Taking Note
FR
The Rights of Venezuela's Colombians As North Americans debate the questions of cross-border class relations raised by NAFTA, Antonio Navarro Wolff, the former guerrilla leader and current...
...There are somewhere between one and a half and three million Colombians currently living and working in neighboring Venezuela...
...Cranking up the conflict a notch, Navarro responded-from Bogotd, where resentment of Venezuela has a long history-by reiterating his charges and defending the Colombians' contributions to Venezuela...
...He claims the Guard sells immigrants false Venezuelan identity papers for exorbitant sums, and submits those who are unable or unwilling to pay to various forms of torture and abuse...
...A military bid for power would look nothing like the intentonas of 1992 which were led by middlelevel officers with roots in Venezuela's popular classes...
...He called the meeting "unacceptable," and announced he would check with the "competent authorities" to determine precisely which laws had been violated...
...Beneath the layers of nationalist rhetoric, the Mufioz-Navarro conflict is not between countries, but between social classes...
...The coup that many now fear would come not from some ill-defined populist space, but from the Right...
...In a letter to the organizers, he said: "In your condition as foreigners, you can't hold meetings with political ends on Venezuelan territory...
...On October 19, 1993, with Navarro's active assistance, some of Venezuela's Colombians sought to amplify their human-rights concerns by holding a "First Encuentro of Colombians in Venezuela" at the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas...
...Navarro said he would gladly pursue the dispute in Venezuela and that over 100 Colombians would be willing to testify about the Guard's extortion practices, even though recent events might give them pause...
...The benign model is Fujimori...
...The meeting, together with a recent Amnesty International report entitled "Venezuela: The Eclipse of Human Rights," created a heated controversy over the role and behavior of Venezuela's law enforcement authorities-above all, the National Guard...
...Colombians are vilified for living off social assistance, for petty thievery, and for introducing the guerrilla-Colombia's ELN operates along the border, occasionally kidnapping ranchers and attacking National Guard Patrols--to Venezuelan soil...
...The Rights of Venezuela's Colombians As North Americans debate the questions of cross-border class relations raised by NAFTA, Antonio Navarro Wolff, the former guerrilla leader and current candidate for president of Colombia [see "Interview With Navarro Wolff," p. 12] has sparked an Andean version of the same debate...
...If I, a presidential candidate," he said "could almost be taken prisoner for making a simple statement, imagine what could happen to a person living in Venezuelan territory...
...Following Navarro's remarks, Venezuela's Minister of Defense, Radam6s Mufioz L6on, ordered a military indictment against him for defaming the country...
...While some of them manage to find stable, well-paying jobs, most occupy the lowest rung of the job ladder-typically finding work on farms or in Venezuela's growing informal sector...
...In fact, as prices rise, incomes fall, and social spending is cut, many Venezuelans are scapegoating Colombians for the growing social disorder...
...It would be led not by lieutenants, but by generals...
...Navarro Wolff has accused the Venezuelan National Guard of human rights abuses against undocumented Colombian immigrants...
...month after the Colombians' First Encuentro, Venezuela's Foreign Minister, Fernando Ochoa Antich, joined the chorus of intolerance...
...The meeting took place as the quality of life for most Venezuelans continued its rapid decline...
...Indeed, many in that community have openly been calling for a stronger military presence, and despite the country's eighth consecutive democratic presidential election, no one is discounting the possibility of a strong military "guarantee" of social peace...
...Squeezed and demoralized, most Venezuelans seem in no mood to support the human rights of immigrant workers...
...If he sets foot on Venezuelan soil," said Mufioz Ldon, "he will be detained and taken to an appropriate tribunal...
...Oil revenues in this formerly oil-rich country have been falling for ten years, and the austerity program of the outgoing government has made day-to-day life a real struggle for all but the very wealthy...
...If the Colombians in Venezuela didn't get up at four in the morning to milk the cows and run the printing presses," he told a Bogoti press conference, "Venezuelans wouldn't have milk or newspapers for their breakfasts...
...Mufioz Le6n's natural constituency is the Venezuelan clase dirigente, and, as the populist President-elect Rafael Caldera prepares to take office, Mufioz is seen by many as the strongest and most reliable defender of the business community's neoliberal agenda...
...The Colombian underclass in Venezuela forms a part of Navarro's natural constituency, and his standing in the presidential polls has risen since he has presented himself as their defender...
...And it would call not for popular participation, but for order, open markets, and a "cleaning out" of the barrios...
...the more realistic model is Pinochet...
Vol. 27 • January 1994 • No. 4
