THE AMAZON (VENEZUELA)
Odosha expelled
by antonio marcano belisario
antoniomarcano(at)gmail.com
On October 12th 2005, day of the Indigenous Resistance,
the president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez Frías decreed
the expulsion from Venezuela of the New Tribes Mission.
“They must leave
Venezuela. They are agents of a real imperialistic penetration. They take away
strategic information and are exploiting the Indians. So they must leave and
I don’t care a bit about the consequences this might cause.”
Not
few people were surprised by this fact.
Some people thought that after so many
years in this country, these evangelical missions might have got such an important
stronghold in the Amazon Rainforest that it couldn’t even be thought
of that they would be expelled from there, whereas for others it turned out
to be strange that something like that could possibly still
be happening in the 21rst century.
Most Venezuelans didn’t know about the existence of these protestant
missions in the states of Bolívar, Delta Amacuro and Amazonas.
Even today, after the decree of expulsion, it keeps being an unknown
issue to lots of people.
Maybe because of the disregard shown especially
by the private media for this subject matter and the lack of a serious
investigation that the “newsmakers” failed to carry out.
The Catholic Church made a pronouncement in this respect.
It praised
the decision although the vicar of Puerto Ayacucho stated that in spite
of all it couldn’t stop being considered a delicate situation.
Since the 70’s the New Tribes had been accused by some indigenous
communities, environmental organizations, anthropologists and intellectuals
of forcefully evangelizing the indigenous population, thus violating
and disrespecting their culture.
They were also accused of carrying out
activities in search of mining prospects as well as of establishing strategic
zones as colonizing enclaves while receiving financial support from Ford,
Westinghouse and war business industries like General Dynamics.
According to information spread by the national press, the New Tribes
owned electricity plants, solar energy, radio system, satellite transmitters,
hangars for aircraft from the company Alas del Socorro (another evangelical
mission whose director, Jaime Bou also directed the New Tribes Mission)
and 29 landing strips without any sort of air control or customs inspection
by the Venezuelan state.
Political, social and geographical context
Amazonas state is a zone full of valuable mineral resources such as gold,
diamonds, iron, tin, uranium, cobalt, aluminum, manganese, bauxite
and it shares its jungle with Colombia and Brazil. 29 ethnic groups
live on its surface of 177,617 square km. which covers a fifth of the
Venezuelan territory.
Until not long ago, these people had never voted
or participated in the political life of Venezuela because they didn’t
represent political vote.
Apparently under the influence of the embassy of the United States of
America the New Tribes Mission succeeded in finding support from some
political representatives of Acción Democrática and
the social Christian political party COPEI that alternatively
ruled Venezuela for 36 years running. Then they also found support from
the Consejo Evangélico Venezolano (Venezuelan Evangelical Council)
since the 70’s.
Who are the New Tribes Mission?
Jaime Bou Consola, former director of the Nuevas Tribus de Venezuela,
didn’t want to talk to us about the organization because he didn’t
feel morally authorized since his expulsion from the organization back
in 1986.
That’s why we resorted to www.ntm.org,
where we found out that the New Tribes Mission was founded in 1941
by reverend Paul Fleming in Sanford, Florida, United States, and that
there exist more than three thousand missions working in countries
like Australia, Indonesia, Senegal, Thailand, The Philippines, New
Guinea, Mongolia, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Panama, Paraguay, Bolivia,
Venezuela, etc.
It is a “non profit” religious organization
that the U.S. government exempts from revealing its finances publicly
through any kind of information.
The purpose of this organization is “to
foster spiritual development, social and educational morality, especially
among the indigenous peoples”.
It is associated with the Summer
Institute of Linguistics -that in turn is part of the Wycliffe Bible
Translator- even though Mr. Bou denies it.
In fact we expected from
him the rejection of every accusation.
We asked Don Dawson -Gary Lee Dawson’s son, vice president
of Mission Padamo- who we met in La Esmeralda together with a Yanomamo
disciple with light coloured eyes.
In 1952, after being in the country for almost 7 years, they asked for
a permission from the national government and they got one valid for
six months.
The following year, the secretary of justice, Luis Felipe
Urbaneja, gave them a time-unlimited authorization to stay in the country
and carry out their missionary activities in the indigenous communities
of the Venezuelan territory.
However, this authorization was “revocable
with a three-month notification when in the judgment of the national
government it could be considered necessary” (Gaceta Oficial,
permission # 1,198 dated August 2nd 1953).
The evangelizing activities included the communities
of the following peoples: Yekuana, Piaroa, Curripaco, Yanomamo, Baniba,
Warao, Guahibo, Hoti and others with whom they worked on the translation
of the Bible into every respective language, with the support given by
the Summer Institute of Linguistics, in order to fulfill the purpose of
translating the “divine
word” into all languages so that at Jesus Christ’s advent there
is not anybody who hasn’t got the Good News.
[To be continued ...for further info please
contact the author or Alex bi.]