Petro’s promise of change in Colombia must improve lives of Venezuelans taking refuge there

Venezuelan migrants in Colombia walk toward the border amid the coronavirus lockdown in 2020. Fernando Vergara AP
Venezuelan migrants in Colombia walk toward the border amid the coronavirus lockdown in 2020. Fernando Vergara AP

Colombia’s new president, Gustavo Petro, promises sweeping changes. Entrenched inequality, coca eradication, military offensives and dependence on fossil fuel all are targets for reform. Addressing his supporters on the night of his victory in June, Petro — the first left-wing politician to become president in Colombia’s recent history — also called for years of regional bickering to end and a “dialogue in the Americas without any people being excluded”. Achieving unity, or just a bit more co-operation, in a region where governments range from hard left to far right, and from despotic to democratic, will be no easy feat. Still, Petro’s stance will be decisive for Latin America. Colombia’s spat with its neighbor Venezuela is the most spiteful bilateral stand-off in the hemisphere, with diplomatic ties severed for more than three years, frequent border closures and accusations of destabilization plots flying in both directions. A bit of goodwill could do much to mend these relations. But what that means for the 2.5 million Venezuelans who have fled to Colombia in search of safety is not clear.

Food and medicine shortages, rising crime and violence and general economic collapse — not helped by U.S. financial and economic sanctions since 2017 — have driven the largest refugee crisis in the Western Hemisphere’s recent history. Sharing a 1,300-mile border with its neighbor, Colombia now hosts more Venezuelans than any other foreign country. Surveys carried out by local authorities in the capital, Bogotá, home to half a million Venezuelans, found that 88% had no intention of going home. Repelled by President Nicolás Maduro’s authoritarian rule in Caracas and aware that its formal borders are leaky at best, Colombia has made huge efforts to provide Venezuelans with residency rights, healthcare and entitlements to work and education. Even so, official protections only go so far in a country scarred by conflict and crime, reliant on informal employment and, lately, battered by the pandemic. Urban gangs and rural armed groups have tended to be faster and more willing to employ vulnerable Venezuelans than legal employers.

Facing dire economic hardship, Venezuelans in Colombia have become exceptionally vulnerable to exploitation. Not knowing the unwritten rules in conflict areas, Venezuelan migrants literally walk into trouble. Guerrilla and paramilitary outfits recruit young Venezuelans as soldiers and force women and minors into sexual exploitation. The National Liberation Army (ELN) enlists Venezuelans by making fake offers, luring them with gifts or threatening them. A 24-year-old Venezuelan I interviewed in a police cell in the region of Bajo Cauca said he was recruited at gunpoint by an armed group. He received a shave and a haircut and was handed heavy weaponry on his first day. During the seven months before his escape, he was involved in various firefights, in which he lost a Venezuelan friend. “It was either continuing or dying”, he said. “I decided to continue, to find a way out”. Not all Venezuelans manage to escape their handlers. The murder rate for Venezuelans in Colombia doubled between 2018 and 2020 and now is far higher than that for locals. Urban gangs in Bogotá, such as those operating around the giant Corabastos marketplace, have tasked Venezuelans with drug dealing, collecting extortion fees and contract killings. Migrants are both exploited by organized crime and blamed for it. Xenophobia fueled by social media has grown commonplace.

Petro has said he would restore relations “regardless of the government” in Caracas, in sharp contrast to former President Iván Duque’s demands for an end to chavista rule. These overtures could, in theory, enable the border between the two countries to be fully reopened — at present it is restricted to pedestrian crossings, with trade a fraction of what it used to be — and also temper the worsening violence at the frontier, caused in large part by armed groups’ control over illegal crossings and the booming coca harvest in Catatumbo, on the Colombian side. Resuming diplomatic relations and consular services should help Venezuelans gain access to passports and other crucial documents, and speed up the validation of their qualifications, enabling them to seek formal employment. A route for those Venezuelans who want to go back is also essential. Petro and other Latin American leaders have expressed interest in a policy for “safe return” at a moment when Venezuela’s crudely dollarized and liberalized economy seems to have halted its free-fall. Open and orderly border crossings, collaboration between Bogotá and Caracas, as well as international support, will be crucial to any return program. Even then, most migrants will not go back to Venezuela until they believe it offers their families a future. That, however, will require a political settlement between Maduro and the opposition to revive the state and the economy, and restore democracy. As Petro’s government begins, there is no shortage of steps it can take to improve the lives in Colombia of victims of Venezuela’s crisis. But a lasting solution to the exodus and an end to the political battles in Caracas will depend on whether Maduro and the opposition, backed by Latin America and Washington, resume their own faltering dialogue.

Bram Ebus is a consultant for International Crisis Group.

Deja una respuesta

Tu dirección de correo electrónico no será publicada. Los campos obligatorios están marcados con *