Caracas (theassemblymedia.com) — Venezuela commemorated Indigenous Resistance Day on Monday, honoring Indigenous identity and centuries of resistance to Spanish colonial rule.
Commemorations included a session at Caracas’ Municipal Council and a cultural program at Plaza Venezuela, near a monument to Indigenous leaders and warriors Guaicaipuro, Urimare, and Tiuna. Indigenous representatives from across the country took part and laid flowers at the monument.
“Five hundred and thirty-four years after the invasion by the Spanish Empire, we say that we are still resisting, still working without forgetting our identity or where we come from,” Caracas Mayor Carmen Menéndez said.
Acting President Delcy Rodríguez, who was attending the World Food Forum at the Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome, marked the day on social media. “On Indigenous Resistance Day, we honor our ancestors, who bravely defended their lands, culture, and freedom against the Spanish colonial invasion,” she wrote. “Their struggle is a living memory, and their legacy is a source of pride in our Venezuelan identity.”
President Nicolás Maduro also sent a message from the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, where he has been held since January after his abduction during a US military operation. He is facing US charges of alleged “narcoterrorism.” His lawyers argue that the charges lack evidence and violate his immunity as a sitting head of state, and are seeking their dismissal. Maduro’s wife, congresswoman Cilia Flores, is also detained in Brooklyn, where her health has severely deteriorated, according to her attorneys.
“Cilia and I, proud of our Carib heritage, send you our greetings and our usual embrace on this special day, when our Indigenous peoples of the Americas uphold the values of more than five centuries of perseverance in the pursuit of life, freedom, and happiness,” Maduro wrote on his Telegram channel. His son, lawmaker Nicolás Maduro Guerra, has said that his father relays messages to him by phone for publication on social media.
Maduro also honored Guaicaipuro and other Indigenous leaders for their resistance to colonial rule. “Today, more than ever, we say: We are all Guaicaipuro. We are all Urimare. They are us,” he said.
In 2002, then-President Hugo Chávez renamed the October 12 commemoration, previously known as Columbus Day, Indigenous Resistance Day. The change was intended to replace a colonial perspective with recognition of Indigenous communities’ histories and struggles, and their place in Venezuela’s cultural, political, gastronomic, and socioeconomic life.
The 1999 Constitution, adopted under Chávez, recognized Indigenous peoples’ customs, traditions, cultures, languages, and religions. It also affirmed their rights to collective ownership of ancestral lands and to identity documents. Indigenous communities continue to press for the full implementation of those constitutional rights.
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