An Expansion of Citizenship in Venezuela
Giordani, Lourdes & Villalón, Maria Eugenia
When Hugo Chavez campaigned for the Venezuelan presidency in 1998, he not only expressed solidarity but claimed kinship with the country's small indigenous population. One of his grandmothers, he...
...Indeed, only in 1999 did Venezuela officially recognize its cultural and linguistic plurality-one of the last South American countries to do so...
...The registration of patents for genetic resources or for the ancestral knowledge associated with those resources is prohibited...
...One of his grandmothers, he told a Venezuelan public accustomed to seeing non-Indian "criollos" in high public office, was a member of the Pum6 ethnic group of the Venezuelan llanos...
...Thus, cultural homogeneity is not deemed a prerequisite or the foundation for full citizenship as was the case with prior official indigenist policies...
...3 These culturally destructive "magnets" have burgeoned in indigenous areas...
...This past December, indigenous Venezuelans gained access to one such space...
...RepOblica, Oficina Central de Estadistica e Informdtica, 1995...
...2. Hector Diaz Polanco, Indigenous Peoples in Latin America: The Quest for Self-Determination (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997), p. 71...
...Over time, this stance assumed, that the Indian population could be brought into full membership in "civilized" society...
...Mujeres Indigenas protestan contra el Ej6rcito," La Jornada, April 9, 1996, p. 12...
...2, 1997...
...Indigenous languages are designated a cultural heritage of the nation and of humanity...
...Indians have thus "entered," with President Chivez's blessing, one of the most prominent symbolic sites on the political landscape, the burial place of the country's most revered patriots, including Sim6n Bolfvar...
...121-139...
...Three indigenous representatives were elected to the National Constituent Assembly (ANC), the body that drafted a new constitution in 1999...
...A ceremony took place in which the symbolic remains of the sixteenth century cacique Guaicaipuro, renowned for his battles against the Spaniards, were transferred to the National Pantheon in Caracas...
...In this way Venezuela reached the end of the twentieth century practicing a kind of cultural destruction labeled "ethnophagy"-the devouring of culture-by anthropologist H6ctor Diaz Polanco...
...Though Spanish is declared the official language of the Republic, the document also states that indigenous languages must be respected throughout the country and are official for indigenous peoples...
...Others, however, especially those who lived in more distant areas and under more rustic conditions, had very little idea of what was going on, and others actively mistrusted the process...
...An important example of these is K'inal Antzetik, whose work with women from the National Coordinating Committee of Indigenous Women (CNMI) and other feminist organizations that are part of the National Network of Rural Consultants...
...Since taking office in early 1999, he has presided over a number of significant changes for the indigenous minority-a minority that makes up only 1.5% of the country's population.1 For one thing, there is a new indigenous participation in the country's political life...
...A first election was challenged by several indigenous groups who felt they had not been adequately informed about the election nor properly represented during the meetings that led to the vote...
...three members of the Venezuelan National Assembly are indigenous...
...Having said that, it must be added that the process has not been simple, nor has it met with unanimous approval from the country's indigenous groups-not to mention the criollos...
...When that chapter was being debated, one prominent participant almost swayed the entire assembly against it by emphasizing that the recognition of indigenous pueblos with ample rights would dismember the Venezuelan nation and lead to Indians declaring themselves separate nations...
...These new rights are noteworthy since until the early 1960s, the Venezuelan government, with the Catholic Church as a key ally, held a benign but paternalistic stance toward its indigenous population...
...See R. Aida Hernandez Castillo, "Fratricidal war or Ethnocidal Strategy...
...This devouring of culture, says Diaz Polanco, is achieved via "a collection of sociocultural magnets deployed by the nation-state and the hegemonic apparatus to attract, disarticulate, and dissolve groups that [are] different...
...Womens' Experience with Political Violence in Chiapas," in Victoria Sanford, ed., Engaged Anthropologies, forthcoming, University of Arizona Press, 2002...
...While involvement in national politics unavoidably leads to greater engagement with the non-indigenous world, the new constitution allows for participation within the context of officially recognized cultural differences...
...149-170...
...They have worked collaboratively among Venezuelan indigenous peoples...
...CIMAC, 1999...
...also see Antonio Rafael Boadas, Geografia del Amazonas Venezolano (Caracas: Ariel-Seix Barral, 1983...
...These events and achievements are nothing short of remarkable...
...and an indigenous governor, Liborio Guarulla, heads the state of Amazonas...
...When Chdvez's government indicated that three positions on the ANC would be reserved for indigenous representatives, many Indians welcomed the news...
...The constitution also recognizes the habitats and lands traditionally occupied by indigenous peoples, traditional native medicine (subject to bioethical principles) and indigenous people's right to maintain and develop their cultural identities, values and spirituality...
...During the 1970s, indigenist policy in Venezuela became more complex, but the state still sought cultural homogenization...
...2 Christian missionaries began to function as buffers between the indigenous minorities and the culturally destructive forces unleashed by the state's expansionist plans...
...However, the push and pull generated by so many "sociocultural magnets" exacerbated the fragmentation of individual and collective bonds in many communities...
...CNMI, 1997...
...IWGIA, 2001...
...Many other organizations have followed the work of the pioneer organizations that established dialog with indigenous women...
...Nor was the election of the three indigenous representatives a smooth process...
...In any event, Venezuelan Indians are not advocating separation from the nation but access to spaces and places that were historically off limits to them...
...Over time, several Indian leaders and organizations have gained national and international exposure...
...This indigenism was put into practice in the Mission Law of 1915, designed to "reduce" and "attract to citizenship life" the country's extant Indian tribes and "partialities...
...Today, at least theoretically, the notion of citizenship has been expanded so that one may be culturally different yet still participate and be represented, in national politics...
...3. Diaz Polanco, Indigenous Peoples in Latin America...
...It also helped catapult many Indians into political life in the mid-to-late 1990s...
...These political developments may lead one to believe that Chdvez, like his predecessors, is just drawing indigenous peoples into citizenship and the world of criollos...
...In fact, one of the most heated debates at the ANC took place when Chapter VIII of Title III, spelling out the rights and duties of indigenous peoples, was discussed...
...Indeed, the election was repeated-and the outcome was the same-after the National Electoral Council (CNE) reviewed the complaints and decreed that a second election was necessary...
...The policies emanating from this assumption were based on "liberal evolutionism" and a paternalistic "indigenism...
...Others raised charges of irregularities, partisan manipulation and deliberate confusion in the electoral process...
...R. Aida Herndndez and Olivia Gall, "La Historia Silenciada: el papel de las campesinas indfgenas en las rebeliones coloniales y poscoloniales de Chiapas,"in Patricia Revelo, Debates Actuales en los Estudios de Gcnero (Mexico City: CIESAS, forthcoming, 2002...
...Chdvez also appointed a woman from the Waydu ethnic group of western Venezuela to the Ministry of the Environment, though she is no longer occupying that post...
...On the symbolic level, at least, indigenous Venezuelans have achieved a new degree of national respect...
...This political activism was further galvanized by the Chivez movement, which promised profound change and the emergence of a new nation, the "Fifth Republic...
...This brief survey of feminist organizations' work in rural zones is by no means exhaustive...
...One of the indigenous delegates, Noelf Pocaterra, played a key role during those debates, in which she skillfully incorporated images and words from the Indian and the criollo world and swayed-via much emotion-assembly members to the Indian's side...
...Antonio Rafael Boadas,Geograffa del Amazonas Venezolano...
...r Despite these conflicts, the presence of indigenous representatives proved to be crucial as the ANC debated-and approved-proposals for the recognition of indigenous rights...
...To achieve this goal it encouraged the expansion of its economic frontiers and increasingly "relied.upon the assimilating effects of the multiple forces put into play by the dominant national culture...
...4. Alberto Valdez, "Las empresas indigenas en una estrategia de desarrollo regional," in Omar GonzAlez and Andr6s Serbin, eds.,lndigenismo y Autogesti6n (Caracas: Monte Avila Editores, 1980), pp...
...Sara Lovera and Nelly Palom, Las Alzadas (Mexico City: Ed...
...Likewise, many Indian communities have diversified their economic activities through mining, tourism, and small-scale cooperatives...
...45 Vol XXXV, No 6 May/June 2002 Mexico...
...Gerardo Clarac, 'Los programas indigenas del IAN: Metodologia e implementaci6n," in Omar Gonz61lez and Andr6s Serbin, eds., Indigenismo y Autogesti6n (Caracas: Monte Avila Editores, 1980), pp...
...Indeed, several opponents of the ,A 44 NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 44 NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICASREPORT ON RACE AND IDENTITY new constitution alleged that the document granted too many rights to indigenous peoples, who, in the opponents' view, constituted a small and insignificant segment of the population...
...such high levels of decision-making...
...See Sylvia Marcos, "Mujeres indigenas: Notas sobre un feminismo naciente," in Cuadernos Feministas, Aflo 1, No...
...indigenous peoples had never before been given the opportunity to enter the political arena at Lourdes Giordani and Maria Eugenia Villal6n are anthropolo- gists at the State University of New York at New Paltz and the Central University of Venezuela, respectively...
...While the Indians and their supporters had to curtail many of their initial aspirations, the new constitution acknowledges the existence of indigenous peoples and their communities, as well as their social, political and economic systems of organization...
...Indigenous collective intellectual property rights are also sanctioned and protected...
...4 There, a host of national and international agencies, NGOs and indigenous organizations have started to offer new avenues of information and means of social action...
...R. Aida HernBndez Castillo, The Other Word: Women and Violence in Chiapas (Santa Cruz, Bolivia: Ed...
Vol. 35 • May 2002 • No. 6
