In Venezuela, damage from party on sacred mountain spurs outrage

FILE PHOTO: An aerial view of the Gran Sabana, the high plain, in Canaima National Park located in southeast Venezuela in Bolivar State close to the borders with Brazil and Guyana, January 13, 2005. REUTERS/Jorge Silva REUTERS

PUERTO ORDAZ, Venezuela (Reuters) - A birthday party held on a mountain sacred to indigenous Venezuelans has generated outrage over damage to the area in an episode critics see as entitled excess playing out amid Venezuela's prolonged economic collapse.

Last week, party-goers celebrating the birthday of businessman Rafael Oliveros were ferried in helicopters to a pristine flat-topped mountain known as Kusari, located in the Canaima national park in southern Venezuela's ecologically rich Amazon region, according to a statement by environmental group SOS Orinoco.