Like many of her compatriots, Luisa Rivera, who left Venezuela seven years ago, is convinced that “Nicolas Maduro openly stole the election [présidentielle] of July 28. And that the international community should do everything possible to help Venezuelans get rid of “dictator”. But Luisa, who works as a saleswoman in Bogota, hopes that Colombia will not break diplomatic relations with Caracas or close the border. “When she did, in 2019, I couldn’t see my mother or my sister for over four years, she says. Air connections have been suspended. To return to the country, you had to go through the trochaswhich is dangerous. » THE trochas are the paths along which migrants and smugglers pass, controlled by armed groups.
The contested re-election of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro poses a complex challenge to his Colombian neighbor Gustavo Petro. Both men call themselves left-wing, their two countries share a 2,219-kilometer-long border. “Colombia cannot accept the fraud committed on July 28, but neither can it cut ties with Venezuela, summarizes researcher Ronal Rodriguez, from the Rosary University, in Bogota. President Gustavo Petro’s room for maneuver is narrow. »
Mediation efforts undertaken jointly by Colombia, Brazil and Mexico to obtain from the Venezuelan authorities that they publish the minutes of the presidential polling stations or that they accept new elections are stalling. Two months after the election, it seems clear that the Maduro government has chosen force and repression.
“Diplomatic blockade”
In Colombia, the right-wing opposition would like to follow the path of Argentina and Peru, which recognized the victory of the opposition candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, and assume the cost of the rupture. “Colombia must recognize the right to freedom of the Venezuelan people subjected to a criminal dictatorship”affirms Senator Maria Fernanda Cabal, denouncing the attitude “accomplice” of President Petro.
More than a third of the 8 million Venezuelans who have emigrated since 2015 live in Colombia. Many, like Luisa, hate the Colombian president “because he is Maduro’s friend.” But, like Luisa, they judge that “the normalization of relations with Venezuela is a good thing”. The absence of consular representation has, for four years, complicated the lives of migrants. Luisa was unable to renew her passport or register her son with the Venezuelan civil registry.
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