After a massive march on the bridge over the Limón River, between the municipalities of Mara and Guajira, to commemorate 533 years of Indigenous resistance, on October 12, the five Indigenous Peoples of Zulia state, led by Governor Luis Caldera, made a declaration of permanent firmness in the face of a new imperial invasion driven by the US government.
Along with leading men and women, caciques(indigenous chiefs), and palabreros from the Añú, Japreria, Yukpa, Barí, and Wayuu peoples, Governor Caldera stated that the Indigenous peoples are in permanent resistance and reaffirmed to the presidents of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro Moros, and Colombia, Gustavo Petro, the support of the Indigenous peoples and their decision to overcome in honor of Chávez, Bolívar, Nigale, and Yaurepara: «This people has marched to tell the world that Venezuela is to be respected and we will defend it,» declared the governor of Zulia state.
Caldera highlighted several key points on behalf of his people, first and foremost the activation of the Bolivarian Indigenous Shield on the Zulia border, as well as the Indigenous Militia in the state’s 21 municipalities, under a popular-military-police alliance and at the command of the Commander-in-Chief President of the Republic, Nicolás Maduro Moros.
They also declared themselves as Guardians of Mother Earth, conceived not as a matter of ownership, but rather as a matter of preserving life on the planet. Another point was their rejection of the racist, patriarchal, and discriminatory structures that still persist in public and private organizations in Venezuelan society, and their commitment to continue resisting, based on their ancestral culture, to revitalize their languages, medicine, traditions, spirituality, and organizational system.
Another point the regional leader emphasized was their repudiation of the imperial award granted to those who have declared war on the Indigenous peoples, those who fomented division, guarimba (riots) and invasion.
Governor Caldera stated that the Venezuelan people, Indigenous people, grandparents, and workers must deepen their education in the recognition and pride of Indigenous origins and the confirmation that the struggle of Indigenous peoples will be for justice, sovereignty, peace, and a multipolar world with warrior caciques.
Caldera decreed that «Today more than ever, in the active memory of this land from La Guajira, where the Homeland is born, we say to the world: Venezuela and Colombia (are) united in indigenous resistance.»