The indigenous question: winning and losing with Bolivarian socialism

Daisy J.Barreto

Dialectical Anthropology An Independent International Journal in the Critical Tradition Committed to the Transformation of our Society and the Humane Union of Theory and Practice ISSN 0304-4092 Volume 35 Number 3 Dialect Anthropol (2011) 35:261-263 DOI 10.1007/s10624-011-9253-7

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Dialect Anthropol (2011) 35:261263 DOI 10.1007/s10624-011-9253-7

The indigenous question: winning and losing with Bolivarian socialism

Daisy J. Barreto

Published online: 15 September 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

Abstract This research shows a critical assessment on Venezuelan indigenous vez. people in the context of Bolivarian government of President Hugo Cha Keywords vez Indigenous Bolivarian Cha

The complexity of the Venezuelan indigenous problematic is such that this short text is only an introductory analysis. Our question is: What concept does the vez have of indigenous being, of indigenous Bolivarian government of Hugo Cha persons, and of indigenous peoples? How much afnity is there between these concepts? How are they expressed in the governments ideology and political practice? How, and in what way, have indigenous organizations and their political representatives taken part in the design of ofcial policies, decision making, and implementation? What have been the consequences for indigenous peoples of the denial of recognition of their traditional authorities, elected according to their uses and customs? On the one hand, the achievements of indigenous groups during 11 years of Bolivarian government are not only unprecedented, but unimaginable outside the vez. On the other hand, due in part to the deafness and arrogance presidency of Cha of the Bolivarian state, the revolutionary government has failed indigenous people vez has delivered in key ways, but his policies have been in many respects. Cha rather inefcient while his politics have often silenced or divided indigenous actors. vez signed an act of A few months before he was elected on March 20, 1998, Cha commitment, A Pledge to History (Un Compromiso para la Historia), in which he expressed his rm support for the historical demands of indigenous peoples.
D. J. Barreto (&) School of Anthropology, Caracas, Venezuela e-mail: daisybarretor@gmail.com

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Then, during the National Constituent Assembly of 1999, indigenous peoples together with their traditional allies1 resisted the assaults of political parties of the n Democra tica), and COPEI (Partido Social Cristiano), who Right, AD (Accio denied and stubbornly opposed the recognition of indigenous rights in the new vez supporters in the Constitution. This confrontation led a good number of Cha Assembly to make concessions to the Right on indigenous issues, including land rights, as well as the right to participate in the decisions and benets related to the use of natural resources found on their ancestral lands. These concessions, in short, produced a 1999 Constitution containing considerable ambiguities with respect to indigenous rights. vez since his election in 1998, Indigenous peoples have supported President Cha including a vote of condence in 2000 and the election in 2006. They have also consistently favored Chavista candidates in national, state, and municipal elections. vez is not unequivocal or uncritical. At the same time, indigenous support for Cha An embryonic indigenous movement increasingly questions Chavista slogans vez, everything, without Cha vez, nothingand aspires to implement the With Cha revolution promised in the 1999 Constitution, including the radical transformation of Venezuelan democracy. If the achievements on indigenous issues are evident, so too are the errors, failures, impediments, and diversions into which the revolutionary process has fallen. Indigenous peoples have pointed out these shortcomings, only to be ignored by the revolutionary government, a process which in turn has served to intensify indigenous opposition. The conicts, confrontations, and acts of protest on the part of indigenous actors have multiplied as their concerns have been ignored or thwarted. vez has thus far been Moreover, the fact that indigenous opposition to Cha vez relatively subdued is due largely to the self-censorship and censorship of the Cha government itself. The government has persisted in combating, repressing, manipulating, or silencing its critics. Individual or collective actorsleaders, communities, indigenous organizations, etc.have been and continue to be demonized as counter revolutionaries. This has been polarizing and divisive. These opponents are generally the target for various forms of vengeance and control, particularly exclusion from participation in any state institution, whether political (national assembly, Latin American indigenous parliament, prefectures, municipalities), administrative (ministries, institutes, foundations, written, and audiovisual media), or social (communal councils, communal banks, socialist communes, etc.). Likewise, the long running denouncements and repeated complaints on the part of indigenous peoples are generally kept from public view, only rarely appearing in print and televised media; however, since the Internet is the medium most widely used, the audience of the indigenous people grows continuously. A large part of the indigenous population not only continues to suffer from traditional, endemic problems, but has actually seen their conditions worsen in
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Scholars of social sciences and other disciplinesin particular, men and women anthropologists who have always been linked to these populationsas well as personalities from intellectual and artistic circles.

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important areas: infant mortality (in some cases reaching 40%), infectious diseases, malnutrition, illiteracy, school dropout rates, unemployment, urban migration, environmental deterioration in their ancestral territories whose titling has been blocked by sectors of the government with vested interests. It is evident that the failure to solve indigenous problems is a manifest expression of the contradictions, which the Bolivarian government presents. On the one hand, indigenous peoples have made signicant legal gains, including the acquisition of important rights that were historically denied them.2 On the other hand, these legal rights have been inconsistently implemented and do not substitute for a real and effective public policy for indigenous peoples. The numerous programs developed have been imposed from above. In addition, the Bolivarian government has, at times, weakened the indigenous movement and created divisions through programs that have often been backed by indigenous political representatives who form part of State power on the national, state, and regional levels, especially by the National Indigenous Council of Venezuela (CONIVE). CONIVEs leadership has worked to mediate between the government and indigenous communities, serving to legitimatize President Chavezs policies and positions on indigenous issues; consequently, it shares responsibility for the difcult conditions in which indigenous people live today. The vez conciliatory stance of certain indigenous organizations with respect to the Cha government has not produced the intended peace, but has led to more visible confrontations between grassroots indigenous organizations and CONIVE, as well as between indigenous political representatives in the National Assembly and other organs of the executive. This has provoked regrettable divisions among indigenous peoples and violent clashes within the communities. Another basic element present in the indigenous problematic, as well as in the great majority of the social plans and programs implemented to date is the fact that they have been executed under the tutelage or in close collaboration with the Bolivarian Armed Force. Beyond any doubt, the economic investment directed at indigenous peoples by vez government has been unprecedented and stands in dramatic contrast to the Cha the painful conditions of extreme poverty and penury in which part of them live. We believe, however, that deeper transformation will require less imposition from above, by the State, and more democratic participation from indigenous peoples in the planning and implementation of social policies and programsultimately, with the goal of reaching the objectives contained in the Venezuelan constitution.
Acknowledgments The author acknowledges the helpful support of Drs. Fernando Coronil (deceased AGO 09, 2011, to whom this paper is dedicated) Gustavo Montes, and Steve Strifer.

The ample social, political, economic and cultural rights recognized in the Constitution, Chap. VIII, are widened and developed in the Law of Demarcation and Guarantee of the Habitat and Lands of Indigenous Peoples (2001), in the Organic Law of Indigenous Peoples and Communities (2005), in the Indigenous Languages Law (2008), as well as in other laws which write indigenous rights into law, such as, the Biological Diversity Law (2000), the Organic Law on Education and the Law of Communal Councils (2006), among others.

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