The Ethnocide Committed by the Bolivian State against the Yukí Indigenous People

Written on 17 July 2025. Posted in Bolivia

BY ERWIN MELGAR ORTÍZ FOR INDIGENOUS DEBATES

During the second half of the 20th century, the Yukí people were forcibly contacted by the New Tribes Evangelical Mission. The rapid process of their acculturation rendered them highly vulnerable to encroachments by external actors. This Amazonian people now face the advance of settlers from the Altiplano who cultivate coca, head illegal logging operations, and bring violence associated with drug trafficking. In the absence of adequate support from the Bolivian State and amid land usurpations by other Indigenous groups, their territorial rights are being rapidly eroded. Urgent measures are needed to prevent the disappearance of the Yukí people.

Although Bolivian society has imposed the name Yukí on them, they call themselves Biá, meaning “people,” and belong to the Guaraní language family. Historically, the Yukí inhabited the interfluvial areas of the Sara and Ichilo provinces in the Department of Santa Cruz, as well as the Chapare and Carrasco provinces in the Department of Cochabamba. Today, they are primarily concentrated in the community of Biá Recuaté (“place or village of the people”), located along the banks of the Chimoré River.

In the 1950s, a team from the New Tribes Evangelical Mission, specializing in contact with nomadic Indigenous groups, began initial efforts to reach the Yukí. This process took several years and culminated on March 11, 1965, after a relationship of trust had been established between the missionaries and the community. This trust led to the relocation of an initial group of 43 people to the New Tribes camp, which would later become an Indigenous settlement. The missionaries then continued searching for more Yukí families along the region’s rivers.

In December 1986, a second group of 23 people was relocated from the Víbora River to Biá Recuaté. Amid an economic crisis, companies had intensified their encroachment on Yukí territory, triggering violent clashes between settlers, loggers, and hunters—conflicts in which the Indigenous population suffered the gravest harm. Finally, in 1989, a third group was relocated to Biá Recuaté, after the group’s leader made several visits and witnessed firsthand the conditions in which his relatives were living.

A Recently Contacted People

In 1990, Indigenous peoples from the Lowlands carried out the first “Great March” to La Paz, the seat of government, to demand dignity and territory. It was the first time they became visible to Bolivian society and the State. In this context, Supreme Decree No. 23.111 granted the Yuquí people a territory of 115,000 hectares, based on an estimated population of 500 people, the density and reproductive rates of local wildlife, the average number of animals hunted per species per year, and the age and sex of the fauna in their hunting area. The resolution made no mention of recognizing other Indigenous groups (such as the Indigenous Council of the Ichilo River).

The determination of the Yuquí territory was carried out by a multidisciplinary team from the New Tribes Evangelical Mission, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the University of Central Florida. To determine the location and size of the land, the project prioritized three key factors for their survival: traditional areas for hunting, gathering wild fruits and honey; the population growth rate; and the cultural determinants of a people in a state of extreme vulnerability.

The Yukí people are currently undergoing a transition from a nomadic lifestyle of hunting and gathering to a sedentary way of life. This shift involves learning new skills to generate income and meet the emerging consumption needs brought on by acculturation. However, this transition has made the Yukí highly vulnerable, as they are being overwhelmed by multiple overlapping forces in their social environment such as colonization, drug trafficking, and the encroachment of their lands by Yuracaré communities from the Chapare River and other Indigenous groups from the Ichilo River.

This vulnerability is further compounded by the Yukí’s unique sociocultural characteristics in the fragility of their internal organization, lack of established leadership, and absence of horticultural traditions. These factors place them at a serious disadvantage compared to other Indigenous groups in Bolivia when it comes to asserting their rights and articulating their demands to the State. This precarious situation is routinely exploited by settlers, loggers, other Indigenous groups, and the State itself, all of whom engage with the Yukí through interactions that are often deceitful and exploitative—socially, economically, and politically.

The Betrayal of the Yukí People

Although the Yukí Indigenous Territory has been formally recognized, the Bolivian State continues to enable the systematic encroachment of coca-growing settlers, illegal loggers, drug traffickers, and other Indigenous groups. This ongoing invasion has led to the progressive fragmentation of the territory, threatening both the ecological biodiversity of the region and the Yukí people’s means of subsistence. By 2024, the Bolivian government had invested approximately 20 million bolivianos (around 2.87 million U.S. dollars) in housing, sanitation, electricity, and telecommunications projects for other Indigenous groups who had been permitted by the Yukí to settle within their Original Communal Territory (TCO).

When the State officially recognized the Yukí TCO in 1992, the Yukí Council made the decision not to expel those already living in their territory. Instead, they required them to respect all of their norms and regulations related to the access, use, and control of natural resources. At that time, there were only five encampments of non-Yukí settlers and Indigenous families—Tres Islas, Capernaum, Santa Isabel, Las Flores, and Tres Bocas. These settlements were originally itinerant, primarily established for illegal logging, and their inhabitants lived in Puerto Villarroel, a mestizo town located outside the TCO. When the National Institute of Agrarian Reform (INRA) carried out the land titling process in 2000, the Yukí formally recognized these five settlements as official communities.

Nonetheless, these Indigenous groups—more deeply acculturated into national society—took advantage of the political moment to organize themselves under the Indigenous Council of the Ichilo River (CIRI), composed of Yuracaré, Moxeño, and Trinitario peoples. With weak and technically unsubstantiated arguments, they requested that the National Institute of Agrarian Reform (INRA) add the CIRI acronym to the official land title of the Yukí TCO. This marked the institutionalization of their betrayal: an attempt to dispossess the Yukí of their entire territory by creating five new communities, none of which were authorized or consented to by the rightful owners of the land.

Today, CIRI controls over half of the Yukí TCO. They have established ten communities populated by people from other regions to give the impression of a growing population in need of more land. Meanwhile, government investment in projects for the Yukí remains minimal and only materializes in response to public complaints about complicity in land invasions. International agreements and Bolivian laws are not enforced—they are merely used to attract funding from the international community. All ongoing projects are being implemented without free, prior, and informed consent.

A Latent Ethnocide

The Yukí people live under constant threat of losing their geographical space, which is essential for their social and cultural continuity. This situation is leading to the gradual disappearance of their people, as they are being assimilated into the mestizo population as a result of the Bolivian State’s deliberate actions—or its failure to act. Public officials routinely discriminate against them. In the 2014 elections, for example, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal validated the usurpation of a National Deputy seat by the Yuracaré people at the expense of the Yukí, within the special constituency of Cochabamba Department, justifying the decision by claiming that the Yukí are “ignorant and contribute nothing.”

The violation of Indigenous peoples’ rights in the Lowlands has only intensified since the Movement for Socialism (MAS) came to power in 2006. Paradoxically, despite the fact that most of the government’s leadership and officials come from the Altiplano, discrimination, racism, and ethnocidal practices against Lowland Indigenous peoples have become institutionalized. In this process of internal colonialism, their territories are being overrun by settlers from the highlands with authorization from the national government. Efforts to defend Native Community Lands (TCOs) are met with legal persecution, aimed at silencing any form of resistance or protest.

In this context, Indigenous Peoples, like the Yukí, without strong and stable organizational structures are the most vulnerable, as they lack leaders with the capacity to defend their Native Community Lands (TCOs). Although the national government has enacted legislation in support of Indigenous peoples, these laws are not enforced, and Indigenous communities continue to be pushed into the margins of their own territories by settler encroachment. Consequently, ethnocide takes shape through the expansion of the agricultural frontier, road construction, mining operations, oil exploration, and land invasions by campesino settlers.

According to the State, the deaths of Yukí individuals are the result of “tuberculosis.” However, laboratory analyses conducted in the United States have identified the presence of the Aspergillus fungus or mold spores in the lungs of Yukí patients. Misdiagnosed by national health professionals, this condition continues to claim lives. The treatments prescribed by the doctors assigned to monitor Yukí health are not eliminating the fungus; instead, they are strengthening it within the bodies of those affected.

What Can Be Done to Prevent the Disappearance of the Yukí People?

In the 21st century, this issue is highly complex and will not be resolved easily or quickly. However, a series of basic and urgent measures could serve as a starting point.

First, the State must draft a law that systematizes the various factors threatening the survival of the Yukí people, with the aim of ensuring their genuine protection. Furthermore, violations of this law should be met with severe penalties for offenders.

Second, the Ministry of Health must carry out a serious and in-depth study on the health conditions of the Yukí population, with the goal of eradicating the Aspergillus fungus and improving their overall well-being.

Third, the Ministry of Education must closely review and adapt the primary and secondary school curricula, as they currently fail to reflect the cultural identity of the Yukí people. In addition, the poor quality of education limits the skills of Yukí youth and their opportunities to pursue further education in technical institutes or universities.

Fourth, the State must prioritize funding for diverse development projects to ensure sustainable income for the Yukí population, thereby meeting their most basic survival needs.

Fifth, the Ministry of Justice should implement a leadership training program for Yukí representatives, enabling them to defend their people and culture against the many injustices they currently face.

Only through the implementation of these urgent initial measures by the Bolivian State can we begin the essential work of preventing the disappearance of the Yukí people.

Erwin Melgar Ortíz Erwin Melgar Ortíz holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology and Sociology. He lived with the Yukí people from 1978 to 1994 and currently serves as an Honorary Advisor to the Yukí Council.

Cover photo: Yukí women. Photo: Erwin Melgar Ortíz

Tags: Indigenous Debates