traditional ways of life.
This article is part of the 38th edition of The Indigenous World, a yearly overview produced by IWGIA that serves to document and report on the developments Indigenous Peoples have experienced. The photo above is of an Indigenous man harvesting quinoa in Sunimarka, Peru. This photo was taken by Pablo Lasansky, and is the cover of The Indigenous World 2024 where this article is featured. Find The Indigenous World 2024 in full here
Any analysis of the situation of the rights of Venezuela’s Indigenous Peoples has to be viewed within the context of the widespread difficulties that the Venezuelan population as a whole has been facing for some time now, albeit with greater intensity.
The initial difficulty is a lack of clarity over indicators. The tensions that the country has been experiencing since at least 2013 have led to the virtual disappearance and/or freezing of all official data on economic, political, social and even demographic and health issues.
It should be noted that this lack of data now enjoys legal standing, given the enactment, on 12 October 2020, of the so-called Constitutional Anti-Blockade Law for National Development and the Guarantee of Human Rights which, among other things, empowers the National Executive not to publish such information, allegedly for national security reasons.
Given this situation, unofficial information has obviously proliferated on virtually all topics of interest, including everything related to Indigenous Peoples.
The problem with this is that although this data is emerging as a legitimate response to citizens exercising their right to information – a right that is of constitutional standing in Venezuela – such information is often unreliable since the organizations that collect it do not always have sufficient means to guarantee its rigour from a methodological point of view.
This is further complicated by the fact that such information is often coloured by different political interests. In other words, organizations or agencies that oppose the national government may err on the side of excess, while actors linked to the government may err on the side of deficit.
While the former may magnify, manipulate or even directly invent issues, the latter may minimize, revive or simply fail to address them, on the grounds that, if they are not named then they do not exist or, in any case, arguing that they should “not fall into the games played by the enemies of the fatherland”.
And yet this situation not only involves civil society actors aligned with one or other side in the national conflict: it also – and often above all – affects non-aligned actors or those who are seeking to maintain a certain objectivity in the midst of the conflict and its consequences.
For the latter, drawing attention to a problem or even not agreeing with certain positions has become a high-risk act.
In the case of Indigenous organizations, this is a particularly sensitive issue.
Moreover, Venezuela’s Indigenous populations are mostly located in the country’s border areas (Zulia, Apure, Amazonas, Bolivar and Delta Amacuro states), which makes them even more prone to being affected by and implicated in situations that involve some “national security” criterion in one or other direction of the political conflict.
If we add to this the fact that many of Venezuela's Indigenous Peoples live in territories that are mineral-rich and therefore vulnerable to conflict then we have a fairly comprehensive map of the situation they face when defending and exercising their rights.
This is particularly the case for the Indigenous Peoples of the Amazon. And it is in this regard that the 2016 creation of the so-called “Orinoco Mining Arc”, which directly involves and concerns the Venezuelan Amazonian states, seems to mark a before and after.
For Indigenous and indigenist organizations, as well as for environmentalists operating in these regions, action thus becomes an uphill struggle, if not a downright risky activity. To start with the simplest action and moving to the most complex, they are subject to special supervision and controls on the part of the authorities, which may include anything from free transit through the territory to the right of association and exercise of their political rights. This has resulted – especially in the case of Indigenous organizations – in their being especially careful when considering denouncing or confronting situations that may give rise to punitive actions (criminal or administrative) on the part of the authorities, who see such actions as threats to the security of the State or as direct acts of “treason”.
National crisis and extractivism: the dual tsunami that threatens to sweep away Venezuela's Indigenous Peoples
It is no secret that Venezuela is experiencing the most difficult period in its modern history. We are talking about a country that is estimated (and we say “estimated” because there are no official figures available) to have lost close to 80% of its GDP in the last 10 years.
Venezuela's Indigenous populations have been hard hit by this disaster in at least two closely related ways.
First, in general and more comprehensive terms, because the State’s framework of care, security and social protection has been dismantled, leaving them without support in areas such as health, food and education.
And, second, because the proliferation of legal and illegal mining, as well as other extractive and depredatory activities, directly compromises the lives of Indigenous Peoples, especially those of the Amazon, many of whom have ended up being displaced, and even kidnapped, because of it.
Indeed, according to monitoring carried out by Wataniba through satellite imaging and direct sources via work coordinated with Indigenous organizations in the field, the area of the Venezuelan Amazon directly affected by mining has been growing rapidly since 2016. It had already reached some 339 km² (or 33,900 hectares) by 2019 but, two years later – 2021 – it had grown to 1,337 km² (or 133,700 hectares): a 294% increase.[1] The worsening national crisis, exacerbated by the effects of the global pandemic, has played a key role in this growth.
This situation not only affects the Indigenous people who have been forced to migrate to the mining camps as their only source of income but also those who have remained in the communities, where the community dynamics have changed. Fewer people are now involved in cultivating the land and trading in their traditional products. Their governance structures have been fragmented as a result of conflicting views on mining activity. In addition, their options for facing up to pressure from external groups present on or adjacent to their territories are decreasing. All of this affects the productive capacity of Indigenous Peoples over their lands, territories and resources, as well as their right to autonomy and self-government.
An additional element to consider is the serious environmental impact, which has a direct impact on our Indigenous communities.
There are numerous reports of mercury poisoning from the mines. This contaminates the water and thus animal and plant species and inevitably affects people, causing all kinds of illnesses, including genetic, in Indigenous communities (and also in non-indigenous communities). The spread of diseases brought in by outsiders is likewise wreaking havoc in these communities. The terrible spread of malaria observed in recent years is also a result of the mines because deforestation and soil erosion eventually lead to the waterlogged conditions in which mosquitoes proliferate.
Last but not least, while this may be an ecocide that outrages other Venezuelans to differing degrees, for Indigenous Peoples the devastation caused by extractive activities and the no less harmful resulting effects (forced labour, prostitution, violence, etc.) represent the end of their world. It is not simply a matter of seeing their “habitat” disappear but, along with it, their way of understanding and living life, their sacred places, the land of their ancestors and their gods, all due to the predatory action of characters and groups driven by ambition. This results in a perverse dilemma for much of Venezuela’s Indigenous population: do they challenge this, knowing that it will be an unequal struggle, or do they throw in their lot with the mining sector in the hope that they will at least be making some profit for their immediate family? From the Wayuu in the north of Zulia state to the Yanomami in the south of Amazonas state, with some variations, this is a dilemma that is repeated over and over.
Report by Luis Salas Rodríguez of the Wataniba Amazon Socio-Environmental Group team. Wataniba is a civil society organization that promotes sustainable territorial management processes in the Venezuelan Amazon, supports Indigenous grassroots organizations by providing them with technical training to defend and exercise their rights, and offers them support for their socio-productive enterprises and actions in favour of their identity and culture.
This article is part of the 38th edition of The Indigenous World, a yearly overview produced by IWGIA that serves to document and report on the developments Indigenous Peoples have experienced. The photo above is of an Indigenous man harvesting quinoa in Sunimarka, Peru. This photo was taken by Pablo Lasansky, and is the cover of The Indigenous World 2024 where this article is featured. Find The Indigenous World 2024 in full here
Notes and references
[1] “El modelo extractivo en la Amazonia venezolana: rápida expansión e impactos socioambientales para los pueblos indígenas de la región”, Wataniba, July 2022.
Tags: Land rights, Business and Human Rights , Human rights, Biodiversity
