Venezuelan Indians Battle Miners and Modern Life
10/8/97
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Headline: Venezuelan Indians Battle Miners and Modern Life
Source: Reuters
Date: 10/8/97
Author: Michael Christie
SANTA LUCIA DE INAWAY, Venezuela (Reuter) - Hemmed in on three
sides by gold and mineral mines and facing the scourge of
alcohol and drugs brought by miners, the Venezuelan Indians of
Santa Lucia de Inaway have long felt besieged.
Now times are set to get even tougher for the 350 Pemon Indians
trying to maintain a semblance of their culture here on the edge
of the mining town of Las Claritas in the Imataca forest
reserve, some 600 miles southeast of Caracas.
A new decree seeks to turn Imataca into Latin America's top
gold-producing region, allowing more than half of the reserve's
8.6 million acres to be auctioned off as concessions for
large-scale "controlled" mining.
"We used to have tranquility here," sighed village chief Jose
Sifontes, gesturing at the wall that shields his people from the
bars and brothels of Las Claritas.
"They have surrounded us and destroyed our life of hunting and
fishing," added his niece, 26-year-old Divizay Delfino. "Now the
big companies are arriving. There's no way we can leap up to
their level. Basically, they are annihilating us," she said,
her eyes burning with rage.
In all, 10,000 Indians from five tribes -- Warao, Arawako,
Karina, Akawaio and Pemon -- live in Imataca, a luscious
biodiversity hot spot north of the Canaima national park, a
World Heritage site and home to the towering Angel Falls.
The Indians, most of whom now wear jeans and baseball caps and
live in ugly concrete houses built by the government, are
contesting decree 1850, as is the Venezuelan Congress, which
says it was not consulted before its publication last May.
MINERS BRING ALCOHOL, DRUGS
The government says the decree will end widespread unregulated
mining in Imataca, where some 50,000 wildcat gold-diggers have
been scraping a living since the 1980s, poisoning the rivers
with mercury, scarring the earth and bringing alcohol, drugs and
prostitutes in their wake.
The mining industry is naturally delighted. So far, say
environmentalists, nearly 600 firms have requested concessions
to exploit Imataca's $113 billion in gold, including Canadian,
British, Australian, American, German and Chinese companies.
Canada's Placer Dome has already arrived in a joint venture with
Caracas to develop the Las Cristinas mine, five miles from Santa
Lucia, thought to hold 11.8 million ounces of gold. Rival
Crystallex is contesting the claim.
But the Indians are not convinced. Some 30 miles north of Santa
Lucia, leaders of the indigenous community of San Antonio say
the concessions affect their hunting grounds and threaten their
sources of drinking water.
"We are haunted by the fear of losing our way of life. If these
concessions keep on coming we will," said Bellis Daniel, head of
the 742-strong community where trees are heavy with oranges and
orchids droop from baskets hung from the branches.
Environmentalists denounce the decree as a "test case" to see
whether the government can get away with turning other forest
reserves into industrial money-earners.
The Coalition for Amazonian Peoples and Their Environment
predicts a surge in cyanide and mercury contamination and a mad
influx of people, drawn by the gold rush. The U.S.-based group
says mining accidents are inevitable, pointing to the Omai gold
mine in neighboring Guyana where in 1995 some 3 million cubic
yards of cyanide and other waste leaked into the Essequibo
River.
POWER LINE PROJECT ENHANCES MINING THREAT
The threat that mining poses to Imataca is enhanced by a joint
Venezuelan-Brazilian project to stretch a high-tension power
cable from Venezuela's Guri hydroelectric dam to poverty-ridden
Roraima in northern Brazil.
The transmission line will provide much-needed energy to the
Amazonian state, where blackouts are the rule. But, apart from
its immediate environmental impact on the forest reserve and on
Canaima, it will also provide more than enough electricity to
fuel a mining explosion in Imataca.
In order to generate extra energy, moreover, state electricity
firm Edelca plans to flood another valley at Guri. Indian leader
Kuyujani Yecuana Rene said 16 communities with about 200 people
each would have to move.
"The valley is bursting with wildlife and the river with
fish. It's totally virgin forest," he said. "The cable may be a
good thing from a business point of view but from the point of
view of the Indians and the environment it means an awful lot of
destruction."
The Imataca Indians say they are not against sustainable
development. In fact, communities such as San Antonio have
carried out small-scale cooperative mining for years. But first
they want land rights to protect them from outsiders and a veto
on any projects in their territories.
In Venezuela, where activists say attempts to seek special legal
status for indigenous people are regarded as threats to
territorial integrity, such rights are not forthcoming.
Sifontes says he knows his people cannot escape from the
impending modernization or bury their heads in the sand. He
demands education so the Indians can leapfrog into the 21st
century and help shape the area's economic development.
"We know we must adopt some aspects of Western culture," he
said. "But we must be allowed to keep the good bits of our
culture too. Drinking rum, sleeping with whores and taking
drugs: that doesn't strike me as good culture."
Others, like San Antonio's Daniel, are defiant and vow to fight
the government's plans. "We will not be discouraged. Our elders
died fighting for land rights without success. We too shall not
give up," he said.