More than a year ago, Citgo Petroleum Corp., an oil company owned by the Venezuelan government, offered to sell home heating oil at a deep discount to American Indian tribes.
When Citgo representatives came to the Pacific Northwest, tribes in Alaska were eager to accept their offer. Tribal leaders said they were astonished that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a vocal enemy of the U.S. government, would make such an offer.
“This has been one of the best things we’ve ever done for our tribe,” said James Sappier of the Penobscot Nation in Maine. Tribal leaders from Alaska to New York echoed Sappier’s gratitude.
Venezuelan representatives call the oil program an extension of Chavez’s concern for indigenous groups in his own country.
An early hallmark of Chavez’s government was a vast rewrite of Venezuela’s constitution, in which land that had long been parceled out was promised back to indigenous groups.
There are new organizations dedicated to preserving the cultures and natural resources of native groups, and their dialects have been elevated as recognized languages, alongside Spanish, the country’s primary tongue.
The changes have caught the attention of American Indian tribal leaders in the United States.
Each season, more groups of tribal leaders tour Venezuela to see for themselves whether Chavez’s “Bolivarian Revolution” has truly benefited the country’s indigenous people.
Meanwhile, tribal leaders in the Pacific Northwest recently signed a treaty they hope will one day contain signatures of indigenous leaders from around the world. Alan Parker, a treaty author and director of the Northwest Indian Applied Research Institute, said the document is a framework designed to pull indigenous groups together for protection of their land and cultures.
The treaty was signed at a tribal gathering on the Lummi Nation Reservation near Bellingham just weeks before a federal district court judge ruled in favor of the region’s tribes in a lawsuit against the state of Washington.
The tribes charged the state with destroying salmon runs by failing to maintain culverts, the stream channels that thread beneath highways and roads. Tribal leaders say the lawsuit is the first in a wave that could ultimately return ownership of the environment to tribes — a change Chavez claims he’s engineered for indigenous groups in Venezuela.
Today, Herald reporter Krista Kapralos will travel to Venezuela on a fellowship with the International Reporting Project at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C. For nearly six weeks, she’ll travel around the country to find out whether Chavez’s promises have been fulfilled, and whether American Indian tribal leaders will find value in using Venezuela’s plan as a model for their own fight to protect their land and culture.
Readers can participate in this trip by reading “View from Venezuela,” Kapralos’ blog, at www.heraldnet.com/viewfromvenezuela. Her stories will appear early next year.
Reporter Krista J. Kapralos: 425-339-3422 or kkapralos@heraldnet.com.
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