Plight of Venezuelan migrants

CHANDRADATH MADHO

THE NOTION that TT is under siege by Venezuelans, in collusion with international human rights agencies, has been sadly fuelled by Prime Minister Rowley. He has tacitly signalled xenophobia of Venezuelans via his rant that Trinidad will become a “refugee tent” if it concedes to asylum for refugee-seekers. However, I wish to remind Trinis and West Indians in general about why Venezuelans are fleeing from the Orinoco Basin.

Firstly, we must debunk the myth that TT is under siege by Venezuelans and that many of them are female prostitutes and male drug traffickers. Indeed, the Venezuelan migrants are going to several nations to seek a safer and more decent standard of living.

According to the International Organisation for Immigration, by 2021 the estimated number of Venezuelans who have fled their country since the socio-economic crisis of 2014 has crossed 6.1 million.

This volume of displaced migrants is surpassed only by the number of displaced nationals of Ukraine and Syria. While the latter two sources of human displacement have been well-documented by the Western media and social media, there is less coverage given to the nature and extent of the Venezuelan tragedy.

The largest communities of Venezuelans are found in Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru, due to the geographic proximity and cultural similarities in terms of language and religion.

Meanwhile, smaller populations are reaching Spain and the US, but these migrants are more likely to be middle class or enjoy the privileged access to visas and passports.

Although TT houses Venezuelans, the number of migrants is minuscule compared to our Latin American neighbours.

Secondly, there is a strong case to be made for the adverse economic conditions in Venezuela driving them from their homeland. The IMF laments that the average GDP per capita of Venezuela has decreased by 75 per cent between 2015 and 2021. By the end of 2021, Venezuela’s Ministry of Finance and Planning openly revealed that its debt to GDP ratio stood at 241 per cent.

The traditional dependence on oil-rich reserves has become redundant as oil prices have been falling since 2015. Alternative sources of fuel and the flight of Anglo-European oil companies from South America mean the revenue base for the oil-rich state is at its nadir.

The Nicolas Maduro regime’s lack of revenue is exacerbated by the stagnation of its private sector. Indeed, predecessor Hugo Chavez left a legacy of socialist policies that focused on subsidies, without incentivising private-sector diversification in food, medicine, textiles and technology.

So, by 2023, Maduro’s Government is not just broken, but it has successfully managed to stagnate economic diversification and private-sector expansion. Hence, jobs and incomes in the private sector are few and far between. In even worse condition are government jobs, which are associated with unpaid salaries.

Thirdly, the World Bank and the IMF consider social development as key pathways to also drive economic growth and reduce debt, but this paradigm requires state investments in education and health by Venezuela.

Furthermore, a highly regarded report by Lancet-University of Oslo Commission on Global Governance of Health bemoans that the rise of Chavez heralded cutbacks in purchases of medicines and insecticides in state facilities.

As the scourge of malnutrition ensued due to absolute poverty surges, many children and elderly became susceptible to tropical diseases like malaria. These afflictions were not easily treated as hospitals faced staff shortages that have become more prevalent in the past five years, worsened by electrical power outages.

Although Latin America and the Caribbean have followed Europe and North America’s demographic transition to a higher percentage of ageing, partially due to reduced communicable diseases, Venezuela is paradoxically reverting to being at high risk to a malaria outbreak.

If disease control is a major issue in Venezuela, food price inflation, especially due to government-imposed tariffs on foreign goods, has brought the population to its knees. Even if we assume that many Venezuelans still have jobs in their native land and work for a salary, we cannot be certain that there is purchasing power for basic food items and overall well-being.

There is an inevitability of the Venezuelan migration crisis that teaches us that Venezuelans did not choose TT to migrate to. Indeed, in the past four years we have witnessed at least two fatal boat crossings of refugees across the Gulf of Paria.

Our guests deserve to be treated with human rights and dignity to afford them the right to life, liberty and access to decent work. Indeed, they have tremendous potential to be part of our workforce and to integrate into the evolving culture of this rainbow nation.