Counting the Venezuelans

Venezuelans wait in La Candelaria to register with a government office.

By some estimates, more than a million Venezuelans have fled into Colombia over the past several

years, fleeing their own nation's hyperinflation, sinking economy, soaring crime rates and empty stores and pharmacies.

Colombia has been remarkably accepting, perhaps because in past decades Venezuela received innumerable Colombians fleeing the violence here, and because many of the Venezuelans crossing the border are children or grandchildren of Colombians who fled into Venezuela.

Now, Colombia wants the Venezuelan immigrants to formulize their status here by registering.

A money-transfer place in Bogotá's red light district

Waiting to transfer money to Venezuela.

Remarkably, there's been little public resentment against the Venezuelans, except for some concern about crime and grumbling by low-income workers and prostitutes that the Venezuelans are taking away jobs. But fortunately so far in the congressional and presidential campaigns, no populist candidate has seized on the Venezuelans to get votes.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The Venezuelans are Coming, and Coming

Two young men from Venezuela sell arepas on Plaza San Victorino recently.

The two employees in a stir fry place here in La Candelaria came recently from Venezuela, where one was an attorney and the other had some small businesses. A street musician whom I knew more than a dozen years ago in Caracas just showed up in La Candelaria. The other night, I was accosted by two young Venezuelan women selling arepas venezolanas. Apparently desperate, one of them placed her hand fondly on my shoulder just a few minutes after we'd met.

A Venezuelan man and boy ask for money - supposedly for
other Venezuelans - near Bogotá's Plaza Bolivar.

Colombia, which for decades sent millions of its people overseas, is now being inundated by immigrants from oil-rich Venezuela - which until not long ago was the economic envy of the rest of the continent.

The reasons are obvious: Venezuela's incompetent, increasingly authoritarian government, has caused the economy to contract nearly 20% and inflation of almost 800%, numbers usually seen only in wartime.

The Caracas Chronicles website calculates that more than 70,000 Venezuelans have come to Colombia - but nobody knows for sure, since many undoubtedly cross the border illegaly.

Venezuelans are a godsend for this year's bumper coffee crop, which is short of pickers. And I suspect that they're also helping collect Colombia's record crop of coca leaves.

According to this graph from the Caracas Chronicles blog,
the number of Venezuelans fleeing their nation far exceeds the
number of refugees crossing the Meditarrean to Europe.

The wave of foreigners has inevitably generated tensions. The two young arepa sellers talked about minor confrontations on the bus, and said that street merchants insulted and harrassed them. Undoubtedly, low income Colombians feel threatened by the wave of cheap labor. Even Colombian prostitutes have complained that Venezuelans are invading their industry, offering services at cut-rated prices.

What will happen? Venezuelan Pres. Nicolas Maduro seems determined to continue his disastrous economic policies, and shows no sign of sharing power with the oppisition. So, Venezuela will likely continue its economic tailspin, and possibly end up in some sort of civil war.

Expect the Venezuelans to keep coming.

Many thousands of Venezuelans pack Bogotá's Plaza Bolivar
during a recent vote arranged by that country's
opposition parties.

Update: A young Venezuelan woman waiting tables in a restaurant around the corner described to me a series of crimes in her country, including one when assailants threatened to shoot her dog unless she handed over valuables. She has two college degrees and back in Caracas worked in media production. Economically, she was getting by, but the crime epidemic terrified her. Via Whatsapp, she just learned that some 20 people in her community had been kidnapped in recent weeks. Those are 'express kidnappings,' in which the victim is taken to some poor neighborhood and held there until relatives deliver the ransom in euros, dollars or gold.

"The kidnappers won't accept bolivars," the fast-devaluing local currency, she added.

"The social decomposition has been terrible and really fast," she says, adding that "everybody's just out for money."

According to one poll published by the Caracas Chronicles
website, the great majority of Venezuelans
want to leave their country.

Yet, she actually seems to sympathise with the criminals. "When your salary is only enough to buy some bread and milk, how can you blame them," for being so desperate? she asks.

She's also sure that the government committed fraud to win majorities in most states in recent regional voting. After all, "who would vote for a government that's keeping you hungry?"

In fact, the Caracas Chronicles blog has published documents they say demonstrate pro-government fraud in the vote.



By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The Venezuelan Opposition's Moment

A selfie with the crowd in back, as Venezuelans voted today on Plaza Bolivar.

'The people decide!

Colombia has filled during recent years with Venezuelan political and economic refugees, and today they showed their strength. Thousands filled Plaza Bolivar for a plebiscite designed to weaken Venezuela's increasingly hapless, corrupt and authoritarian government.

The opposition's positions will win overwhelmingly - and the government will ignore it and continue
with carreening toward dictatorship. On July 30, the government plans to hold a vote vote to elect an assembly to rewrite the nation's Constitution. But the voting system and representation were designed by the Venezuelan government to guarantee itself a majority.

The people decide!, on three
questions designed to
weaken the government.

Interestingly, the Maduro government has recently suspended regional elections it was sure to lose, arguing that with oil prices low it could not afford to hold the vote. However, it did miraculously find the money to hold the constitutional assembly vote it plans to wind.

The government in Caracas has also used its packed Supreme Court to nullify all decisions taken by parliament, which is overwhelmingly dominated by the opposition.

Today's ballot, designed and promoted by the MUD opposition coalition to Venezuelan Pres. Nicolás Maduro, contained three questions:

- Do you reject the constitutional assembly planned by Nicolas Maduro without the previous approval of the Venezuelan people?

- Do you demand that the armed forces and all public functionaries obey the 1999 Constitution and back the decisions of the National Assembly.

'Gochos united in Bogotá.' Gochos are people
born in the Venezuelan state of Tachira.

- Do you approve of the public authorities and the creation of a national union government and the holding of free and transparent elections to restore the constitutional order.

Many observers believe that in Venezuela power ultimately rests with the military. Opposition leaders argue that the government has violated the 1999 Constitution, written under the leadership of the now-deceased Hugo Chavez and would like the military to refuse to obey the government.

.Whatever happens in Venezuela: Continued crisis, outright dictatorship, revolution or civil war, it will mean huge impacts on Colombia, in terms of trade and immigration.

In a celebratory mood, Venezuelans oppositionists line up to vote on Plaza Bolivar.

Painting Venezuelan flags.

A Venezuelan exile's sign: 'Maduro, it's your fault that my children miss their grandparents.'

Venezuelan government opponents pack the Plaza Bolivar.

Venezuelans walk to vote.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours