Since 2003, the Venezuelan State considers the treatment of Latin American Indigenous peoples during theSpanish colonization as "genocide".[1]
In 2006 theBrazilian justice called theHaximu massacre against 16 inhabitantsYanomami on the Brazil-Venezuela border a "genocide", the only legal case in both countries whose verdict has been named with that term.[2]
ColonelTomás Funes, known as theDevil of Río Negro,[3] enslaved Indigenous inhabitants of the area. There are records that record the death of some 2,000makiritare Indigenous inhabitants due to their repressive actions between 1913 and 1921.[4]
TheHaximu massacre, also known as theYanomami massacre, was an armed conflict inBrazil in 1993. The conflict occurred just outsideHaximu, Brazil, near theVenezuelan border, beginning in mid-June[5] or July[6] of 1993. Sixteen[5]Yanomami people were killed by a group ofgarimpeiros, orgold miners whomine the land illegally.
In the first attack, the garimpeiros killed four or five young men of the Yanomami Haximu-teri. In response, the natives made two raids against the miners, killing at least two of them and wounding two more.[5] Following this raid, thegarimpeiros attacked again, killing about 12 Yanomami (almost all of them elderly, youths or infants)[5] and burned down the Haximu village.[6]
The term "spiritual conquest" exists and has been used to refer to the religious indoctrination exercised by secular religious orders in Venezuela towards the Indigenous inhabitants.[7]
During thedictatorship of Juan Vicente Gómez the Indigenous communities were stripped of their lands, according toEduardo Galeano.[8]
According to theUnited Nations Commission on Human Rights, "comparable pressures from Venezuela have also driven indigenous people from their traditional lands" to places where they simply "disappear".[9]
Luisa Ortega Díaz, who was attorney general of the nation during the third presidency of Hugo Chávez and the first of Nicolás Maduro, denounced in 2018 that in Venezuela "there is agenocide, a deliberate plan by Maduro, Chávez's heir, to exterminate the population and those who do not submit, do not subordinate themselves; they persecute, theyannihilate or force them to leave the country".[10]
Antonio Flores, mayor of the islands and coast of Tierra Firme, ordered the hanging ofcacique Melchor, of theGulf of Cariaco and current Guayana, as well as the murder of Coriana, an indigenous woman. TheCarib, Tagar, and Aruaca Indigenous peoples confronted theSpanish Empire in arebellion inCumaná in 1520, which lasted six days, burning the missions of theFranciscan andDominican orders, and murdering in revenge 14 Spanish crew members and several captains, with their fleets, which numbered more than 50 men, in addition of two Dominican friars. The Spanish inhabitants ofCubagua andMargarita fled toisland of Hispaniola.[11]
In Venezuela, thedictatorship of Juan Vicente Gómez, with apositivist tendency, declaredOctober 12 asDía de la Raza in 1921, also celebrating the so-calleddiscovery of America until 2002. Over the years this name became perceivedracist. In 2002 theNational Assembly changed its name to the currentDay of Indigenous Resistance, taking into consideration the multiethnic character of the nation and thedecolonization. In Spain, in contrast, October 12 is celebrated as theNational Day of Spain since 1892, with military parades.[12]
In 2003, PresidentHugo Chávez declared: “Christopher Columbus was the leader of aninvasion that produced not a massacre but agenocide. Ninety million aborigines lived on this land, 200 years laterthree million remained. What was that? A genocide".[1]
In 2021, PresidentNicolás Maduro declared: "We ask KingPhilip to change his position against historical cases and apologize for the 300-year genocide against indigenous peoples on the American continent", similar to presidentAndrés Manuel López Obrador's request forMexico in 2019.[13]
In 2022, the Maduro government installed a "commission for the clarification of the historical truth, justice and reparation regarding colonial rule and its consequences" and to "demand justice and reparation from Spain,Portugal and all ofEurope forLatin America".[14]
