Following the murder of indigenous Yukpa leader Sabino Romero three weeks ago, a committee of 17 Yukpa met yesterday with the minister for foreign affairs, Elias Jaua, who promised to make payments so their lands could be inhabited by them.
The assassination of indigenous Yukpa chief Sabino Romero on Saturday 3 March has led to public criticisms of the Venezuelan government’s handling of the land rights conflict in the Sierra de Perijá region.
Indigenous Yupka chief and land rights activist Sabino Romero has been assassinated in an act which has generated public repudiation from social movements and the Venezuelan government alike. A high profile investigation into the killing has been launched.
The Venezuelan government has announced that it will hold an assembly with the Yukpa indigenous group in order to resolve the ongoing conflict over land rights in the western region of Perijá.
More than sixty members of the Venezuelan indigenous ethnic group Yukpa arrived to the capital city on Wednesday to demand a resolution to ongoing violence and aggression from cattle ranchers on indigenous lands near the Colombian border.
Close to 2,000 representatives of communities from all over Venezuela arrived in Caracas last Monday to participate in the country’s 7th National Cultural Diversity Conference.
A massacre of up to 80 Yanomami indigenous people has taken place in the Venezuelan state of Amazonas, according to claims emerging from the region, prompting the government to send in investigators.
The Venezuelan government granted 27 land titles to indigenous peoples in Amazonas, Anzoátegui and Monagas states, to coincide with celebrations for International Indigenous Peoples Day on Thursday.
Venezuelan activist website Aporrea has reported the murder of Yukpa-Wayuu activist Alexander Fernandez Fernandez and two others, who were leaders and members of the Yukpa movement fighting for their land in Zulia state, Machiques de Perija municipality.
Members of several Venezuelan indigenous communities accompanied the ethnic Pemon people outside the German embassy in Caracas last Thursday to demand the return of their "Kueka Stone", a holy monument of spiritual value to the native peoples.
A New Zealand governmental delegation attending the 126th Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Assembly in Kampala, Uganda, met with members of Parliament from Venezuela to share experiences and discuss tangible ways to increase the political participation of indigenous peoples.
The president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, signed on Monday the decrees to enact the Debt Law 2012, the reform to the Medicine Practice Law, the Organic Law against Racial Discrimination, and the Law on the Rational and Efficient Use of Energy.
This past Wednesday, the Venezuelan government returned over 15,800 hectares of ancestral lands to the indigenous Yukpa people, as the country celebrated “Indigenous Resistance Day” with public events and marches across the country.
