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[Lo-Volt]

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has said he is about to expel a US missionary group, New Tribes Mission.

The leftist leader said the group were "imperialists" and that he felt "ashamed" at their presence in indigenous areas of Venezuela.

He accused the Florida-based group of making unauthorised flights and setting up luxurious camps amid poverty.

New Tribes, which preaches to non-Christian indigenous peoples, said it had no immediate comment.

It is one of Latin America's biggest missionary organisations and has 3,200 workers and operates in 17 countries, with operations in West Africa and South-East Asia too.

"The New Tribes are leaving Venezuela," Mr Chavez said at a ceremony to present land titles and farming equipment to members of Venezuela's indigenous population.

"This is an irreversible decision that I have made. We don't want the New Tribes here. Enough colonialism!"

He added that he had yet to sign the expulsion order and was giving New Tribes time to "gather their stuff".

New Tribes, he said, flew in and out of the country without proper permission from the authorities.

"These violations of our national sovereignty have to stop," Mr Chavez said.

The president, long at loggerheads with the US over his leftist views, accused the group of building expensive luxury camps for themselves alongside poverty-stricken villages.

Mr Chavez said Venezuela was finally "doing justice" by its indigenous peoples by granting them land.

One indigenous deputy, Noheli Pocaterra, said Mr Chavez's government had made progress on indigenous issues but more needed to be done.

BBC.

 

[littlewig]

If I was him, I'd do the samething.


I wouldn't want a bunch of zealots converting my people to hate the government.

 

[Zilch]

If I was him, I'd do the samething.


I wouldn't want a bunch of zealots converting my people to hate the government.

That's not what missionaries do. Er, I mean "RELIGION SUCKS!"

 

[Vennt]

If you want some background to this, because this is about a lot more than just Radical Cleric Robertson, you can get a decent primer on the battle between Chavez/Rangel & New Tribes Mission here

Some relevant portions:

The Evangelical Connection: The Arrival of The New Tribes Mission
One strand of the often unsavory and arcane history of U.S. evangelicals in Venezuela goes back decades. In 1946, members of the North American based New Tribes Mission, a fundamentalist Protestant sect, entered Venezuela from across the Colombian border. Posing as tourists and “curious explorers,” they settled along the Negro River in the region known as Casiquiare. At the time, the area was used for the exploitation of natural rubber which had not yet been replicated as a synthetic fiber and was, as such, still a vital strategic material. The arriving missionaries were not given a particularly warm welcome by the indigenous peoples living in the immediate area. The Aquencwa Indians, then led by their leader Horacio Acisa, soon began to violently resist their unwelcomed northern visitors.

From 1945 to 1948 a coalition of nationalist military officers allied to the anti-clerical political party, Acción Democrática, ruled the country. Nonetheless, New Tribes continued to reside in Venezuela in spite of the central government’s marked hostility to its members. Following a coup d’etat in 1948, Venezuela came under outright military rule. However, to the consternation of Antonio Justo Silva, the governor of the federal territory of Amazonas, “no one thought to ask why these missionary groups were staying in Amazonas.” But in 1954 their status was officially legalized thanks to a permit issued by the military authorities under the pro-U.S. General Marcos Pérez Jiménez dictatorship.

Curiously, in that same year, the New Tribes missionaries abandoned their villages along the Negro River and settled in the Guayana Shield, where deposits of radioactive minerals had been discovered. What is more, a tantalizing tidbit was provided by muckraking journalists Charlotte Dennett and Gerard Colby: “On Brazil’s border with Venezuela were uranium deposits that the [Brazilian] regime had targeted for the development of nuclear energy and, some feared, nuclear bombs.” They also claimed that the presence of uranium ore was found on the traditional lands of the Yanomami, the largest unacculturated tribe in the Brazilian Amazon. Also present in the adjoining area was the Summer Institute of Linguistics, a New Tribes ally as well as an evangelical missionary organization in its own right, that specialized in translating the Bible into local dialects. Its adherents could be found among the Yanomami in Venezuela, where they were studying the languages of the region from their Porto Velho base in Brazil. Writing to Venezuela’s Minister of Justice, Justo expressed his concerns about the New Tribes. In the course of six years of residence, according to the official, the missionaries had nothing to show for their work and had not accomplished anything for the Indians. Justo was openly suspicious of the evangelicals, who would inexplicably abandon sites and move to other areas. “It makes one suspect,” he wrote, “that they [the New Tribes missionaries] have another objective.”

The Plot Thickens: New Tribes Accused of Espionage
Though New Tribes had come under fire from leftist university professors and the capital’s intellectual elite, criticism would shortly come from yet another, but unexpected quarter: the military. In 1976, Tomas Antonio Mariño Blanco, a navy captain and commander of the Federal Territory of Amazonas military garrison, ordered the detention of two American engineers bearing identification cards from Westinghouse, a leading U.S. defense contractor, and General Dynamics, which produces military jet aircraft. The engineers were carrying out mineral prospecting and were in the company of a missionary working for New Tribes Mission.

Jaime Bou, the New Tribes Mission head in Venezuela, intervened on behalf of the Americans. After staff members from the U.S. Embassy later joined Bou’s efforts, the two were released and the case was closed. However, Antonio Mariño reported that the missionary organization had been financed by General Dynamics, which had sent funds and pilots from California. According to Mariño’s investigation, New Tribes was also linked to a shadowy California foundation called District 1355 as well as the evangelical sect, Summer Institute of Linguistics. All New Tribes missionaries had taken courses with the Summer Institute of Linguistics, an organization repeatedly accused of ethnocide and espionage in other Latin American countries. Antonio Mariño had determined that District 1355 had sought to acquire a concession in Colombia to cultivate rice and other crops, which it proposed flying out of the region in a fleet of C-141 planes.

The Military Goes Public
With accusations now escalating against New Tribes from not only leftist university faculties but also members of the Venezuelan armed forces, the Chamber of Deputies agreed to open an investigation. Particularly damning was the report filed by Antonio Mariño who headed the Amazonas military command in 1978. The report, whose startling findings were corroborated by Colonel Luciano Mujíca Herñandez, a senior National Guard officer in Amazonas who had independently conducted surveillance of New Tribes, found that the evangelical group had not remained in its own demarcated jurisdiction, nor had it complied with Venezuelan aeronautical regulations. Rather, it apparently had conducted scientific espionage on behalf of transnational companies, had tried to impersonate Venezuelan military officers by appearing in their uniforms when meeting with the Indians, and had even attempted to bribe military authorities. Antonio Mariño further declared that in 1977, New Tribes had been able to cultivate the support of Julio Yañes Marchan, the ex-governor of the Federal Amazonas Territory. Marchan invited the missionaries to a forum about the mineral potential in Amazonas. The event was also sponsored by the armed forces, and when Mariño saw Jaime Bou there, he promptly escorted the missionary from the premises. Word of Antonio Mariño‘s explosive report was picked up in the Venezuelan press and New Tribes became notoriously famous amongst the Venezuelan public.

 

[fse]

Great move by Chavez.

 

[Hitokage]

They're just a front? Fine, boot them out.

 

[whytemyke]

yeah, when i first read this I was gonna make a joke about how they're probably just contractors from the pentagon. then the article gets posted... hmm....

...one of my sources is talking. i must put an end to it, "Without Remorse" style.

Seriously though, Chavez better watch his step, or he's about to learn about the real rules of war-- nobody's irreplaceable and Chavez is sitting on an awful lot of oil while thumbing his nose at Dubya. I mean, no offense to all you Chavez lovers out there, as I love him too for having the cajones to tell off Bush, but you don't wanna go too far. We have a tendency of playing God in South American politics and if he doesn't watch it one day, he's gonna wake up with a horses head in his bed and "Touchable" written in blood on his bedroom wall.

 

[scorcho]

yeah, when i first read this I was gonna make a joke about how they're probably just contractors from the pentagon. then the article gets posted... hmm....

...one of my sources is talking. i must put an end to it, "Without Remorse" style.

Seriously though, Chavez better watch his step, or he's about to learn about the real rules of war-- nobody's irreplaceable and Chavez is sitting on an awful lot of oil while thumbing his nose at Dubya. I mean, no offense to all you Chavez lovers out there, as I love him too for having the cajones to tell off Bush, but you don't wanna go too far. We have a tendency of playing God in South American politics and if he doesn't watch it one day, he's gonna wake up with a horses head in his bed and "Touchable" written in blood on his bedroom wall.

he has already survived one attempted coup that was allegedly known beforehand by certain members of the bush administration, so i don't think he's all too worried.

 

[whytemyke]

he has already survived one attempted coup that was allegedly known beforehand by certain members of the bush administration, so i don't think he's all too worried.

there's a difference between a coup that we know about and a coup that we orchestrate.

ask che or salvador allende.

 

[chaostrophy]

Seriously though, Chavez better watch his step, or he's about to learn about the real rules of war-- nobody's irreplaceable and Chavez is sitting on an awful lot of oil while thumbing his nose at Dubya.

Chavez needs to get himself some nuclear weapons with the range to hit US targets. Keep one pointed at Crawford and the other at Kennebunkport. I think that's the best way to give Dubya second thoughts about fucking with him and his country.

 

[whytemyke]

Chavez needs to get himself some nuclear weapons with the range to hit US targets. Keep one pointed at Crawford and the other at Kennebunkport. I think that's the best way to give Dubya second thoughts about fucking with him and his country.

that's a shortsighted solution. ultimately it won't really keep us from flexing our muscle in every way we can besides full-on invasion, and it'd undermind the only real card in his hat that he's got currently-- world opinion. Not to mention that kind of doctrinal switch would totally piss off every other nation in mercosur and completely alienate venezuela from the rest of the world community.

....such is the pain of being a popular south american president. until any country down there gets a first world, western european ally to compete with the control that the US has down there, they'll never do more than what we care for them to do, and it's unfortunate cuz i'd love to see countries like bolivia, chile, venezuela, argentina and brazil really grow and flourish.

 

[Christoff Yurievich]

...one of my sources is talking. i must put an end to it, "Without Remorse" style.

+1...that book rocks.

 

[Deleted member 1235]

why do different cultures NEED jesus? I've never understood missionaries. just let them live their lives without introducing the fear. gawd!

 

[Instigator]

why do different cultures NEED jesus? I've never understood missionaries.

Well, the New Testament makes it clear to spread the gospel, some denominations take it more seriously than others.

But spreading one's faith goes a long way to reaffirm yours. Religion is also about power and converting a people to your faith neutralizes them; this was truly the trojan horse weapon during colonization.

 

[typhonsentra]

Do you guys here admire Chavez?

 

[Error]

Do you guys here admire Chavez?

well I respect the man because of things he has done for the poor in his country and for having the balls to stand up against Dubya, can't say that about the rest of the Latins leaders except Castro.

 

[snacknuts]

why do different cultures NEED jesus? I've never understood missionaries. just let them live their lives without introducing the fear. gawd!

Agreed.

 

[fortified_concept]

there's a difference between a coup that we know about and a coup that we orchestrate.

ask che or salvador allende.

Wow. You think that CIA wasn't involved in the coup? Nice one.

 

[Boogie]

why do different cultures NEED jesus? I've never understood missionaries. just let them live their lives without introducing the fear. gawd!

fear? roofles.

 

[xabre]

Christian missionaries...destroying proud and noble cultures the world over for centuries.

 

[brooklyngooner]

Christian missionaries...destroying proud and noble cultures the world over for centuries.

But they have such a great track record in South America!

 

[snacknuts]

fear? roofles.

Christianity doesn't stand up without it.