Jesuit on Hunger Strike

Photo: Demotix

José María Korta, an eighty-one year old Jesuit priest, has completed the first week of his hunger strike outside the Venezuelan National Assembly.  He is there to bring attention to the Venezuelan government's failure to address the needs and rights of indigenous groups in the country.

According to Nelson Gonzalez Leal on Demotix,

Korta requires that the Venezuelan government complies with the Constitution, the Organic Law of Indigenous Peoples and Communities and the Convention 169 of the International Labour Organization, in terms of territorial rights and jurisdiction to indigenous communities.

The problem of demarcation of indigenous lands in Venezuela from the presence of interests of some sectors of government and the industrial livestock sector, who planned the construction of a multimodal transportation system on indigenous territory.

This project was opposed by the Yukpa and Wayuu indigenous groups, whose leaders were arrested and jailed, to be tried by ordinary courts, when the Venezuelan Constitution and the Law of Indigenous Peoples and Communities state that these trials should be conducted under the principles of indigenous jurisdiction.