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Venezuela's parliament criticize Colombia's "lack of willingness" in border issue

Xinhua, September 2, 2015 Adjust font size:

Venezuela's members of parliament criticized on Tuesday the Colombian government's "lack of willingness" towards working together with Caracas to find solutions to the critical situation at their border.

The Colombian government is responsible for having provoked the stance taken by Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro to approve security measures at the border, according to Saul Ortega, the Vice President of the Permanent Commission on Foreign Policy, Sovereignty and Integration for the National Assembly, during an interview with local media.

On Aug. 21, Maduro indefinitely closed all access between Venezuela and Colombia through the western state of Tachira, which borders with the Colombian city of Cucuta, due to an attack carried out by paramilitary gangs against soldiers from the Venezuelan National Guard. Maduro also declared a state of emergency in six municipalities that border with the neighbouring nation that same day.

Venezuela is taking other actions as well such as deploying a special security operative in the whole area to eradicate the presence of paramilitary gangs in Venezuelan territory and put a stop to extraction smuggling that is "bleeding the national economy dry", said Ortega.

The parliament member also said that former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, who "created a multimillionaire business and organized crime in the area, and all of this is allowed by the neighboring country's authorities."

Bogota's government approved a decision in 2000 to establish "currency exchange offices at the border region," parliament member Yul Jabour from the Venezuelan Communist Party told private channel Venevision.

In Cucuta there are around 3,000 places where you can change currency and their aim is to "induce a policy that will hit out at our currency (the bolivar). These exchange offices also have a great relation with the Colombian paramilitary structures that have infiltrated our territory, affecting Venezuelan's economy and individual and collective security," according to Jabour.

Due to this, the Caracas government has decided to close the border as a sovereign measure to re-establish peace and order while bringing forward meetings with Colombian authorities to finalize strategies together to face the daily threats to the citizens from both countries.

On this topic, socialist parliament member Ortega said that during Hugo Chavez's presidency, both governments had agreed to economically boost these territories and put programs in practice to develop border integration zones.

"These projects exist and the opportunity to take them up again also exists but the Colombian government is not willing to. For that reason, I think that closing the border is the only way that we can stop all the crime and above all it will make Colombia pay attention and become interested in a dialogue," said Ortega. Enditem