[News] Indigenous Land Defender, Fighter Against Colombian Paramilitary Groups, Killed in Venezuela

[Anti-Imperialist News]

orinocotribune.com
<https://orinocotribune.com/indigenous-land-defender-fighter-against-colombian-paramilitary-groups-killed-in-venezuela/>
Indigenous Land Defender, Fighter Against Colombian Paramilitary Groups,
Killed in Venezuela
------------------------------

[image: Graphic showing indigenous land defender Virgilio Trujillo Arana
holding a Venezuelan flag. Photo: ORPIA.]

Graphic showing indigenous land defender Virgilio Trujillo Arana holding a
Venezuelan flag. Photo: ORPIA.

Caracas, July 2, 2022 (OrinocoTribune.com <http://orinocotribune.com/>)—A
Venezuelan indigenous leader, who fought against incursions by Colombian
criminal armed groups and illegal mining groups into the Venezuelan Amazon
region, was shot dead on Thursday afternoon, June 30, in the Escondido 3
sector, Puerto Ayacucho, capital of Amazonas state.

Virgilio Trujillo Arana, 38 years old, member of the Uwottujja indigenous
people, which has a population of approximately 15,000, was the leading
force in the creation of the Sipapo Territorial Guards in Autana
municipality, Amazonas state. He started his activism as a land defender at
a young age, following into the footsteps of his uncles. He was trained as
a territorial indigenous guard with the suport of the Amazonas Indigenous
Peoples’ Regional Organization (ORPIA).

Trujillo was the proponent of the creation of a territorial indigenous
guard during a community assembly a few years ago, as a response to
increasing incursions by illegal mining and the appearance of paramilitary
armed groups in Uwottujja territory. His organization accompanied the
Bolivarian National Armed Force (FANB) in the latest military operations to
expel Colombian paramilitary armed groups (TANCOL) from the Autana
municipality, according to a statement by ORPIA.

RELATED CONTENT: President Maduro Presents Report on Venezuela’s Fight
Against Colombian TANCOL Paramilitaries
<https://orinocotribune.com/president-maduro-presents-report-of-venezuelas-fight-against-colombian-tancol-paramilitaries/>

On Thursday, Trujillo was shot in the head three times by an unidentified
gunman who fled to a waiting vehicle. The land defender had reportedly
received multiple threats because of his work.

Mainstream media and right-wing influencers tried to use the incident to
attack the Orinoco Mining Arc (Arco Minero), a project developed by
President Nicolás Maduro’s administration precisely to control illegal
mining in the region, the terrible environmental effects of illegal
extractivist activites, and to improve the quality of life of local
residents.

Diferentes organizaciones denuncian asesinato de Virgilio Trujillo Arana,
del pueblo Indígena Uwottujja, líder indígena y coordinador de Guardianes
territoriales Uwottujja del municipio Autana, estado Amazonas.
pic.twitter.com/llzUn6lSJE <https://t.co/llzUn6lSJE>

— Luigino Bracci Roa #ArreglenElMetro (@lubrio) July 2, 2022
<https://twitter.com/lubrio/status/1543202760153337859?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>

Mining has been prohibited since 1989 in Venezuela’s southern state of
Amazonas, which is not part of the Arco Minero project, a gold mining zone
of 111,000 sq km created by decree in 2016, located in the northern part of
Bolívar state.

Illegal mining is a plague affecting all the countries in which parts of
the Amazon rain forest lie. This illegal activity also brings with itself
criminal acts such as corruption, human trafficking, drug trafficking, and
criminal armed groups. In the case of Amazonas state, the situation becomes
worse as it borders Colombia as well as the south of Barinas state, where
narco-paramilitary groups have created chaos for years and the Venezuelan
army has been fighting with renovated impetus in the last few months.

RELATED CONTENT: Civic-Military Unity, Empowering the People, and Promoting
Development are Essential for Defeating TANCOL
<https://orinocotribune.com/civic-military-unity-empowering-the-people-and-promoting-development-are-essential-for-defeating-tancol/>

The governor of the Amazonas state, Miguel Rodríguez, from the United
Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), condemned the murder of the Uwottujja
indigenous leader and asked the Attorney General to thoroughly investigate
the assassination.

“We cannot remain silent in the face of such an unfortunate event,” said
the governor. “We cannot allow the murder of a Uwottujja indigenous brother
not to move our deepest feeling against death and violence. We strongly
condemn this act.”

Rodríguez called on the Attorney General’s Office, and the police and
military authorities to thoroughly investigate this situation. “Amazonas
cannot be a territory of outlaws and assassins where these types of
inhumane practices imported from the neighboring country [Colombia]
continue,” he added.
[image: Relatives, friends and colleagues of Virgilio Trujillo Arana, slain
Venezuelan land defender, accompany his funeral cortège, Amazonas state,
Venezuela. Photo: ORPIA.]Relatives, friends and colleagues of Virgilio
Trujillo Arana, slain Venezuelan land defender, accompany his funeral
cortège, Amazonas state, Venezuela. Photo: ORPIA.

ORPIA posted on its Facebook page images from the funeral of Virgilio
Trujillo Arana, showing family members, relatives, friends and supporters
carrying his mortal remains to his final resting place after authorities
released his corpse from the morgue.

By instruction of President Nicolás Maduro, the Bolivarian National Armed
Force (FANB) remains deployed in the border states, including Amazonas, to
dismantle clandestine tracks, drug trafficking routes and laboratories
built and used by the TANCOL.

Special for Orinoco Tribune by staff

OT/JRE/SC
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