II.
VENEZUELA

Source: Yves Materne, ed., The Indian Awakening in Latin America (New York: Friendship Press, 1980, 113-127).

DECLARATIONS OF THE VENEZUELAN FEDERATION OF INDIANS

Although distinctly a minority, the Indian population of Venezuela possesses a clearly delineated cultural identity. This is attested to by the formation, on April 6, 1973, of the Indian Confederation of Venezuela. Its declaration of May 1973, which responds to the development plan for the south of the country, illustrates the degree of its combativeness. As for the National Agrarian Institute, it is pursuing a policy of complete native development.

1. Charter of the Venezuelan Federation of Indians

We, the undersigned, are acting as the representatives of the indigenous ethnic minorities that inhabit our land. The ethnic groups in whose name we are authorized to speak are those representatives took part in forming the federations assembled here. They are the Karifia, the Yaruro, the Cuiba subgroup of the Goahibo, the Taurepang, Kamaracoto and reKuna subgroups of the Pemon, the Makiritare, the Panare, Piaroa, the Arawako, the Akawayo, the Makushi, the Guarequena, the Baniba, the Bare, the Puinabe, the Curripaco, theYabarana, the Goahibo, the Warao, the Goajiro, the Parauhano, the Yucpa, the Bari and the Chaima. These constitute, if not the totality, the great majority of indigenous minority ethnic groups in our country.

We agree to constitute, and hereby do constitute, a civil association which shall be called the Venezuelan Federation of Indians and which shall serve as a coordinating council for the abovementioned state Indian federations; and, conscious of this, our sovereign decision, we adopt the statement that follows, which is the result of our discussions and our basic point of reference.

Our history ever since the discovery of America has been a history of plunder and spoliation. The colonists seized our lands, our rivers and our forests. Faced with this situation, we had to choose whether to fight, surrender or flee. Those who fought lost, because it was an unequal struggle-not because the invaders had a superior culture but because they were the ultimate representatives of the European exploiters who descended upon us after having sacked the rest of the world. It was not the struggle of the New World against the Iberian peninsula but rather the alliance of the world's oppressors against what was left of freedom in the Western Hemisphere. Our bows and arrows, our tools for obtaining food, were powerless against the arms that for centuries had been perfected to kill human beings. So we were defeated.

Those who surrendered were reduced to total submission. Their labor was no longer to benefit their brothers and sisters but to enrich the colonist. Thus with our gold and silver and fruits, the system of the conqueror was greatly strengthened. The soil of the Americas ceased to nourish us in order to satisfy the appetites and needs of a world that kept perfecting its means of exploitation.

In view of this situation, the right answer is a stress on nationalism which expresses itself in a search for our national identity with a determination to take charge of our own wealth and labor so that they may satisfy our needs. To recover our identity is to discover what is ours. It is nothing but making a distinction between what creates economic and cultural wealth for our country and the mechanisms that, by destroying our cultural variety, prevent this wealth from being utilized for the good of the majority of the Venezuelan people. The contribution of the peasants and barriada dwellers has been reduced to make them mere labor tools to serve the interests of others, and thereby direct objects of exploitation. Under the pretext of a false development, they have sought to mold us into a model that denied our identity as a people and our dignity as human beings. It is evident that unless exploitation is eradicated, it will not be possible to construct a nationalist alternative to this which will incorporate all of the different contributions that our people are capable of making at every level.

In this sense, as a people that represents the indigenous element in our country, we have a great deal to contribute to the shaping of a selfidentity, not only adding our cultural wealth to the national patrimony but also offering different societal models which present other valid choices for development. For this reason, the national unity for which the country is clamoring finds support in our various Indian societies: unity in diversity which is made concrete in the acceptance and even promotion of cultural pluralism, a faithful expression of the respect that is owed to ethnic minorities in any democratic system.

Having set forth this position in simple words, we can declare that our struggle is against what is foreign and its channels. By "what is foreign" we do not mean the citizens of other countries and clmes who come to visit us or live among us. Such persons will be welcome if they approach us with an intention to communicate with us, understand our needs and share our aspirations. For us, "foreign" is what denies our ways of life and work and our solidarity. Foreign means being guilty of the destruction of our flora and our fauna, the fertility of our rivers and forests. Foreign means seeing us only as objects to be exploited for one's own monetary gain. We therefore resist being absorbed into the capitalistic society by means of institutions or persons that serve as intermediaries of foreign interests and we demand that the Venezuelan government add depth to its nationalist policy with decisive action to promote our culture and our economy.

2. Charter Principles of the Indian Federations

At the same time we adopt the principles embodied in the charters of all the Indian federations here represented, whose text is as follows:

1. The right of ethnic minorities to self-determination is a principle enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, of which Venezuela is a signatory.

2. A basic postulate implicit in this right is respect for such a group's cultural values, of which the indigenous language is one of the prime expressions.

3. That self-determination presupposes genuine and effective action taken by the ethnic minorities themselves. In this sense, it must be recognized that the liberation of the Indian peoples is something they themselves should achieve, in ever-increasing solidarity with the peasants, laborers and others on the edges of the national society. When elements alien to the Indian communities claim to represent us or take charge of our struggle, a kind of colonialism is created.

4. For the indigenous ethnic groups of this country, the present moment in history offers a situation in which it is not only desirable but possible and practicable to set up a national organization in which would be represented all the Indian communities that inhabit Venezuelan territory, grouped according to the country's territorial political divisions. Such an organization would be called the Venezuelan Federation of Indians.

5. In the search for our self-determination, the Indian communities recognize that the participation of the country's scientists would be valuable, particularly those who specialize in the social sciences and efforts to define a new mission orientation. *

6. The true development of our Indian communities must be ,integral and congruous. The different programs that are worked out must be a concrete expression of the will of the Indian communities and must be carried out through a concentration of efforts involving the coordinated participation of all the government agencies, some of which have already taken effective steps in this direction.

Caracas, April 6, 1973.
(Signed): The Indian Federations of the States of Anzoategui, Apure, Bolivar and Zulia; of the Federal Territories of Amazon and the Amacuro Delta; and the Chaima and Warao communities of the States of Monagas and Sucre, whose respective federations are in process of formation.

3. Position Statement of the Venezuelan Federation of Indians Adopted at the First Venezuelan Conference on Development of the South, May 1973 (Included in the Final Minutes as "Agreement No. 3")

On the occasion of this plenary session of the First Venezuelan Conference on Development of the South, the Venezuelan Federation of Indians declares its position respecting the use-apparently accepted without sufficient discusion-of the terms "conquest" (conquista) and "colonization" as well as the attitude underlying such concepts in relation to the development process in the Southern Region.

With reference to the term "conquest," we are convinced that it is an anachronistic term that has already been erased by history. Moreover, this word carries with it very negative connotations for us Indians because of the way the initial Spanish conquest was accomplished and because of the campaigns of penetration that followed. All this became massacres, indiscriminate violence and plundering of our lands and goods, along with the destruction of our communities and cultures.

Use of the term "colonization" is equally unjustified. In the first place, from 4 juridical point of view, this is a concept entirely foreign to the present Agrarian Reform Law, which sees agrarian reform as applying integrally to the length and breadth of the whole country. On the other hand, the colonization attempts that were made with nationals and foreigners have ended in tremendous failure even in terms of their own original purposes, not to mention the damages caused to surrounding populations that already existed in those areas. The policy of colonization merely serves to accentuate the discordant characteristics of underdevelopment. We have the very recent case of the ten years of colonization in the Ticoporor reserves, which have brought only misery, desolation and disaster, leading inescapably to an increased exodus of the peasants.

We note with concern that it has not been mentioned that the Indian economies are based on models that are different from the neo-classic ones prevailing in the development programs discussed here. This can easily result in an accelerated disintegration of our communal structures, which we are not willing to sacrifice for the sake of the apparent benefits of a dehumanized development.

We must emphasize that as Indians we consider ourselves the logical prime beneficiaries of any program that attempts to improve the living conditions of our respective habitats. We accept new settlers if and when they do not come with plans for competing with, or taking advantage of, the indigenous populations. Our lands and communities should be scrupulously respected and given preferential attention before lands and resources are assigned to other settlers. We have shown at San Juan de Manapiare and in places next to Puerto Ayacucho that we now how to work the land and get development started by our own means with negligible outside help. This is something that settlers unfamiliar with our Amazonian habitat would have difficulty in achieving.

We do not want to be led by the hand by any allegedly superior human group. We demand that they treat us as Venezuelan citizens under the conditions of equality that are established in our national Constitution and laws.

For the Venezuelan Federation of Indians, the coordinating committee,

Nemesio Montiel F.
Julio Gimenez 
Andres Romero

*Allusion to the Declaration of Barbados, signed on January 30, 1971, by eleven anthropologists, whose impact on the missionary activities of the churches of Latin America was considerable. (Trans.)