Published at: 06/03/2024 09:00 PM

• The cacique and social fighter, Sabino Romero, received multiple gunshot wounds while going to the elections for chief mayor with his wife, Lucía Martínez, who was also injured in the attack.
• Two motorized vehicles intercepted the unit where the leader was traveling and fired a flurry of shots at him.
• The murder occurred in the Tokuko sector, when he was moving from his home located in Chaptaka. That night, the murder of Sabino ignited the meadow in the Sierra de Perijá. His relatives were outraged.
• On multiple occasions, Sabino was the protagonist of clashes with ranchers, local authorities and landowners.
• Sabino was born in a small village known as Kasmera, located in the Pariries area of the Sierra de Perijá, Zulia state.
• As a representative of the Yukpa ethnic group, from an early age he became committed to fighting for the right to land, the preservation of his crops and the defense of his ecosystem.
• Their fundamental struggle focused on ranchers and landowners, who had been taking over the lands of the Sierra de Perijá for seven decades. Lands that, due to their origin and ownership, did not belong to them. They are territories formerly inhabited by the Yukpa People.

CONTEXT:

• In 2008, Commander Chávez declared: “This government is with the Indians... Between the landowners and the Indians, this government is with the Indians, there is no doubt of any kind (...) we are obliged to protect the weak, who in this case are the indigenous people.”
• This statement was made by the Head of State, Hugo Chávez, during the edition of his program Aló Presidente No. 318, held in La Bombilla (Petare) on August 24, 2008.
• On that occasion, he emphasized the problems faced by the indigenous people who inhabit the Sierra de Perijá due to the constant harassment of the landowners in the area.
• He also stated: “The Yukpa indigenous people must be protected by the Government, by the Bolivarian National Armed Forces and by the State; and the landowners, well, they have to recognize that there is a Revolution here, they have to prove that these lands are really theirs.”
• “What I do know is that these lands were occupied by the Yukpa indigenous people for a long time, producing cattle, meat and milk, and they were thrown out of there, and I'm not talking about the conquest by the Spanish, I'm referring to 30 years ago with the support of the police.”
• Following the enactment and entry into force of the Land Law by President Hugo Chávez, it was detected that many ranchers and landowners obstruct the illegal possession of large tracts of land that were outside the documentary boundaries. Thus using other people's property and harming, in this case, the original inhabitants who used to live on them ancestrally.
• This demand and the demonstration, in many cases, of the corresponding lack of ownership, was one of the excuses of the terrifying right wing to promote the coup d'etat of April 2002.

Mazo News Team