VENEZUELA-COLOMBIA/BORDER Colombian and Venezuelan foreign ministers meet as tensions rise over Caracas' increasing deportations along border

Record ID: 142216

  • Title: VENEZUELA-COLOMBIA/BORDER Colombian and Venezuelan foreign ministers meet as tensions rise over Caracas' increasing deportations along border
  • Date: 27th August 2015
  • Summary: CUCUTA, COLOMBIA (AUGUST 26, 2015) (REUTERS) SANTOS DURING NEWS CONFERENCE (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) JUAN MANUEL SANTOS, COLOMBIAN PRESIDENT, SAYING: "I should say that raising one's voice and raising the volume of the confrontation will not help solve the problems. I came to tell the hundreds of deported Colombians that your country is here for you, your government is here for you, your people are here for you, your president is here to support you in everything that we can."
  • Embargoed: 11th September 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Colombia
  • Country: Colombia
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVAET1KOEPR9MSU7RMVRIMK00PG7
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos met with his advisors at the border town of Cucuta on Wednesday (August 26) amidst the deportation of scores of Colombian citizens from Venezuela in an ongoing crisis that is straining bilateral tensions.
    Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro shut two border crossings last week after a shootout between smugglers and troops wounded three soldiers. He later extended the closing indefinitely and stepped up deportations of Colombians in what he said was an effort to crack down on paramilitary gangs.
    Thousands of Colombians have since returned home across the border with whatever belongings they can carry.
    Some have reported abuse by Venezuelan authorities.
    President Santos told media that those returning are being attended to by authorities.
    "We've been able to attend to all the people deported who have registered. There are about 1,000 of them, a bit more than 1,000. But there are between 5 and 6,000 who are in other places and travelled voluntarily, because of their fear, because of their desperation," he said.
    Whilst in the border region, Santos spoke to Colombians deported from neighbouring Venezuela, many of whom have taken shelter in tents along the border.
    With some 5 million Colombians in Venezuela, Santos has sought to diffuse tensions and called for a solution to resolve the crisis.
    For those returning home with little to show for their time in Venezuela, he vowed Colombia will provide aid.
    "I should say that raising one's voice and raising the volume of the confrontation will not help solve the problems. I came to tell the hundreds of deported Colombians that your country is here for you, your government is here for you, your people are here for you, your president is here to support you in everything that we can," added Santos.
    Maduro, whose Socialist Party is forecast to fare poorly in the December 6 parliamentary election, says the border crackdown is necessary to stop the Colombian right, smugglers and paramilitaries from plotting to worsen shortages and subvert him.
    Critics counter currency and price controls are to blame for the lucrative smuggling undertaken by citizens of both nationalities along the porous border.
    In the city of Cartagena, Venezuela's Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez joined his Colombian counterpart for talks on the issue.
    Rodriguez said the Venezuelan government wants to secure a safer border between the two countries.
    "We will continue to work to build a more equitable border, of peace, of strict allegiance to the law, where there are no mafias that are the product of violence, rather a border built through the effort of our people who live along border, built with sane commercial exchange, built through an exchange of our productive matrices and not a product of criminal scourge and criminal groups," he said.
    The crisis has spurred anger in Colombia, with critics of Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos saying he has taken a weak tack with Maduro's Socialist government after years of bilateral tensions.
    Former president and head of the right-wing opposition, Alvaro Uribe, joined protesters in the Colombian capital where he compared the deportations to genocide.
    "It's the time for the government to understand that this represents not a tentative genocide but a genocide that extends, that is prolonged, it becomes a continuing crime," said Uribe.
    With local elections in Colombia in October, the issue could become a decisive one in the vote.
    "I'm indignant because of the miserable, humiliating way in which my compatriots are being treated in Venezuela and I am also in solidarity with the people of Venezuela who are suffering because of this vile dictatorship," said local protester, Pablo Robayo.
    The porous 2,219-kilometre (1,379-mile) frontier is frequently traversed by smugglers moving price-fixed goods from Venezuela to Colombia for profit, as well as illegal armed groups.
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