Who the Pemones are and how they live in rebellion against the government of Nicolás Maduro in one of the most remote areas of Venezuela

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"Here we are the government," says one of the men armed with bow and arrows who watch among the group of indigenous people who have taken control of the airport of Santa Elena de Uairén, near the southern border of Venezuela with Brazil. .
They are Pemones, the people that inhabit the lands of Gran Sabana and Canaima National Park, a large protected natural area in southeastern Venezuela, and that weeks ago rose up in a general rebellion against the government of Nicolás Maduro.

The Pemones have lived for centuries in accordance with their laws and customs in this land that has wonders such as the Angel Falls, the highest waterfall in the world and one of the most recognizable postcards of Venezuela, and with great mineral wealth.
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But on December 8, the indigenous people made headlines after a turbulent episode.
The local press reported the death of the young Pemón Charly Peñaloza, 21 years old, killed in the area of the El Arenal camp, next to the Carrao River, by a command of the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM).

According to the local media account, Peñaloza fell when he defended other Indians attacked with war weapons by an undercover operative in which, in addition to the DGCIM, participated media from the National Electric Corporation (Corpoelec), the Venezuelan electricity company.

                                         

The locals ended up reducing the officials thanks to their numerical superiority and captured some of them.
They also took the weapons and explosives carried by the assailants.
The Pemon leaders describe Peñaloza's death as "murder", a description shared by Amnesty International, which has demanded the end of government attacks against indigenous communities.

It was not until the 12th when President Maduro framed what happened in "the fight against illegal mining that has done terrible damage in the Canaima National Park" and assured that "there are armed groups that have managed to infiltrate some Indian communities."
But there is not only an ecological interest.

Given the decline of its oil sector and the impact of US sanctions, Maduro says Venezuela's beaten economy will resist thanks to the exploitation of its mineral wealth.
In 2016, he decreed the creation of the Orinoco Minera Minero Strategic Development Zone, with which his government seeks an alternative in the mines of this vast area, which extends to the border with Guyana to the east and with that of Brazil to the south. , and in which, in addition to gold, iron, bauxite, diamonds and coltan abound.

                                       
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Maduro has signed agreements with Turkey in the last two years to send Venezuelan gold there and prevent it from being immobilized by other states because of the sanctions.
Several voices in favor of the conservation of nature have warned that the uncontrolled mining operations that have proliferated in recent years threaten not only the Orinoco basin, but also the paradise inhabited by the Pemones, three million hectares of pure nature recognized as a World Heritage Site by Unesco, where the famous tepuis, one of the oldest and most unique geological formations of the Earth.