8/13/2019 The Indigenous Question... D _Barreto D. a.
3/5
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
people in the context of Bolivarian government of President Hugo
Chavez.
Keywords Indigenous Bolivarian Chavez
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
Bolivarian government of Hugo Chavez have of indigenous being,
of indigenous
persons, and of indigenous peoples? How much affinity 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 official 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 usesand customs?
On the one hand, the achievements of indigenous groups during 11
years of
Bolivarian government are not only unprecedented, but
unimaginable outside the
presidency of Chavez. On the other hand, due in part to the
deafness and arrogance
of the Bolivarian state, the revolutionary government has failed
indigenous people
in many respects. Chavez has delivered in key ways, but his
policies have been
rather inefficient while his politics have often silenced or
divided indigenous actors.
A few months before he was elected on March 20, 1998, Chavez
signed an act of
commitment, A Pledge to History (Un Compromiso para la
Historia), in whichhe expressed his firm support for the historical
demands of indigenous peoples.
D. J. Barreto (&)
School of Anthropology, Caracas, Venezuela
e-mail: [email protected]
1 3
Dialect Anthropol (2011) 35:261263
DOI 10.1007/s10624-011-9253-7
8/13/2019 The Indigenous Question... D _Barreto D. a.
4/5
Then, during the National Constituent Assembly of 1999,
indigenous peoples
together with their traditional allies1 resisted the assaults of
political parties of the
Right, AD (Accion Democratica), and COPEI (Partido Social
Cristiano), who
denied and stubbornly opposed the recognition of indigenous
rights in the new
Constitution. This confrontation led a good number of Chavez
supporters in theAssembly to make concessions to the Right on
indigenous issues, including land
rights, as well as the right to participate in the decisions and
benefits 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.
Indigenous peoples have supported President Chavez since his
election in 1998,
including a vote of confidence in 2000 and the election in 2006.
They have also
consistently favored Chavista candidates in national, state, and
municipal elections.
At the same time, indigenous support for Chavez is not
unequivocal or uncritical.An embryonic indigenous movement
increasingly questions Chavista slogans
With Chavez, everything, without Chavez, nothingand aspires to
implement the
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 conflicts, confrontations, and acts
of protest on the partof indigenous actors have multiplied as their
concerns have been ignored or
thwarted.
Moreover, the fact that indigenous opposition to Chavez has thus
far been
relatively subdued is due largely to the self-censorship and
censorship of the Chavez
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, municipal-
ities), 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
1 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.
262 D. J. Barreto
1 3
