Venezuela’s socialist regime held a rally in Caracas on Sunday to celebrate this year’s “Day of Indigenous Resistance,” a made-up holiday that erases the legacy of Italian explorer Christopher Columbus and the Spanish monarchy that backed him.
Dictator Nicolás Maduro called for indigenous people to defend his narco-socialist regime against the “threats” of the United States.
For 81 years, Venezuela historically marked October 12 as Día de la Raza (“Day of the Race”) to commemorate Columbus’ Spain-backed arrival in the Americas in 1492 and “the meeting of two worlds,” which allowed for the creation of the Hispanic ethnic group. The holiday was formally established in Venezuela in 1921 under the government of President Juan Vicente Gómez.
Much like several other Latin American nations ruled by leftist governments, the holiday has been replaced to erase the legacy of Columbus and the “colonization” of the region in centuries past. In 2002, during the first years of his rule, late socialist dictator Hugo Chávez signed a decree replacing Día de la Raza with the “Day of Indigenous Resistance.” Chávez’s decree was one of the first major actions that the socialist regime in Venezuela undertook throughout the following two decades to “decolonize” the country.
Two years later, in 2004, a mob of Venezuelan socialists “prosecuted” a statue of Columbus that once existed in Caracas for his “colonizer” crimes. The statue was “convicted,” toppled, and later replaced with one of Guaicaipuro, a historic Venezuelan indigenous chieftain from the 16th century.
Presently, the Maduro regime formally refers to October 12 as the “Day of Indigenous Resistance and Decolonization of the Americas.” On Sunday, dictator Nicolás Maduro led his regime’s official rally to mark the 533 years of “Indigenous Resistance.” According to VTV, the regime’s main propaganda outlet, the dictator proclaimed himself to be a “son of Guaicaipuro.”
“We Venezuelans are called the fire-eaters. Let the imperialists know that we are the people of the fire-eaters, and they will never be able to defeat us, either by fair means or foul. Colonialist imperialism will never be able to defeat the fire-eating people, we who are the heirs of this Caribbean lineage, warrior-like, indomitable, invincible, and indestructible,” Maduro said.
“I am Nicolás Maduro, a strong-armed Indian, son of Guaicaipuro. Today it rained, thundered, and neither the rain nor the thunder could dampen the energy of a people determined to be free. Here we are in rebellious Caracas, home of the Indian ancestors who left their mark forever: the City of Caracas, Caribs of blood and lineage,” he added at another point of the event.
Socialist indigenous lawmakers reportedly delivered a document to Maduro during the event to denounce the United States “imperial threat” allegedly stemming from the U.S. military’s ongoing drug-fighting efforts in Caribbean international waters and with “nuclear weapons that put the peace of Venezuela and the entire region at risk.”
Maduro, wearing an indigenous feather hat and holding a bow and arrow, ordered the Bolivarian Armed forces to “expand” the Indigenous Militia and mobilize Venezuelan indigenous communities to defend the country against the “threats” of the United States. Maduro has repeatedly claimed throughout the past weeks that the United States’ drug-fighting efforts in Caribbean waters are allegedly part of a purported plan to “invade” Venezuela and oust him from power.
Maduro also suggested the creation of a “Internationalist Militia Brigades of the indigenous peoples of our South America to come and defend Venezuela if necessary.”
“We have a duty to defend the truth. We ask our ancestors to continue filling us with their strength and blessings. We are a deep-rooted people, indigenous, and above all, we are the future. Because the sons and daughters of Guaicaipuro embody the decolonization of the homeland,” Maduro wrote on Instagram.
The Maduro regime also marked October 12 with other “indigenous resistance” events throughout Caracas to “vindicate the historic struggle of indigenous peoples against European colonization.” Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores inaugurated a new statue of Guaicaipuro and his wife, Chieftain Urquía, near the Francisco Fajardo highway, one of Caracas’s most important freeways.
The highway, which was originally named after Fajardo, a conquistador son of a Spanish captain and a Venezuelan indigenous woman, was “decolonized” and renamed by Maduro in 2020 to “Great Chief Guaicaipuro, Chief of Chiefs Highway.”
The Maduro regime also marked its “Indigenous Resistance” day with a new episode of Súper Bigote (“Super Mustache”), Nicolás Maduro’s superhero alter ego. In the episode, the cartoon version of Maduro condemns “an invasion and the greatest looting in history.”
“From the Bolivarian Revolution, we have been fighting for their rights, their territories, their customs, and, above all, their languages. Because every indigenous language is a universe of thought, a way of seeing the world that we must protect as the living heritage of our homeland,” the cartoon Maduro says. “October 12 is resistance, people, origin, and revolution, knowing that with God’s help and together, we will prevail.”
Despite Maduro claiming the purported banners of “indigenous resistance” and the socialists’ purported “support” of indigenous people’s rights, the Venezuelan socialist regime has an extensive track record of mistreating and attacking Venezuela’s indigenous communities. In 2019, colectivo socialist armed thugs reportedly opened fire on members of the Venezuelan Pemón indigenous community who peacefully protested against the regime, leaving at least four dead and 20 injured.
The Maduro regime’s predatory Orinoco Mining Arc mass mining project has been widely accused of devastating the environment and destroying the homes of indigenous communities. In 2020, a United Nations investigation found that criminal gangs controlled some of the Arc’s gold, diamond, and bauxite mines. The gangs were found to “exploit, beat, and even kill workers” while the Maduro regime’s military forces failed to prevent the crimes — and in some cases, actively participated in them.
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