Venezuelan Indigenous Peoples Lament Slow Progress in Recognition of their Rights

In a joint statement issued on 28th November,  all the main national, regional and local indigenous peoples’ organisations in Venezuela criticise the weak record of the Government in recognising their Constitutional rights to their lands and territories. Progress to actually demarcate and title their areas has been painfully slow, even though the 1999 Constitution explicitly requires the recognition of their rights to their territories (referred to as ‘habitats’ in Venezuelan law).

 

Assessing the progress made in the 15 years since the new Constitution was adopted, the statement notes that so far only some 12.4% of the lands claimed as traditionally owned by the country’s remaining indigenous peoples have been formally recognised, leaving 87.6% still vulnerable to expropriation. Of the 2.8 million hectares that have been titled  in the past 15 years, most of the areas so granted have been small village level or individual titles reminiscent of the titling carried out under the agrarian reform law in the 1970s and 1980s. And, while incomplete, these land titles have only been granted to 11 of the 50 officially recognised indigenous peoples of the country. This piecemeal land titling has broken up the territorial integrity of a number of ethnic groups including the Hoti, Warao, Yukpa and Pemon.

The statement notes that the main indigenous territories in the States of Amazonas and Bolivar have been left out, in stark contrast to neighbouring countries like Colombia, which has recognised over 31 million hectares as indigenous ‘resguardos’ and Brazil, which has recognised 108 million hectares as indigenous ‘areas’ and ‘parks’. The statement notes that in Brazil an area of 9.9 m hectares has been set aside just for the Yanomami, while on the Venezuelan side of the same border, the Yanomami’s land claim has yet to be processed, as have the well documented and mapped land claims formally filed with the government by the other main ethnic groups in the forested south of the country, including the Jivi, Iwottuja (Piaroa), Yabarana, Ye’kuana, and Sanema.

 

The only indigenous land title granted so far in Amazonas State in the last 15 years, to the Hoti of Cano Iguana, was reduced to 40% of the area mapped and claimed, while the territory long ago mapped and formally claimed by the Ye’kuana and Sanema in Bolivar State has now had a national park unilaterally superimposed on it. The statement calls for a revival of political will to recognise indigenous peoples’ rights and the adoption of an ‘Action Plan for the Demarcation of Indigenous Lands and Territories’.