From: Nigel.Allen@bbs.oit.unc.edu (Nigel Allen)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Venezuela: Indigenous Tribes, Historical Victims of Epidemics
Date: 12 Sep 92 04:16:08 GMT
Organization: Echo Beach


 (from Peacenet, via misc.activism.progressive, which is a particularly
interesting newsgroup)

Subject: IPS: Venezuelan Natives Victimized

/* ---------- "IPS: Venezuelan Natives Victimized" ---------- */
/* Escrito 12:10 am  Aug 29, 1992 por newsdesk en cdp:ips.englibrary */
/* ---------- "VENEZUELA: INDIGENOUS TRIBES, HISTO" ---------- */
Copyright Inter Press Service 1992, all rights reserved.  Permission to re-
print within 7 days of original date only with permission from
'newsdesk@igc.org'.

Reference: Third World Dvpmnt
Title: VENEZUELA: INDIGENOUS TRIBES, HISTORICAL VICTIMS OF EPIDEMICS

An inter press service feature

by Carmen Alicia Fernandez

Caracas, aug (ips) -- a resurgence in tropical diseases has
decimated venezuela's indigenous tribes, historical victims of
''western'' epidemics.

For the past 500 years, venezuela's indigenous people have
been confronting their deadliest enemy -- diseases brought to the
continent by european colonialists and their descendants.

According to romulo brito, of the extinct chaimas tribe, these
foreign diseases have played a major role in reducing venezuela's
indigenous population from several million to barely 200,000.

''October 12, 1492 was the day gonorrhoea arrived'' and with
it a flood of ills previously unknown on the continent that
continue to plague us, brito said.

Cholera, the most recent plague affecting venezuela's
indigenous people, is thriving in the country's seafood and
marine products, the primary source of food and income for the
coastal and river indigenous communities.

One year after the arrival of cholera in venezuela, 80 percent
of the 2,000 people infected have been indigenous, and the number
threatens to rise dramatically due to poor sanitary conditions in
the native communities.

While today cholera is claiming the lives amongst the wuayuu
and warao tribes at an alarming rate, cancer, tuberculosis,
''dengue fever,'' and various venereal diseases continue to
ravage venezuela's indigenous population.

Jose Seripino, of the Yanomami tribe, told ips, ''we have been
afraid, but we can no longer watch our brothers die from foreign
diseases.''

In the past three years, over two thousand yanomami have died
from a variety of fatal illnesses.

However, according to beatriz hernandez, a doctor working
along sinamaica lake, home to 80 percent of the country's
indigenous population, the indigenous people's own customs are
the primary obstacle.

''According to Wuayuu culture, the water in the lake is never
settled and always moving, which justifies their practice of
throwing garbage and sewage into it,'' she said.

''It would never enter their minds that the lake and marine
animals could represent a danger.  YThey are children of the
water'' and intrinsically tied to the lake, Hernandez said.

The problem is similar amongst many indigenous tribes.

For example, the Warao live in the swampy delta of the Orinoco
river and their culture is dependent on the jungle canals.

This month, the Warao celebrated a ''crab feast,'' in
celebration of the year's bountiful harvest.

''But an evil spirit came bringing death and killing the
priest,'' the tribe members said.

Luis Latuff, coordinator of sanitary actions to fight cholera
in the warao communities, said that controlling the disease in
the region was virtually impossible.

We are completely unprotected, representative of the western
bari tribe, Gabriel Abea complained, saying that since the
arrival of cholera in the region, health officials have shown a
total lack of concern for the native population.

A report by the simon bolivar centre for the study and
investigation of tropical diseases states that some 50,000
indigenous people in the venezuelan amazon basin are carriers of
the oncocercosis bacteria.

Because of their lifestyle, the entire population is liable to
be bitten by transmitting mosquitoes, and could face permanent
blindness within 20 years.

According to abea, ''the 'whites' of this century do not carry
arms.  Now they use mercury to search for gold and poison our
rivers. they use and dynamite and chainsaws to harvest our
minerals and trees and kill our medicinal plants.''

Pointing to the venezuelan exhibit at the world exposition in
seville, abea said, ''while we are dying, they show films of our
customs and pride themselves on being a truely mixed and
integrated country.'' (end/ips/sp/trd/caf/sfi/eli/92)
----


** End of text from cdp:reg.samerica **


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