VENEZUELA:
Barí People Left Without
Land by Oil, Cattle,
Coal
By Humberto Márquez
KUMANDA, Venezuela
(IPS) - For 900 years,
Barí indigenous hunters
roamed freely throughout
a vast region in western
Venezuela. "Now they
want to sentence us to
die by locking us up in
this corral, watching
the white man get rich
by destroying the land
that used to be ours,"
says schoolteacher
Conrado Akambio.
The huts and
multi-family dwellings
of the 150 inhabitants
of the community of
Kumanda are scattered
over a hectare of
heat-drenched grassland
along the banks of the
Aricuizá River.
The walls of their homes
are made from tree
trunks, the floors are
packed dirt or a few
wooden planks, the roofs
thatched palm leaves.
Everything is bleached a
pale dry grey by the
blazing sun. Children
run and play among a
handful of chickens as
the adults seek a shady
spot to sit and talk
about their plight.
"Our grandparents fought
to defend our land, but
they lost their fight to
the oil companies, who
sent in men with rifles.
Our people took refuge
in the mountains, and
then the cattle farmers
came in and grabbed
this," said Ignacio
Akambio, another member
of the community.
"We can’t hunt anymore,
because all the animals
have disappeared, and we
have nowhere to grow
crops," he continued.
"And so we eat corn
flour bread or
spaghetti, and we don’t
live to be old-timers
like before; instead we
are sick all the time
and only live to about
60." It is a harsh fate
for the people that
Sabaseba, the creator,
plucked from the inside
of pineapples, according
to legend.
Anthropologist Lusbi
Portillo, from the
non-governmental
organisation Homo et
Natura, told IPS that
"the crux of the Barí
people’s problem is that
between 1910 and 1960,
they lost their land and
were decimated by the
advance of oil
exploration, first, and
then by the cattle
farmers who occupied and
cut down their forests
in the flatlands and
pushed them towards the
unproductive land in the
mountains."
The ancestral territory
of the Barí people --
now reduced to less than
3,000 members spread
across roughly 20
communities in Venezuela
-- encompasses between
4,000 and 5,000 square
kilometres, located 650
kilometres west and
southwest of Caracas.
When viewed on a map, it
resembles a wedge
cutting into Colombia,
where there are also
several hundred members
of this ethnic group
living today.
A few communities in the
Sierra de Perijá
mountain range, which
forms part of the border
with Colombia, have
accepted the demarcation
of their lands proposed
by the Venezuelan
government. But other
communities, like
Kumanda and Karañakaek,
not only refuse to be
"fenced in", but have
also settled on tracts
of land between cattle
ranches as a means of
forcing the issue.
The community of Kumanda
has received a number of
cows through the
agrarian assistance
programmes implemented
by the government of
Hugo Chávez. "But what
we are demanding is land
so that we can raise
animals and grow food,
and our children can
grow up without so many
diseases," stressed
William Santos, another
community member.
He proposes that if the
government does not want
to affect the cattle
farmers, it should buy a
strip of 40 to 60
hectares of land along
the banks of the
Aricuizá River,
containing both a
forested area and
pastureland, and hand it
over to the community.
The government has
expropriated or
negotiated with cattle
farmers over thousands
of hectares of land in
other parts of the
country.
Karañakaek is an hour
and a half from Kumanda,
travelling first in a
four-wheel-drive vehicle
and then on foot. It is
located deeper in the
mountain range, closer
to the Colombian border.
It looks much the same
as Kumanda: huts spread
out over a parched
stretch of land, a few
sleepy cows and pigs,
kids running around and
a handful of adults
wearing red T-shirts or
peaked caps stamped with
pro-Chávez slogans.
"There are almost 300 of
us and we have more than
100 children. We have
around two hectares of
crops and pastureland
for about 30 cattle. We
only slaughter a few
animals at the end of
the year. The rest of
the year we eat rice or
pasta that we buy, with
cassava and plantains.
But we would like to
have enough land to meet
our needs," said
community leader Rufino
Arabaicú.
One example of unmet
needs is the case of
Miriam, 40, who had her
first child at the age
of 15. She is now the
mother of nine and has
uterine cancer. Her
family has no stable
income. To travel back
and forth to the
hospital in Machiques,
almost four hours away,
she must spend four
dollars. It costs twice
as much to reach the
faraway city of
Maracaibo, and finding a
way to stay there to
receive treatment is
next to impossible.
In both Kumanda and
Karañakaek there are
children with bellies
bloated by parasites, as
well as others with
obvious neurological
disabilities. "In the
past the communities
were much bigger and
they used to get
together for singing
festivals that don’t
take place anymore. Now
that couples are formed
within groups of people
who are related to each
other, it is more common
for children to be born
with neurological and
motor disabilities,"
explained Portillo.
Shortly after IPS
arrived in Karañakaek, a
group from the newly
created Indigenous
Affairs Department of
the state-owned oil
company PDVSA arrived on
a tractor lent by a
nearby cattle farmer.
"Comrades, we have come
to deliver a shipment of
medicine and vaccines
for the children,"
announced the young
woman heading up the
group.
The men and women of the
community turned their
attention to gathering
up the children and
getting them in line to
receive the vaccines
being administered in a
large open-walled hut
used as a community
centre.
In the meantime, a group
of young people told IPS
about their plans to
leave the community and
form a new one with a
group of families deeper
within the territory
occupied by the ranches
of the "lavadó" (white)
cattle farmers.
They explained that
Karañakaek bumps up
against the outer limits
of three ranches
established by a single
family, whose surname is
Rincón. But there is
another problem, they
said: "they won’t give
us the land because they
are hanging on to it so
they can sell it to the
companies that are going
to dig up the coal."
Along both flanks of the
Sierra de Perijá
mountain range and
stretching south towards
the Colombian region of
Santander and the
Venezuelan region of
Táchira lies a vast
coalfield that could
surpass several times
over the current output
of the Cerrejón field in
Colombia (40 million
tons annually) and the
Guasare field in
Venezuela (10 million
tons), according to
Portillo.
Roughly 200 kilometres
north of where the Barí
people are struggling to
survive on the limited
amount of land they must
live on, other
indigenous communities
are building a network
of resistance against
plans to mine the coal
and in defence of their
land and water.
The Wayúu indigenous
ethnic group is made up
of half a million people
inhabiting the Guajira
Peninsula, which
straddles the
Colombian-Venezuelan
border on the Caribbean
coast. Over recent
years, a number of Wayúu
groups and communities
have organised campaigns
to oppose coal mining
operations in the
region, sometimes
travelling all the way
to Caracas to stage
their protests.
"If coal mining
operations continue to
expand we will be left
without land to grow
crops or raise goats, to
live in the ways of our
culture, and instead of
living in poverty in the
countryside, we will end
up living in destitution
in the cities," activist
Jorge Montiel told IPS.
Montiel belongs to an
indigenous organisation
called Maikivalasalii,
which means "Not for
Sale".
In the nearby community
of Jasai ("Sand"), a
group of teenagers and
adults are gathered in
the backyard of Dimas
González’s home, rushing
to complete the
multicoloured weavings
they will be presenting
on this last day of a
course on traditional
Wayúu weaving.
The women are wearing
colourful "mantas", a
sort of tunic that can
be tied at the waist.
Many of the young men
are in the distinctive
red T-shirts worn by
Chávez supporters.
"I want to learn
everything that our
aunts and uncles and
grandparents knew. Some
of us hardly even speak
Wayuunaiki (the Wayúu
language) anymore,"
commented Benito
González, a young man in
his twenties.
The weaving course was
offered by the Wayúu
arts association
Jalianaya ("Remember
Them"). One of the
group’s members, Emilia
Arévalo, explained to
IPS, "The goal is to
reinforce our identity
and revive our values
and traditions, but also
to generate an income
for rural families,
precisely here, where
they are defending the
land against mining."
Under the shady branches
in the González
backyard, there is a
hustle and bustle as a
ceremony is organised.
The students are
presented with
certificates for having
completed the weaving
course, then show off
the belts, bags and
shawls they have woven
during the classes and
share stories of their
experiences during the
past 18 days of
learning. The ceremony
ends with a lunch of
goat meat, rice, cassava
and a traditional
beverage made from corn.
Jasai is one of the
communities in the
northern foothills of
the Sierra de Perijá
where two coal mines are
currently being operated
by a consortium made up
of the Venezuelan state
company Carbozulia and
foreign corporations.
They are located in the
basins of the Cachirí,
Maché and Socuy Rivers,
which feed the
reservoirs that supply
drinking water to
Maracaibo.
"If they open more mines
like these ones it will
be the end of the Wayúu
communities, but also
the end of the Sierra,
because the forest
clearing and pollution
will destroy the trees,
the rivers, the
biodiversity, and
ultimately, the water.
What was once a mountain
jungle will become a
desert," Elpidio
González, an
environmentalist with
Homo et Natura, told IPS.
"We are at the vanguard
of the resistance. We
are going to be the last
to leave here, and that
is why we want the
demarcation of
indigenous territories,
so that we can protect
the land and the water
for everyone. We are the
guarantors," declared
Montiel. "Our motto is:
territory, autonomy,
dignity, and no coal."
The demarcation of
indigenous territories,
established in the 1999
constitution, "has been
interpreted by the
government as the
granting of minuscule
areas where indigenous
people have their houses
or small farming plots,
but without the lands
that would be a source
of food and a way of
life in accordance with
their traditions," said
Portillo.
"There should be
specific development
plans designed for the
32 distinct indigenous
groups in Venezuela. If
not, entire peoples will
disappear through
cultural assimilation,
and perhaps even before
the end of the Chávez
administration (in
2013)," he added. |
