Cucuta, Venezuela and all that...

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LOOK NORTH

Whilst I wasn’t exactly expecting to see Wild West tumbleweed blowing down the streets of Cucuta what I actually found, as opposed to the perception created by the press of a border town drowning under a sea of refugees was a city where arguably there were less people sleeping on the streets than other metropolises in Colombia, with infrastructure that Bogota would die for and a very calm atmosphere, also at 800,000 people it is more sizeable than one imagined.

This though somewhat masks the real situation for a number of reasons.

Firstly there is an aggressive campaign by the local authorities to avoid the above situation this includes what are effectively snatch squads geared towards picking up youths and delivering them back over the border - of course their resourcefulness means this effectively is a game of wacamole as the border is too easy to cross, on top of this those squads there is a campaign to help those arriving with food and to some extent housing, whatever they are doing it is effective in projecting the 'Cucuta Open For Business' image.

Up on the actual Simon Bolivar bridge watching the Venezuelans stream over from San Antonio it would be an exaggeration to compare them to something seen during WWII however there is that 1000 yard stare created by a different level of desperation. There is some documentation checking but those arriving have a period of time to register once here, no question some are coming to work for a day or two, some to study and others to simply fill their roller bag and head back once the money is spent but not all of them will return. Some carry a suspicious amount of luggage, some are complete families and with hawkers on the bridge calling out “Bogota, Ecuador, Lima” it is crystal clear there is a cottage industry in moving those arriving to places well removed from Cucuta, this is no surprise to Colombians who already find those from Venezuela working at Carulla or chauffeuring them around in Uber - on the seedier side they dominate the prostitution business in Cartagena having won a legal case for the right to work filed by the local competition. So how big is humanitarian crisis, is it going to sink the Colombian economy, can social services handle it ?

I was lucky enough whilst in town to attend a presentation by UNESCOs man who heads up the reaction to this crisis and clearly Cucuta Is not where the issue is, in the end these are people arriving with enough assets to move further inland or to move on to other countries in the region, that said despite countries such as Panama, Ecuador & Brazil taking some refugees the simple fact is that the vast majority remain in Colombia where the culture is very close to their own and where often they have family members who are Colombian.

The real biblical scenes are developing further north in La Guajira an arid desert like province where a society with 35% electricity coverage and a previous poverty issue I now feeling the extra strain as 100’000s cross the border. La Guajira is a province of just over a million people however there is a huge indigenous population with peoples such as the Wayuu living on both sides of the border – it is not a region in any which way geared up to receive additional burden.

Overall numbers are hard to calculate, the Government’s total estimate states that 550,000 have arrived and when I was recently with the FinMin they appeared relatively relaxed about the resources required to deal with the problem however those on the ground suggest the numbers may be far higher, that 550,000 are those registered whilst the border itself is crisscrossed by hundreds of rat runs where people arrive and simply disappear after crossing – the Government are working on another census but their current numbers appears a best case scenario.

A tell-tale sign maybe that the Colombian Government have never been to the UN for help despite the many crisis dotted throughout its history – in February they asked for help. What concerns those on the ground is that thus far it has been a steady trickle and many go home after their brief trip to Colombia – what if Venezuela suddenly gets really ugly and there is a flood, how will an already stressed system cope ? There have already been outbreaks of measles brought it appears into Colombia in two locations, fortunately as a country we have a very extensive vaccination program but it is only one example of issues that may arise. Prevention is always better than cure and whilst at the moment the situation, given sufficient resources, is manageable that could change in a hurry if the situation gaps downwards in Venezuela.

War of the Worlds (Richard Burton narrating) “The rich rubbing shoulders with beggars and outcasts…..a stampede without order, without goal”