Venezuela's New Constitution to Include Indingenous
11/11/99
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Title: Venezuela's New Constitution to Confer Indigenous
Source: Environmental News Service (ENS)
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: November 11, 1999
Byline: Jose Rafael Leal
After weeks of negotiations that brought the constitutional process
to a halt, a nearly unanimous vote has inclusion of indigenous
peoples in Venezuela's new constitution now being written.
Representatives of each Venezuelan indigenous ethnic group, chiefs
and common Indians, elders and women carrying infants congregated for
two weeks in October and early November in the hallways of the
Congress where the National Constitutional Assembly is writing a new
constitution for Venezuela.
They were lobbying to be considered as the natural warranters of
Venezuelan rainforest protection and preservation by being original
inhabitants of the land. Lawmakers, said granting rights with the
words "Indigenous Territories" and "Indigenous Peoples" could pose
future threats for the national sovereignity of Venezuela. One member
brought out some old armed forces intelligence reports that talked
about obscure links between indigenous communities and Colombian
narco-guerrillas, and the supposed existence of a subversive
Amerindian movement. Goverment lawmakers passing from one chamber
of the Congress to another had to zig-zag between Indians with the
saddest of the faces standing against a background of placards
attached to the walls - pictures of their lands before and after
mining, signs reading "We Say NO to the Electric Line in Gran
Sabana," and "For the Right to a Proper Education for Indigenous.
Their lives and cultures have been under assault as underground
minerals of all kinds have attracted miners, from illegal garimpeiros
to organized multinational projects such as the Las Cristinas complex
on Bolivar State. Epidemics of yellow fever have decimated their
populations brought by miners and others from the outside world.
Cattle and agricultural industries have destroyed their forest homes.
But after two weeks of negotiations that brought the constitutional
process to a halt, on November 3, a nearly unanimous vote approved
inclusion of indigenous peoples in the new constitution.
If the voting public of Venezuela approves the new constitution,
Venezuelan indigenous people will have constitutional rights as
aboriginal peoples who need a clean and pure habitat. The words
"indigenous peoples" and "indigenous habitat "will be in the
Constitution. The word "territory" was changed for "habitat," said
Asibulo Isturiz, the Constituent member in charge of handling the
indigenous controversy, "because we can use the concept "indigenous
peoples" without the worry that in the future it could be used to
declare an Indigenous Free Determination.
The word habitat instead of territory was chosen also because
indigenous people need more than just the land, they need this land
to be pristine and virgin, clean and pure, the forests, mountains and
savannahs, the habitat where those Indians live. Isturiz said, "The
rainforest, which does not belong to them, is part of their habitat
because they need to hunt; the rivers or lagoons, which do not belong
to them, are also part of their habitat because they need to fish;
the mountains are important part of their lives and beliefs."
While the final vote was being taken on Chapter VIII regarding
indigenous rights, drums were heard in the Congress hall. A few
seconds after the vote granting them constitutional rights was
announced, all the dozens of indigenous people gathered inside the
National Congress of Venezuela stopped their drums and started to
loudly sing the National Anthem, followed with great emotion by all
the National Constitutional Assembly members.
All