Indigenous Group Along Colombia-Venezuelan Border Threatened by Tensions, Smuggling
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WASHINGTON, D.C., Jun 18 (OneWorld) - Growing tensions between the governments of Colombia and Venezuela, as well as the persistence of fighting between left-wing insurgents and Army-backed paramilitary groups within Colombia, are threatening the welfare of a hundreds of members of the Wayuu indigenous group, descendants of the Arawaks who dominated the southern Caribbean before the European conquest of the Americas.
A massacre allegedly committed by right-wing paramilitaries in the Caribbean border town of Bahia Portete two months ago reportedly killed at least 12 Indians, although 30 more, including 20 children, remain unaccounted for, according to Massachusetts-based Cultural Survival. It also sent hundreds of residents fleeing across the border into Venezuela where UN agencies and the government of President Hugo Sanchez are supplying them with food, shelter, and medicine. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which carried out an assessment of the situation last month, said security conditions back in Bahia Portete remained precarious and advised the refugees to stay in Venezuela for now. The plight of the Wayuu refugees highlights the complexity of the situation along the border between two countries that have a long history of uneasy relations. That tension has grown over the past year amid charges by the U.S.-backed government of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe that Venezuela is providing safe haven and other support to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Chavez, in turn, has accused the Colombians of working with Washington to destabilize his own increasingly beleaguered government. Last month, Chavez arrested some 130 Colombian "mercenaries" who he claimed were part of an invasion force hired by his domestic opposition with links to Bogota and Washington. Colombia strongly rejected the charge, insisting that Chavez was using the incident as a pretext for cracking down against opposition forces and buying new weapons, including tanks and missiles, from European suppliers. Uribe, who has been trying to negotiate a peace accord with the paramilitaries, has recently attempted to assert a strong military presence along the border. The early official reports of the massacre, however, put it squarely in the context of the conflict between the right-wing paramilitaries and the FARC. Apart from rising bilateral tensions, however, the April massacre, which was strongly denounced by Amnesty International, other interests may also be involved. The Alta Guajira region in which Bahia Portete is located in a major route for traffickers smuggling everything from arms, Venezuelan gasoline and stolen cars to Colombian cocaine for shipment across the Caribbean. Indeed, the multi-million-dollar contraband trade employs as many as 3,000 local indigenous people, according to some reports. Paramilitaries, who have long profited from drug trafficking, were, according to some accounts, invited into the region several years ago by local mafia families precisely to assert control over the trade. According to one report in the Bogota newspaper, 'El Tiempo,' the massacre was carried out in retaliation against a group that included some Wayuu from the town who allegedly stole cocaine from the paramilitaries. Another account published by 'El Espectador,' depicted the massacre as part of an ongoing struggle between the paramilitaries and a group of Wayuu over control of the port itself. Other accounts cited in a report this week by Cultural Survival's Deidre d'Entremont asserted that the massacre was preceded by dozens of assassinations most of whose victims came from families who had controlled the port. While the government in Bogota has not commented extensively on the situation, a commission established by the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC) sent a delegation to the region after receiving an appeal from local Wayuu. The appeal, which was anonymous, said it distrusted government officials "because we are afraid they will continue to kill us." ONIC charged that the massacre was provoked by those "who represent the interests of the groups who want to control the port of Bahia Portete" and that local authorities had advance knowledge of the attack but failed to protect the Indians. An anonymous group that calls itself 'Wayuu Resistance,' surfaced last month, declaring that it would turn to the FARC for protection if the government failed to act against the perpetrators of the massacre. "No one wants to show their face. Everything comes to us anonymously," ONIC's president, Luis Evelis Andrade, told Inter Press Service (IPS) last month. He said he had tried to convince some of the survivors in Venezuela to go to Bogota to file official complaints, "but they don't dare." The Wayuu live along or near the Caribbean on both sides of the border. There are an estimated 150,000 Wayuu in Colombia, most of them living in La Guajira peninsula which extends into the Caribbean and the Gulf of Venezuela. Another 400,00 live in Venezuela. The area is believed to hold extensive natural gas fields that are currently being explored by U.S.-based ChevronTexaco. In addition to smuggling, the region's economy is dominated by the largest open pit coal mine, El Cerrejon Zona Norte, whose construction and operations have resulted in the displacement of hundreds of Wayuu and Afro-Colombian families. Despite the economic activity, many of the inhabitants are desperately poor. The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), for example, has rated the region as among the poorest regions in Central and South America. The Venezuelan-born film actress, Patricia Velasquez, whose mother is a descendant of the Wayuu, founded the Wayuu Taya Foundation (www.wayuutaya.com) in 2002. A UNESCO Artist for Peace, Velasquez, who is best known for her role as the Egyptian princess in 'The Mummy' and 'The Mummy Returns,' has focused the foundation's activities on providing basic educational, health, and nutritional assistance to Wayuu children and mothers in the La Guajira region. The foundation is holding its second annual benefit on June 22 in New York City to be hosted by Velasquez, super-model Iman, and former ballet dancer, Rita Schrager. |
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