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Thirteen Bari Indians of the Sierra de Perijá mountains in
western Venezuela attended an historic hearing at the Supreme Court in
Caracas last week, to defend their right to own their ancestral land.

Venezuelan
law guarantees indigenous peoples the right to own their land and the
Constitution stipulates that all indigenous land must be demarcated by
2001. However, the Bari are still waiting for their land title to be
granted.

It was the first time that the Bari have been allowed
to speak at such a hearing, despite having pushed the courts to listen
to them for the past ten years.

At last week’s hearing, a Bari
leader said, "Sabaseba, our god, ordered us to look after our
mountains. The land of Venezuela is Sabaseba’s home. The Court must
protect it, as well as our human rights."

The verdict of the hearing is yet to be delivered.

The Bari Indigenous Reserve, where most of the Bari live, is now being invaded by miners, loggers and drug traffickers.

The
lives and livelihoods of the Bari are threatened as these outsiders are
bringing diseases such as tuberculosis to the area, as well as
destroying the forest and polluting the rivers, which threatens the
fish and animals upon which the Bari rely for their survival. They also
incite violence, and attack and harass the Bari, often linking them to
the drugs trade.

One Bari man has been detained in prison for
five months after he and two other Bari were arrested by the National
Guard, taken across the border to Colombia, tortured and made to pose
as drug-dealers for photographs.

The Bari man does not have
proper access to lawyers or to an interpreter, which is in violation of
the Venezuelan constitution. It is reported that his health is in a
fragile state.

Speaking about the arrested man, one Bari leader
said, "He is innocent. The whole community is witness to that. You are
draining us of our blood and our life."

Survival has raised the
issue with the Venezuelan government and asked for his immediate
release, as the authorities have not provided any credible evidence to
justify his arrest and detention.