COLOMBIA AND VENEZUELA BORDER CRISIS

SUBMITTED BY:

LEYDI KATHERINE ALVAREZ VILLAMIZAR ID: 734218

NOHEMI NATHALIA BECERRA YAÑEZ ID 727809

RAMON RIVERA ID 739006

GOD'S UNIVERSITY CORPORATION

SPECIALIZATION IN FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT

MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES

2019
 COLOMBIA AND VENEZUELA BORDER CRISIS

Starting to speak from history in times past since the decade of the 70s, there was a situation
contrary to what we live today, Colombians emigrated fleeing the internal armed conflict that
affected our country and attracted by the oil boom in Venezuela, generating employment
opportunities and economic stability for many of them. By 1990, 77% of the immigrants in
Hermano Venezolano were Colombians. From then until 2015 the number of immigrants
increased and decreased according to the oil boom in that country.

Towards August 19, 2015 there is a crisis in the border of Colombia and Venezuela that has
not ceased to date, the crisis began when the president of Venezuela Nicolás Maduro Mora,
ordered to close the main border crossing to combat smuggling and alleged paramilitaries,
That same day there are confrontations with presumed smugglers in San Antonio del Táchira,
border with Colombia, causing the Venezuelan president to order the closing of the border
for 72 hours with all the borders to the city of Cúcuta, from San Antonio del Táchira and
Ureña. On August 21, the Venezuelan president decreed a state of exception for 60 days,
extendable and indefinitely extending the closing of the border.

On August 22, 2015, more than 2,000 Venezuelan soldiers searched "house by house" in the
border areas with Colombia in order to find paramilitaries, smugglers accused of various
crimes, generating a statement by the Colombian government for that time President Juan
Manuel Santos, affirming that "unilateral closure of the border benefits crime.

From that moment on, hundreds of Colombians established in the neighboring country began
to return, crossing the border through the Táchira River, a desperate exit in order not to be
expelled, denouncing abuses by the Venezuelan government and the violation of human
rights by the military of that country.

Among the interventions of the then Colombian government and the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights, they focus on pressuring Venezuela to immediately stop "any
collective, arbitrary or summary expulsion of Colombians. What the president of that country
ignores and continues with his plan to end smuggling and paramilitary gangs in that country.
In 2016 Venezuela announced the opening of the border in the state of Táchira to facilitate
the passage of students who resumed their classes in Colombia, in the same way that year the
governor of Táchira reported the opening of the border crossing for heavy vehicles, since
then dozens of Venezuelans cross the border into Colombia in search of medicines, More
than 35ooo people cross the border between San Antonio del Táchira, Villa del Rosario and
Cúcuta to get supplies thanks to the humanitarian corridor opened by both governments.
Since then, hundreds of Venezuelans have continued to pass through and return in search of
basic necessities or in search of an escape or exit to different countries in search of different
opportunities for progress.

Until August 11, 2016 they manage to reach an agreement on the "orderly, controlled and
gradual" opening of the long border between the two countries. After several attempts to find
solutions.

In February 2018 President Juan Manuel Santos visits the Venezuelan border with Cúcuta
where a series of new measures are established in order to regularize the migratory situation
as a result of the displacements produced by the crisis in Venezuela. In total there were five
measures ordered by the president of Colombia, which are:

1. Suspension of the border mobility card (TMF), increase in the number of security
personnel to guard the border, installation of a center for the care of refugees and job
creation are part of the package of decisions to control the flow of people on the
borders between Colombia and Venezuela.

2. Creation of the PEG to protect migrants in Colombia: this is composed of various

institutions and seeks to offer greater protection opportunities to migrants in the
country.

3. A shelter as part of solidarity with migrants: The establishment of a shelter to provide

humanitarian aid to migrants will be supported by the United Nations (UN).
 4. Deployment of security for greater border controls: it is established that the number
of controls is increased from four to seven, thus seeking to better protect the more
than 2,200 kilometers of border between Venezuela and Colombia.

5. New phase of the Special Permanence Permit: As applied in mid 2017, when the
Colombian government, in a measure to regularize the migratory situation in the
country opened the possibility for a special permanence permit (PEP), the authorities
of that country opened a second phase starting in February 2018.

In April 2019, the Government launched the Impact Plan to mitigate the effects generated by
the migration crisis and the closure of the Colombian-Venezuelan border. This impact
involves 32 directors and officials of the national Government, headed by the Vice President
of the Republic, Marta Lucía Ramírez, who already have the road map to implement more
than 50 cross-cutting and targeted measures, which are required for comprehensive care of
the Colombian-Venezuelan border. These measures are focused transversally to different
sectors of the country in their respective departments, where the measures taken for NORTE
DE SANTANDER are highlighted, where the migration crisis is lived day by day in a
constant way and with greater precariousness, among them are the following:

1. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Border Management obtained, through
international cooperation, 7,800 rations or additional PAE school feeding quotas for
Cúcuta, benefiting 92 educational institutions.

2. The Entrepreneurship Fund of the Seine, with the support of the Mayor's Office of
Cúcuta, will open a call, for 2,000 million pesos, to leverage enterprises that could
generate up to 200 new jobs for the metropolitan area.

3. For its part, the Department for Social Prosperity (DPS) has 950 more places for the
entrepreneurship program 'My Business' in Cúcuta and 3,000 additional places in
Norte de Santander for 'Youth in Action'.
 4. Ecopetrol, in coordination with the Vice-Ministry of Water, will commit $3.5 billion
pesos of voluntary social investment for fundamental works to improve the aqueduct
networks of Villa del Rosario, will also intervene 3 bridges in the Via Tibu-
Astilleros, through the subsidiary Cénit, with an investment of 34 billion pesos, value
that includes purchase of land and would be financed through works by taxes.

5. The Ministry of Defense will build, with an investment of 5,000 million, the Police
Station of La Parada, Villa del Rosario.

6. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will allocate up to $187 million pesos
for the purchase of equipment for the Erasmo Meoz Hospital.

Our opinion regarding the border and migratory crisis between Colombia and Venezuela is
generating social, labor and health sector instability, evidenced in the increase in the
unemployment rate in the northern capital Santandereana, significantly decreasing the value
of labor in the different economic sectors of the city, generating favoritism in the hiring of
Venezuelans due to its low cost at the salary level, as well as generating a social crisis with
an increase in delinquency, increased robberies and robberies at traffic lights and in different
sectors of the city of Cúcuta, as well as crimes against tenants so as not to be responsible for
the obligations of payment for rent.

In the same way it has been created at local level invasion of constant public spaces, increase
of the indigence in our city, taking of sport spaces, unhealthiness of the taken public spaces.

In the health sector, trauma is generated in emergency care and management of intensive care
units, since the city does not have enough care spaces to receive the masses of Venezuelans
who emigrate from their country in various health conditions, from minor illnesses to high-
cost illnesses for the Colombian health system, generating trauma in the care of Colombian
patients.

With respect to the measures taken by the government of Juan Manuel Santos in the year
2018 allowed to mitigate the crisis that presented itself before the constant increase of the
Venezuelan immigrants to our country, for which Colombia was not prepared neither
economically nor socially, leaving that the problem increased without opportune and
effective solutions towards our department and the country in general, leading to that the
previously mentioned was presented.

The current government led by President Ivan Duque, has taken measures to manage school
meals in different educational institutions, relying on international bodies for both nutritional
management and health sector, also favoring and strengthening economic resources in the
health sector as the hospital Erasmo Meoz, showers measures have also allowed to manage
the crisis, but it does not generate change and significant impacts in our department, allowing
unemployment for the Nortesantandereanos this in increase, low opportunities in the
attention of health and increase of the insecurity in our city, likewise from our perspective
the economic, social system and of health continues being the same from previous times,
unlike that it includes greater beneficiaries.
 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES

1. https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inmigraci%C3%B3n_colombiana_en_Venezuela
2. https://www.notimerica.com/politica/noticia-cronologia-crisis-fronteriza-colombia-
venezuela-20150910145217.html
3. https://www.france24.com/es/20180209-medidas-presidente-colombia-migracion-
venezolanos
4. https://id.presidencia.gov.co/Paginas/prensa/2019/190414-Con-gobernadores-y-
alcaldes-de-zona-de-frontera-Presidente-Duque-evalua-medidas-para-reactivar-
economia-region.aspx