The undersigned governor of the indigenous reservation Ukumari Kankhe, in use of his legal faculties given and protected by the article 7 of the Colombian Political Constitution.

Reference: Public communication about Mr Alberto José Varela, the organization “Ayahuasca International” of which he is president and the alleged “authorization” he claims to have received from the highest traditional authority of the Cofán people Querubín Queta Alvarado and the Cofán Indigenous Reservation Ukumari Kankhe.

Antecedents

1. Mr Alberto José Varela, Argentinian national with passport No 13925297, has founded a lucrative enterprise with which he carries out international tours around European cities, offering the Yagé cure in a devious way claiming a supposed authorisation or endorsement by the yagé indigenous authorities in Colombia. He also takes foreigners on excursions to the city of Mocoa in Putumayo.

2. The organization called AYAHUASCA INTERNATIONAL, legally known as Inner Mastery International S.L., organizes gatherings to offer the yagé cure, charging plenty to it’s participants and thus establishing a lucrative business which contradicts and breaks the principles and values of the Cofán people endangering their traditions and uses of the Ancestral Medicine of Yagé as well as the lives and health of those who attend such events.

3. In order to portray his enterprise as legitimate, Mr Alberto José Varela publicly shows a supposed authorization granted by the Mayor Taita Querubín Queta Alvarado and the Cofán Indigenous Reservation Ukumari Kankhe in which he is authorised to carry and use the traditional medicine Yagé during his tours with the above mentioned organization. This document also allegedly certifies the “Instruction and training” he supposedly received in the use of our Ancestral Medicine.

4. Mr Alberto José Varela publicly claims to invest financially in benefit of the Cofán community in order to preserve the culture and tradition. Therefore the Cofán community declares the absolute falsehood of the supposed contributions mentioned by Mr Varela.

5. Given this concerning situation we, as indigenous authorities of the Cofán people (A’l), publicly express ourselves in order to defend our Ancestral Tradition, the responsible use of our Traditional Medicine, the authority of our Taitas and Elders and the safekeeping of our people. Also we wish to protect the lives and health of those people who put themselves at serious risk when being induced by people who lack the recognition of our traditional authorities and instruction in the ways of our traditional medicine, resorting to fraudulent and dishonest acts like those of Mr Alberto José Varela. This person deserves to be investigated by the local authorities in each country where he misrepresents and replaces our authority and the good name of the indigenous ancestral medicine for his own benefit and his lucrative business instead of serving the common good like we have done for millennia. He is thus acting in prejudice of our immaterial patrimony and so going against international treatises which protect the indigenous and tribal people, their customs and traditions as well as trespassing the international recognition we have as guardians of Yagé, understanding it as nucleus and bastion of our indigenous traditional medicine.

Invoking the law of Origin and Own Right of the Cofán (A’l) People, the Life Plan and Safeguarding Plan of the Cofán (A’l) People, protected by the Law 21 from 1991 (Agreement 169 of the OIT) and the Decree 004 of the Constitutional Court from January 2009, as well as the wisdom of the Taitas and Elders that guides our people we declare that:

1. In the tradition and customs of the Cofán (A’l) People, NONE of the people who are part of AYAHUSACA INTERNATIONAL HAVE BEEN TAUGHT, TRAINED OR INSTRUCTED BY US in the uses and practices of the Yagé cure. Given the fact that this is a science of much responsibility and care we keep the teaching within our community and directed only by our Traditional Authorities.Mr Alberto José Varela was never given any training in the knowledge and use of this Sacred Medicine and was NEVER authorized to carry it or use it in his international tours. What is said in the supposed authorization is ABSOLUTELY FALSE.

2. The people who arrive to the Cofián community from outside to take the Yagé cure are given the remedy in order to cure various illnesses but they are NEVER instructed on how to give the Remedy under any circumstances, and we never teach to do so in the conditions and with the format of the EUROPEAN AYAHUASCA SCHOOL founded by ALBERTO JOSE VARELA which he promotes through AYAHUASCA INTERNATIONAL.

3. The COFAN INDIGENOUS RESERVATION UKUMARI KANKHE absolutely doesn’t know Mr Alberto José Varela or the members and facilitators of the organization AYAHUASCA INTERNATIONAL because they have NEVER been within our territory and they have NEVER received any instruction from our community or the Taita Mayor Querubín Queta Alvarado.

4. The signature that Mr Alberto José Albarado managed to get can be dismissed as absolutely false as he obtained it using fraudulent procedures and TAITA MAYOR QUERUBIN QUETA ALAVARADO affirms he never issued any authorisation for the above mentioned individual or his organization to administer the Yagé Remedy in their international tours, and even less so to provide home delivery of doses through AYAHUASCA PLANET.

5. Our Elders and Taitas DO NOT authorise anyone outside the Cofán community to offer or carry the Yagé remedy.

6. Yagé ceremonies are absolutely sacred for our people and we perform them with a very demanding level of responsibility because our interest is to take care for the complete health and the life of our patients. This is why we declare that the organization AYAHUASCA INTERNATIONAL and its founder ALBERTO JOSE VARELA are absolute impostors and do not know the science of Yagé or have been instructed in our customs and practices from the Cofán Tradition.

7. To the people who attend their meetings as patients and other people who may wish to take part in the Yagé ceremonies we urgently advise that the Yageé Remedy and the Ancestral Tradition are exclusive of indigenous people, guardians of those traditions. Therefore resorting to organizations outside the indigenous people is an irresponsibility and puts the lives and health of those assisting at risk.

8. Mr Alberto José Varela and his company Inner Matery S.L. Have never made any kind of investment or donation toward the Cofán community. Quite the opposite, they attack our tradition and culture by promoting a use of this Sacred Remedy that is improper, disrespectful and irresponsible.

9. Therefore we encourage the national and international communities to ignore and disbelieve anything published in websites and social networks of AYAHUASCA INTERNATIONAL or by ALBERTO JOSE VARELA, for they are impostors who do not know and haven’t been instructed in the traditional practices of the Yagé Remedy. Whoever attends the meetings of the mentioned organization does so at their own risk and they are at serious risk.

10. The Cofán (A’l) people, Highest Taita Querubín Queta Alvarado, the Indigenous Reservation Cofán Ukumari Kankhe and it’s Governor José Lorenzo Morales, DECREE the absolute FALSEHOOD, of the supposed “authorisation” obtained by Mr Alberto José Varela

11. Neither the Cofán (A’l) people nor our Taitas will be responsible for any illness, damage or decease of any person as result of the bad practice of these irresponsible people.

12. This reservation will initiate the procedures, legal, penal and of responsibility against this man who has usurped the name of our Taita Querubin Queta Alvarado and we request the governments of the world to NOT authorise these practices from this company and by Mr Alberto José Varela as well as their supposed facilitators.

Let this be published and spread.

Yours Sincerely,

Signed by:

Querubín Queta – Traditional Authority

David Queta – Traditional Authority

Lorenzo Morales – Governor

...Opinions on the expansion of the popularity of the beverage vary between and among indigenous tribes. But some instances generate widespread rejection. Such is the case of Alberto José Varela, an Argentinian man, based in Spain, who has been selling the plant in Europe, as well as tourist packages to the Colombian Amazon for retreats involving the beverage.

About 100 hundred academics and experts on indigenous issues, from universities Latin America, Europe and the United States, now denounce him for varied reasons in a letter that we now reproduce in full below:

AN OPEN LETTER IN SUPPORT OF THE COFÁN PEOPLE AND AGAINST THE ACTIVITIES OF ALBERTO JOSÉ VARELA

We hereby manifest our support for the representatives of the Cofán people who signed a public denunciation1 against Mr. Alberto José Varela and his commercial activities involving Yajé.

In their denunciation, they point out that Mr. Varela does not have the permission or approval of the Yajé authorities of Colombia to transport or use the Yajé medicine; that they have not trained or instructed anyone from Mr. Varela’s organization, including Mr. Varela himself; and that he was not granted authorization to commercialize Yajé. By the same token, they note that Mr. Varela has made no economic investments for the benefit of the Cofán community, nor for the preservation of their culture and traditions.

The undersigned manifest our concern over the proliferation, in Colombia and many other countries, of a business model in which Yajé (also known as Ayahuasca) is used solely in the interest of making a profit; disrespecting the plant, its proper management, and the sacred character bestowed upon it by native peoples and mestizo populations of Southeastern Colombia.

The activities of Mr. Alberto José Varela are especially worrisome because he claims to have been “initiated” in 2001 by Taita Domingo Males Miticanoy, calling himself “the first Westerner authorized to use the ayahuasca of Taita Querubín in Europe,” 2 and referring to his organization, Ayahuasca International as “the first multinational corporation dedicated to Ayahuasca.” 3

Between his so-called “initiation” and his arrest in Spain in 2008, Mr. Alberto José Varela conducted Yajé ceremonies in Colombia, Spain, and other countries, claims to have trained therapists “according to the instructions of Taita Domingo,” and sold Yajé to participants after ceremonies so they could consume it in their own homes.4

In 2007, Mr. Varela founded the Putumayo Association for the Assistance of Indigenous Peoples of the Amazon, which he uses to organize trips from Spain to the Dept. of Putumayo, Colombia, and through which he collects money with the supposed aim of giving economic aid to indigenous peoples of southern Colombia and providing “needy communities with materials such as clothes, shoes, toys, and books.”5 The Putumayo Association also seeks to purchase land in the Colombian rainforest to allegedly collaborate with indigenous peoples in restoring it by “planting traditional crops and elaborating shamanic medicines which are the basis of their medical culture and their means of sustenance.” By 2008 the Putumayo Association had purchased five hectares of land in the Colombian Amazon.

Mr. Varela was arrested in Spain in December of 2008, after a police investigation initiated by complaints filed by family members of participants and neighbors over the disorderly conduct generated by the Yajé ceremonies he conducted. After fourteen months in prison, he was absolved in April 2011 of any crime against the public health because, as noted in the court’s sentence, it was not possible to quantify the DMT content of the Yajé confiscated by police. According to news reports, 40 kg of Yajé were found at his home.6

In 2013, Mr. Varela resumed the same kind of Yajé activities he had carried out prior to his imprisonment, now using aggressive marketing strategies and investing significant amounts of money in advertising and social media.

In order to legitimize his activities, he named various Taitas who were supposedly part of his organization, including Víctor Queta, Taita Querubín Queta, Taita Juan Jamioy, Taita Alfonso Males Jamioy, Taita Juan Males Jamioy, Taita Biron Piajuaje and Taita Humberto.

To expand his business, he provides “training” for facilitators after only one to a few weeks long course through what he calls the “European Ayahuasca School”; these people – some without the least experience or training – then organize and conduct Yajé ceremonies.

It so happens that the founder of this “school” claims that he does not consume Yajé any more, because, according to him, he no longer needs to; he also prohibits facilitators from taking the medicine while they are conducting ceremonies,7 which runs contrary to the principles followed not only by Yajé traditional medicine practitioners, but in all contexts of Ayahuasca use we know of.

Mr. Varela has created a business model around the Yajé ceremony involving a network of businesses, web pages, and Facebook profiles designed to protect him legally from further complaints. Yajé is prepared on lands bought by the Putumayo Association8 and then distributed to facilitators who are “contracted” by one of his companies, “Inner Mastery International.” Trips to the Colombian rainforest are sold through “Ayahuasca Travels,” and Yajé is sold directly over the Internet through the company “Ayahuasca Planet.” 9 All of these business activities are carried out by means of various intermediaries.10

Given all the aforementioned, we the undersigned declare as follows:

–We express our support for the Cofán people and their authorities, and we denounce Mr. Alberto José Varela for improper and fraudulent use of the name and traditions of Colombian native peoples, especially the Cofán, to legitimize his business activities;

–We denounce the use of aggressive marketing tactics and social networks to publicize and commercialize Yajé ceremonies, and condemn the direct sale of this medicine over the internet to anyone without any controls whatsoever;

–We denounce the irresponsible use Mr. Varela makes of the Yajé medicine, employing people without the necessary experience and training to conduct Yajé ceremonies; moreover, we note that these facilitators do not consume the medicine during ceremonies, contrary to the manner in which Ayahuasca is used in diverse contexts around the world;

–While some people might benefit from the use of the Yajé medicine in sessions organized by Ayahuasca International, we warn prospective clients that participating in sessions run by this organization could result in grave risks to mental and physical well-being;

–In this context, we note that a growing number of witnesses who have participated in Yajé sessions organized by Ayahuasca International have reported reprehensible practices, contrary to the principles enumerated in various ethics codes and guides to best practice, such as those developed by Brazilian Ayahuasca religious groups,11 ICEERS,12 and PDA;13

–We denounce the commercialization of Yajé as if it were an ordinary product or service, generating an artificial demand based on crass manipulation of what it means to consume the Yajé medicine, and taking advantage of the ignorance, credulity, good faith, and vulnerability of many people;

We the undersigned are not opposed to the expansion and spread of Yajé usage per se. Instead, we affirm that the diffusion of these practices should always be based on knowledge, respect, and ethics. The activities of Mr. Albert José Varela represent a danger not only to those who take part in his organization’s ceremonies, but also more generally to the expansion and consolidation of these practices beyond their region of origin.

August 2015

Amazon leaders and academics denounce ayahuasca rituals led by outsiders

BOGOTÁ, Colombia — Among indigenous peoples from the upper Amazon in South America, views on outsiders participating in rituals involving ayahuasca — the medicinal plant and the hallucinogenic drink made from it — vary. But even those who are more welcoming believe some ayahuasca tourists diverge too far from tradition, putting themselves and others at risk.

In the region, in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Brazil, shamans administer the drink for physical and spiritual healing purposes. It can cause visions and purge the body, and indigenous communities believe the concoction has divinatory and healing powers. Users often report coming away from the experience with a sense of purpose. It is not uncommon for nonindigenous people from these countries and from abroad to visit the Amazon in search of the spiritual experience that ayahuasca promises.

Such is the case with Alberto José Varela, an Argentine who has become embroiled in a public feud with the Cofán (or A’i) indigenous people of southern Colombia. He has been commercializing ayahuasca (or yagé, as it’s more commonly known in the country) for about a decade and organizing tours for Europeans to partake in rituals involving the plant.

Varela runs various websites, grouped under an organization called Ayahuasca Internacional (legally constituted in Spain as Inner Mastery International), through which he sells the yagé plant and offers trips to Mocoa, in the Colombian Amazon, for people to try the beverage. The tours cost 150 euros ($170) per person per day and require a minimum stay of seven days. Varela also organizes other workshops and retreats around the world, which he says 4,000 people attend annually.

His is a popular, global operation. He said that he manages about 50 Facebook pages and websites, with a combined following of a million people. He also runs a school, known as Escuela Ayahuasquera or Escuela Consciente, which has chapters in Spain, Italy, Germany and Mexico, with about 2,000 students.

But the Cofanes — a small community of about 1,000 people — and their authorities published a letter in July denouncing Varela and his businesses, arguing that he is insulting their traditions and putting lives at risk.

Lorenzo Morales, the governor of the Ukumari Kankhe reservation, where most of the Colombian Cofanes live, said, “To truly understand the power of yagé and how to give it to others, you have to take it and be immersed in its culture since you are a kid.”

Morales sees Varela as a disrespectful and dangerous foreigner.

“His schools train shamans in under three months, and he doesn’t even take yagé,” Morales said. “To properly give this medicine, you have to drink more of it than your patient.”

Varela said he drinks yagé “one to four times a year.”

“I have done it hundreds of times, but for me, it is not a cultural act, merely a tool for self-recognition and healing,” he added. “Also, I am very sensitive, so a small dosage can last me for days, during which I channel infinite information, which is where most of my Web updates come from.”

Varela said he’s not trying to re-create sacred rituals. Rather, he organizes what he termed “psychotherapeutical sessions” using ayahuasca and other techniques. He believes the plant doesn’t belong only to indigenous people.

“We are not shamans. We don’t want to create shamans. We educate people on a new discipline of ayahuasca,” he said.

According to Varela, his students must pass three levels that take six months to complete to become eligible to work for Inner Mastery International and train how to use ayahuasca themselves and give it to others.

Yagé contains DMT, a psychedelic that can cause visions. The beverage is believed to cleanse the stomach, provoking vomiting and sometimes diarrhea. If it’s not done in a proper setting, the experience can go badly; Henry Miller, an English teenager, died last year in Colombia after consuming yagé twice, apparently without proper guidance.

Brian Anderson, a resident physician at the University of California at San Francisco, said he believes that the beverage “is not dangerous in terms of toxicology” but that drinking it “should be done by keeping the situation in a safe format and regulated socially by people who have experience with it.”

Charles Grob, a child psychiatrist from UCLA who has researched yagé in Brazil, has a similar opinion. “People who are relatively naive about yagé need supervision,” he said. “Otherwise, they might be vulnerable to psychological decompensation.”

There is also the legal issue. DMT is a Schedule I substance that is heavily regulated in many countries, including Spain, where the legal status of its trade remains ambiguous (although its consumption is explicitly allowed by the international 1971 U.N. Convention on Psychotropic Substances).

Because of this, Varela spent 14 months in prison in Spain, after 40 kilograms of the plant were found at his home in Madrid. Colombia has no legislation explicitly addressing yagé, but it has constitutional provisions ensuring the legality of most indigenous traditions. For decades, tourists have gone to participate in yagé rituals without legal issues.

As for his operations in Colombia, Varela says he was granted the right to work with yagé by taita Querubín Queta, the oldest member from the Cofán Ukumari Kankhe reservation. To prove this, he has two letters from Queta (from 2007 and 2014), in which the shaman apparently gave him and his organization the go-ahead to work with yagé and transport it internationally.

However, Queta spoke on a Colombian TV newscast last month and said that a letter was drafted by Varela’s team and that he had signed it without knowing what it read.

“This is an internal power struggle,” Varela responded in an interview with El Espectador newspaper. Varela published a video from May that apparently showed Queta giving him his support. But in the TV interview, Queta said the video was “out of context” and that he was speaking “to Cofán people, not to white people.”

In an interview with Colombian TV news Noticias Uno last month, Varela countered the accusations by saying Queta has repeatedly tried to blackmail him.

“[This] is part of the resentment the indigenous people have had with white people for 500 years,” Varela said in that interview. “Yagé doesn’t belong to them. It belongs to humanity.”

Varela told Al Jazeera America that he refused to pay the Cofanes and distanced himself from the community. “That’s when all of this came about,” he said.

Morales said that is nonsense and insisted that the Cofanes are happy to provide their sacred medicine to anyone — indigenous or not — who seeks it for healing but that they could never teach how to unleash the sacred powers of ayahuasca rituals to an outsider. “Its power is only given by God to the indigenous person that carries the culture of the plant,” he said.

Pressure is mounting on Varela. Earlier this month, the Cofán community received the support of 100 anthropologists, doctors and other experts on indigenous issues who published a letter denouncing him for what they consider a violation of a sacred institution. The experts — from top universities in Colombia, Brazil, the United States, the U.K. and other countries — feel he is a charlatan who is making money unethically and that his ayahuasca rituals are fraudulent, disrespectful and dangerous.

They also complain that he is merely pursuing monetary gains rather than helping people find spiritual enlightenment with yagé.

“Varela’s sites are well marketed, and they shouldn’t be the first place where people find information on yagé,” said anthropologist and law student Jesse Hudson, one of the letter’s signatories. “We wanted to counter that.”

Varela has temporarily shut down the websites through which he sold yagé, he said, “while some legal issues are resolved.” He maintains that he is being honest in not selling the plant as medicine and insists that the benefits of ayahuasca should be available to all.

“Its power is only given by God to the indigenous person that carries the culture of the plant,”

“To truly understand the power of yagé and how to give it to others, you have to take it and be immersed in its culture since you are a kid.”

All this quarrel.

Morales said that is nonsense and insisted that the Cofanes are happy to provide their sacred medicine to anyone — indigenous or not — who seeks it for healing but that they could never teach how to unleash the sacred powers of ayahuasca rituals to an outsider.