After President Nicolás Maduro assured in a press conference on 12 December 2018 that there were armed groups that infiltrated in some indigenous communities in the area bordering with Brazil, that the illegal mining in the south of the country is in the hands of "ecocidal mafias", blaming the political opposition for the violence in the zone, and denounced that the "indigenous people" who join them "destroy their community", Pemon people responded publishing a video on social media: