October 23, 2021
Venezuelans in Colombia
The coercive measures imposed by the United States and the “diplomatic siege” instigated by the extinct Lima group have stimulated the emigration of Venezuelans to different Latin American countries.
As a consequence, many Venezuelan nationals have experienced difficulties in those countries, particularly in Colombia, where a pattern has been detected which has attracted the attention of the Venezuelan government and has been denounced before multilateral organizations.
Xenophobia and persecution
There have been 2061 Venezuelan migrants killed in Colombia since 2017. These figures come from the Colombian Department of Forensic Medicine and also reveal that in 2021 alone there have been 360 violent deaths (17%).
Last Wednesday, the Venezuelan Executive Vice President, Delcy Rodríguez, informed that the Venezuelan government has sent a letter to Michelle Bachelet, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, to request an “active participation” in the protection of Venezuelan nationals.
She declared that “There is a sustained campaign of stigmatization and xenophobia promoted by authorities high up in the Colombian government, in clear violation of its international obligations regarding the protection of migrants”.
This violation of rights would be “massive, systematic, serious and intentional”, thus constituting “potential crimes against humanity”.
Rodríguez referred to the “most recent hate crime against the Venezuelan people” with the murder of a 12 year-old minor and an 18 year-old boy, both Venezuelan, which occurred on October 8 in the municipality of Tibú, Norte de Santander, in Colombia.
Last week, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Felix Plasencia met with Bachelet and discussed “the urgent need to safeguard the human rights of Venezuelans abroad from being victims of xenophobia”.
Staging of an aggression
The Venezuelan Ambassador to the UN, Samuel Moncada, explained before the Security Council the evidence that proves the purpose of generating an artificial climate of military tension on the part of the governments of Colombia and the United States to pull Venezuela into an armed conflict.
“The Colombian Government is convinced that with the help of the United States it can export its internal war to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and achieve three objectives simultaneously:
1. to exonerate its responsibility for the failure of the peace process;
2. to impede the electoral and peaceful work of the democratic opposition in Colombia;
3. the violent overthrow of the constitutional government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela,” the letter explains.
As examples of the accusations of the Colombian president, Iván Duque, that Venezuela “harbors criminals”, also the vice-president and foreign minister of Colombia, Marta Lucía Ramírez, assured that in Venezuela “a dictatorship” prevailed that opened “doors and windows to terrorist guerrillas”.
President Maduro demanded justice for the young Venezuelans murdered in Colombia and stressed that “an accusation for crimes against humanity will be made against Iván Duque, before the International Criminal Court, for the persecution of Venezuelan migrants, for the promotion of hatred and for forced disappearances”.
Deputies of the Venezuelan National Assembly also approved an agreement to repudiate the murder of Venezuelans in Colombia.
The veiled messages of hatred against Venezuelans are instigated from the Duque administration with the purpose of generating propaganda, attracting humanitarian funds and more military “cooperation” that derives in juicy contracts for the oligarchy that sustains itself in crime and dispossession of the majorities. Hence, feeding aggression is a profitable business for the political class under the tutelage of Uribism and for the anti-Chavism that takes refuge there while it assaults Venezuelan assets.
–Samuel Robinson Institute report
Source: Mision Verdad, translation Resumen Latinoamericano- English