Supporters rally to back Venezuela government’s crackdown on migrants
Source: Associated Press
Supporters rally to back Venezuela governments crackdown on migrants
HANNAH DREIER
CARACAS The Associated Press
Published Friday, Aug. 28, 2015 6:14PM EDT
Last updated Friday, Aug. 28, 2015 6:16PM EDT
A sea of government supporters in red shirts rallied in Caracas on Friday to back a crackdown on migrants, smugglers and paramilitary groups that has triggered an increasingly bitter dispute between Colombia and Venezuela and led the neighbouring countries to recall their ambassadors.
The spat erupted a week ago when Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro shut a major border crossing to combat what he says are rampant smuggling and paramilitary activities near Colombia, and declared a state of emergency in six western cities. Venezuelan officials deported more than 1,000 Colombian migrants and another 5,000 have left voluntarily, with some carrying all of their belongings across a muddy river on a frantic moving day.
. . .
On Friday, thousands of government supporters snarled traffic as they marched to the presidential palace in support of the new measures and emphasized that they were gathering to support the security and integrity of Venezuela, not to demonize Colombian immigrants. Some waved signs saying No to Colombian paramilitarism as lively merengue music played and a carnival atmosphere reigned.
. . .
With two border crossings closed, the underground economy has come to a halt, satisfying Venezuelan officials who have long blamed transnational mafias for widespread shortages, but also jeopardizing the livelihood of tens of thousands of poor Colombians who depend on the black market.
Read more: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/supporters-rally-to-back-veneuzela-governments-crackdown-on-migrants/article26153818/
aceofblades
(73 posts)Igel
(35,300 posts)I'm told.
What Venezuela needs are a lot more migrants to get out of its mess, I guess. Not the racist, anti-immigrant protests they have today.
As for the smugglers, well, all they have to do is legalize what the smugglers are smuggling. Assuming that it's not human trafficking.
Paramilitaries are bad all around. I thought Chavez created a kind of paramilitary. Good to see that Maduro's trying to roll it up. (Oh. Wait. It's likely members of his military out protesting the idea of a non-government organized paramilitary. Ban the NGOs!)
Judi Lynn
(160,527 posts)ChangoLoa
(2,010 posts)You see thousands of poor and vulnerable people fleeing a border with their beds on their heads, just because a politician is loking for an escape goat to dissimule his complete failure, and you support that?
How shameful, chavistas have no limit in their adulation.
hack89
(39,171 posts)freshwest
(53,661 posts)ALEXANDRA ULMER - Aug. 25, 2015
CARACAS Reuters
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is used to being attacked by critics as a communist dictator, but one label the Latin American socialist was not expecting was to be compared to U.S. tycoon and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Venezuelas recent move to close border crossings and deport hundreds of Colombians has reminded Mr. Maduros opponents of Mr. Trumps proposal to deport undocumented immigrants en masse and make Mexico pay for a wall separating it from the United States.
Maduro criticizes Donald Trump, but his acts against Colombian immigration are worse than the magnates words, said Saverio Vivas, an opposition politician.
Mr. Maduro shut crossings on the border last week after a shootout between smugglers and troops left three soldiers wounded. Since then, Colombia has accused Venezuela of stepping up deportations and at times separating children from their parents, which has also drawn criticism from human-rights groups...
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/venezuela-presidents-deportation-policy-draws-trump-comparisons/article26104982/
The world seems to be 'circling the wagon' with their borders. I wonder how long this old strategy will work in the face of global climate change.
pampango
(24,692 posts)Memo to Trump: This is what mass deportation looks like
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Boys carry their belongings as they cross the Tachira river border into Colombia from Venezuela, near Colombia's Villa del Rosario village, August 27, 2015.
Its hard to imagine what it (a Trump-style mass deporation) would look like would there be, as journalist and recent Trump foil Jorge Ramos suggested in a op-ed, soldiers, police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, raiding homes, workplaces and schools, in brutal raids across an imaged "Trump-land," or would President Trump find another way to carry out his strategy?
This week, a glimpse of what a mass deportation could look like came from an unexpected source: Venezuela, where President Nicholas Maduro ordered that Colombians living in border towns be deported. Maduro alleges that they are responsible for cross-border smuggling and joining para military gangs. Critics quickly seized on the similarities between Maduros policy and Trumps approach, with one Twitter using saying the only difference between the two was the color of their hair.
Most Colombian deportees had been living in shanty towns located just across the border, where they lived illegally. Deportees said that they were expelled abruptly by Venezuelan National Guardsmen who searched for immigrants home by home, and rounded them up, without giving them a chance to explain why they were in the country, or even an opportunity to pack their things.
Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro said that he expelled Colombians who were living along the border because they were responsible for smuggling subsidized goods across the border and joining right wing paramilitary groups that extort local businesses. But deportees tell another story. Jose Ayala said he had been working in Venezuela as a cook. "I burnt my hands for the past 12 years... and now we have been kicked out like dogs," he said.
http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-08-28/memo-trump-what-mass-deportation-looks
"Our economic problems are the fault of poor illegal immigrants. When I become president they will be gone."
It has a familiar ring to it.
Judi Lynn
(160,527 posts)Published 31 August 2015
Venezuelan Ombudsperson Tarek Saab lashed out at those who were misrepresenting the situation on the Colombia-Venezuela border.
Venezuelas Ombudsperson Tarek Saab refuted Sunday the accusation that his country had deported refugees or Colombians with legal status, saying that the United Nations Refugee Agency has also been investigating the situation.
The ombudsperson, together with UNHCR, has in the last 10 days has not documented a single case ... of a person with refugee status having been returned to Colombia, said Saab, during a visit to the border state of Tachira together with representatives from UNHCR.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro ordered the border with Colombia close after paramilitaries attacked Venezuelan soldiers who were patrolling the border. Maduro also declared a state of exception in a handful of municipalities on the border in order to address the presence of paramilitaries within Venezuela's borders, who are involved in massive crimes, including smuggling of basic products and gasoline to Colombia.
More:
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Ombudsperson-No-Colombian-Refugees-Deported-From-Venezuela-20150831-0005.html