Reply #2: The small map shows the Colombia side of the Perijá mountain range (pink) at the NE

[Peace Patriot]

corner of Colombia. The Yukpa land grant is on the Venezuelan side of that border--at the NW corner of Venezuela (the big map). The Perijá range is NW of the green line showing the Andes Mts. and Lake Maracaibo. The indigenous land grants are NW of Lake Maracaibo. The two maps together show you the entire Perijá range, a snaky-looking (my first thought was swordfish) strip of mountains (pink in the little map) that enters NW Venezuela (green on the big map) way up in the corner. The indigenous land grants from Venezuela are on the border of the two countries, in the Perijá mountains (the state of Zulia on the Venezuelan side; Cesar on the Colombian side). You'd have to put the maps of the two countries together to see the whole range as one, and to clearly see the border (land grants on the Venezuelan side of that border in the mountains).

Zulia is very volatile state, politically--home ground of fascist plotters who want to secede from Venezuela, and gain control of Venezuela's main oil reserves in that region. There is evidence that they have colluded with the Colombian military on such plotting (with the US/Bushwhacks likely involved as well). They are somewhat akin to the white separatists in the eastern provinces of Bolivia, where Bolivia's main gas resources are located, who wanted to secede from Bolivia's leftist government, and thus gain control of Bolivia's main resource, and tried to, last September, with the Bushwhacks' help. Bolivia, a largely indigenous country, now has an indigenous president, and the racism of the white separatists is endemic. i don't think the racism is quite as widespread as a motivation for brutality in Zulia, because there simply aren't as many indigenous in Venezuela, but it appears to be part of what is going on there. This is a rich vs poor issue, in both cases--but added to it is the wealthy landowner class's attitude toward the indigenous as peons and slaves--as less than human--and the long and ugly history of European land grabs, domination, racial hatred and mass murder.