A month ago, AlertaVenezuela warned about the dangerous situation faced by the Uwottüja people, in the area of the four rivers, in the state of Amazonas. In mid-May 2022, the indigenous Pablo Medina was held by drug traffickers for several hours and released at the end of the afternoon, but it was clear that this would not be the last encounter between them.
On June 30, Virgilio Trujillo, 38, a member of the Indigenous Guardians of the Ancestral Territory, was assassinated in Puerto Ayacucho.
The Guardians were trying to dislodge armed groups linked to drug trafficking that have a presence in their territory. “For the first time a threat in so many years materialized. They shot him twice in the head”, said a source that we are keeping confidential.
The nervousness among the Uwottüja people increases, because Trujillo was killed in Puerto Ayacucho on the afternoon of June 30, when he was returning from the territory and the communities of Autana. In other words, he was reached by drug traffickers in the capital of Amazonas state, 85 kilometers from his ancestral territory, which shows the extension of the operation of these irregular groups that act with total impunity.
AlertaVenezuela reiterates the call made a month ago: An eventual negotiation process for the re-institutionalization of Venezuela cannot leave out these dynamics that have turned the south of the country into a lawless territory, with serious and irreversible consequences for indigenous peoples and the environmental degradation of their ancestral territories, which are also a World Heritage Site.
It is urgent that measures be taken to protect the life and territory of the Uwottüja people.