Juan Guaidó demanded justice for indigenous people killed in a clash with Venezuelan military

The Venezuelan interim president Juan Guaidó demanded justice on Wednesday and that responsibilities be “established” for the deaths of four Yanomami Indians, in a alleged confrontation between members of this ethnic group and military officials in Puerto Ayacucho, Amazonas State, in the south of the country.

“We stand in solidarity with the Yanomami ethnic group, we demand justice and that accountability be established for this atrocity. But we know that this is part of a larger problem whose solution is to recover democracy and freedom in Venezuela,” Guaidó said on his Twitter account.

The NGO Fundaredes denounced on Tuesday the death of the four indigenous people, the result of a “confrontation” that took place last Sunday, March 20, between members of that ethnic group and military personnel of the Air Force in Parima B.

“We urge the Venezuelan State to investigate the clash on March 20 between Yanomani Indians and Air Force soldiers in Parima B, Alto Orinoco municipality in Amazonas state, where four indigenous people died and others were injured,” Fundaredes said on the same social network.

Regarding the facts, Guaidó denounced the vulnerability in which these ethnic groups live in Venezuelan territory, as a result, in his opinion, of the “ethnocide in the Arco Minero, the dispute over the control of illegal mining that has displaced indigenous people and the presence of irregular groups to which they are vulnerable.”

“To honor our indigenous peoples is not to dedicate a day to them or use them for propaganda; it is to respect their dignity, rights and territory and that they are not massacred as tragically happened with four Yanomamis by military personnel in the Amazon,” he said.

In this regard, on Wednesday, the Attorney General of Venezuela, Tarek William Saab, reported that his office will begin an investigation into the denunciation of this alleged confrontation between indigenous people and military officials.

“The national prosecutor 91 in indigenous matters and prosecutor 4 for human rights have been appointed in Amazonas, to investigate jointly with experts from the Criminal and Criminal Scientific Investigations Corps (CICPC), denunciation of confrontation between Yanomami indigenous people and military officials,” the prosecutor said on Twitter.

Saab explained that both prosecutors went to the community of Parima B in the Alto Orinoco municipality of Amazonas state, together with a police commission and “experts”, to do the expertise and determine responsibilities.

(With information from EFE)

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