The review of the Memories and Accounts of the Ministry of Popular Power for Indigenous Peoples, an entity created in 2007 during the presidency of Hugo Chávez, made it possible to verify that the delivery of basic necessities, such as hammocks, school supplies and tools for agricultural activities, decreased 66,3% between 2012 and 2014

Caracas.- Neglected indigenous communities. One of the public policies of the Ministry of Popular Power for Indigenous Peoples is to respond to the needs of populations of different ethnic groups that are in a situation of extreme vulnerability. However, the delivery of basic necessities reached fewer beneficiaries. According to official information available in the ministry's management reports, the number of beneficiaries fell by 80,5% between 2012 and 2016.

The review of information from the office, currently directed by Aloha Núñez, named on January 4, 2018 in Official Gazette No. 41.313, indicates that in 2012 the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples assisted 90.740 people of different ethnic groups from six states of the country; while in 2016, the latest official data available, only 17.605 had received aid to meet their priority needs.

The verification of reports was carried out by the team of Vendata, a collaborative data opening project led by the Venezuelan Press and Society Institute (IPYS Venezuela) and Transparencia Venezuela.

Just as the number of indigenous people served was reduced, the amount of basic necessities provided to the native communities also decreased. According to the available data, in 2012 59.049 materials and other inputs were delivered, and in 2014 19.876 were delivered, with a drop of 66,3% in two years.

The Ministry for Indigenous Peoples set as its goal the annual delivery of hammocks, mosquito nets, personal hygiene products, school supplies, including implements for agricultural and fishing activities, and kitchen equipment and utensils, within the framework of the implementation of the social program "My well-equipped house" that the Government created in in 2010, when Hugo Chávez was president.

Although until 2014 there was a decrease in the delivery of inputs, it is not certain what amount was supplied in 2015 and 2016 because it is not reflected in the ministry's management reports for those years. In the 2016 document, the last one published by the office, only the number of people benefited from this public policy is indicated.

The essential supplies were delivered to indigenous populations in the states of Amazonas, Apure, Bolívar, Delta Amacuro, Sucre and Zulia. Between 2013 and 2016, communities from the states of Anzoátegui and Monagas were included, as well as other towns in Zulia, such as those settled in the south of Lake Maracaibo. The data shows that, between 2012 and 2014, the number of communities served increased from 309 to 483. In other words, 56,3% more ethnic groups benefited in two years.

“The deterioration of the aid from the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples is just a slight evidence of what we really perceive,” emphasizes Juan Carlos La Rosa, human rights defender and co-founder member of the Wainjirawa organization.
La Rosa assures that there is no social program that has been designed in agreement with the indigenous communities and, on the contrary, the deliveries made by the Government are due to “clientelist” reasons. “They only make consignments on electoral eves or when they want to fake a consultation or seek approval from the indigenous communities.”

Aid, at some point, generated dependency. In the case of the Yukpa ethnic group in Perijá, Zulia state, the absence and granting for patronage purposes has generated deterioration in health and hunger, and has deepened massive displacements. Aid was never really conceived as a right, but as an instrument of the State to exercise control in the communities. The State's policy sought to make us more dependent and subordinate, and to weaken our ancestral identity and our own institutions”, he explains.

The State's inability to meet the needs of indigenous peoples occurs in a context of humanitarian crisis, accentuated mainly by the shortage of food and medicine and the deterioration of health services, which have hit the native communities. Malnutrition and the increase in people affected by diseases such as HIV and measles, especially in the settlements of Delta Amacuro and Amazonas, have forced more indigenous people to abandon their lands and migrate to border countries, such as Brazil.

The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), for example, has reported that at least 64 indigenous ethnic groups from the states of Amazonas and Delta Amacuro died from measles in 2018, although reports from the Kapé Kapé Indigenous Rights Observatory indicate that more than 100 have died from that infectious disease of viral origin; and others have lost their lives due to malnutrition.

La Rosa points out that indigenous peoples are also limited in accessing inputs, food and medicines due to the transport and fuel crisis, even due to the siege of "mafias" in which he assures security officials are involved, who have harassed communities and forced to move to other territories. In his opinion, the State has lost control to counteract these groups.