from thefreeonline 21st July 2022
Under the new constitution approved in 1999 when the Chavez led Revolution came to power in Venezuela the hundreds of small surviving indigenous groups and their Commune culture were granted a special place and dignity.
However the landowning oligarchy, in power since the Spanish conquest disagreed and many wished they had completely exterminated the indigenous peoples.
So either support or opposition to indigenous rights and culture became one theme in the media, street and military battle between the mass popular revolution and the ex rulers and upper middle class.
The opposition, backed as always by the USA, CIA and military, corporations, some ONG’s and the western mass media, succeeded in closing down the key oil industry, blockading trade and branding Chavez and the revolution as execrable totalitarians.
Despite various military coup attempts from the USA the state run revolution survived, due to key army support, strong social programs, and mass popular and nationalist approval, including from the Communes Movement, which dated back to Indigenous times.
With the blockage of the National Parliament, hunger, bankruptcy and intense sanctions and international pressure the State became more repressive, jailing opponents and protestors.
The popular Constituent Assembly was also organised, in parallel to the bourgeois parliament. It works with quotas of seats for various social and ethnic groups, like indigenous, women, the communes, unions, etc.
Special elections were also recently organised in Indigenous areas, in the spirit of reparations, with guaranteed number of seats…
All in all both the Venezuelan state and hundreds of civil society and indigenous groups are making an effort to repair centuries of terror and extermination.
Twitter: @Wataniba_ve / @OrpiaAmazonasVE
However hatred, racism and killings continue, often by far right mercenaries linked to the much greater state and US sponsored killings across the border in Colombia, where thousands of indigenous, community and ex FARC members have been murdered with impunity.
(Although we now at last have a progressive President in Colombia, Petro still only has minority power against the entrenched oligarchy).
The killings, devastation and severe repression of Indigenous folks in the southern Amazonas State stems mainly from a plague of artesanal gold miners organised in militarised mafias , and extending their operations from Brazil, Colombia, Guyana, etc.
