VENEZUELA: Venezuela Tourism Is Trouble As Venezuelans Flee The Country Because Of Economic Hardships

Venezuelan migrants face difficulties when entering bordering countries, including the risk of human trafficking, while attempting to flee from economic problems back home.

Since the oil price crash of 2014, hyperinflation forced at least 2.3 million Venezuelans to leave the country.

The conflicts between Venezuelan migrants and local residents caused Brazilian president Michel Temer to send the army in an attempt to ensure safety in the region two weeks ago.

On Tuesday, Temer signed a decree to deploy soldiers for two weeks along the federal roads of Roraima, which borders the south of Venezuela.

These soldiers will reportedly ensure the security of Brazilians as well as thee migrants from crisis-hit Venezuela.

And in Peru, Venezuelan migrants are required to provide passports instead of national ID cards to enter.

It's reported that Peru witnessed a 50 percent drop in the number of migrants on the first day the new rule was implemented.

Those who could not provide passports could only enter the country by seeking asylum.

Similar measures were taken in Ecuador, only to be overturned by a court ruling.

The exodus is more disastrous for those who want to seek new lives in Colombia, the north part of which borders their home country.

A report issued on Wednesday by The Ideas for Peace Foundation (FIP), said sex trafficking of Venezuelan migrants is particularly rife along Colombia's northern borders where criminal gangs and guerrilla groups are active.

It's very difficult for Venezuelan migrants because they come across major illegal groups who take advantage of their vulnerability. We've heard several testimonies of the sexual exploitation and trafficking of women, Juan Carlos Garzon, head of the FIP said.

Child migrants are being trafficked into forced begging in Colombia, according to children's charity Terre des Hommes.

The charity surveyed more than 900 people, mostly Venezuelan migrants, along with the border in August.

Colombia is to step up efforts to manage the Venezuelan migrant crisis by asking the United Nations to intervene, Foreign Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo said on Wednesday.

We're going to continue to request the appointment of a special envoy to coordinate a multilateral action to combat this humanitarian crisis, Holmes Trujillo told Blu Radio.

Holmes Trujillo said the government would submit a proposal at the UN General Assembly in New York next month, while also pushing for the creation of a multilateral emergency fund to support the hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans risking perilous conditions to flee the economic crisis in their homeland.

Colombia has already called on its southern neighbors, Ecuador and Peru, to agree on a common strategy to address the problem.

More than two million people have fled food and medicine shortages as well as collapsing public services in Venezuela, the UN says.

More than a million have entered Colombia in the last 16 months alone as President Nicolas Maduro's Venezuela grapples with a four-year recession and hyperinflation.

But Ecuador and Peru last week announced tightened border control measures, meaning thousands of Venezuelans have got stuck in Colombia, unable to continue their journey south.

Colombia has given temporary residence to more than 800,000 Venezuelans, but many of those hope to travel further afield to Peru, Chile and even Argentina.

Around half of them aren't carrying passports but both Ecuador and Peru have said that will be a requirement now to enter their countries.

Colombia's migration director, Christian Kruger, said he was worried about the consequences of such a move.

Asking for a passport isn't going to stop migration because they're leaving their country not out of choice but out of necessity, he said.

Ecuador announced on Tuesday it would organize a meeting of 13 Latin American countries to discuss the migrant crisis, with Venezuela invited alongside those most affected and regional giants such as Brazil, Argentina and Mexico.

Relations between Venezuela and Colombia have been strained recently. Maduro blamed Colombia for a drone assassination attempt on him in early August, while Colombia accused Venezuelan soldiers of border incursion earlier this week.

Brazil's President Michel Temer has sent troops to the border town of Pacaraima after residents clashed with Venezuelan migrants, driving them out of makeshift camps.

Following the decision, Temer met key ministers, including those of defense and public security, amid regional tensions rose over the exodus from Venezuela.

The situation in Pacaraima, on the opposite side of the border to the Venezuelan town of Santa Elena de Uairen, was calm early Sunday, partly because locals managed to force out Venezuelans living on the streets.

More than 1,200 Venezuelan migrants returned to Venezuela after Saturday's violence, said a spokesman for a Brazilian migration task force.

The city looks deserted today, it's very quiet because police reinforcements have arrived and the markets are reopening said a local in the town of around 12,000, who wished to be anonymous.

The public security ministry announced it was sending a contingent of 60 troops to join teams in the area on Monday.

Tens of thousands of Venezuelans have crossed the border into Brazil over the past three years.

The latest tensions began early Saturday, hours after a local merchant was robbed and severely beaten in an incident blamed on Venezuelan suspects, in Pacaraima, where an estimated 1,000 immigrants had been living on the street.

Dozens of locals then attacked the immigrants' two makeshift camps and burned their belongings, forcing the Venezuelans back across the border. Shots were fired, stores were shuttered and debris littered the streets.

It was terrible, they burned the tents and everything that was inside, said Carol Marcano, a Venezuelan who works in Boa Vista and was on the border returning from Venezuela. "There were shots, they burned rubber tires."

Roraima state Governor Suely Campos made a plea to temporarily close the border and asked the national government to send security reinforcements to "face the increase in crime" she links to Venezuelans in the region, particularly in the capital Boa Vista.

Meanwhile, Venezuela called on Brazil Saturday to provide "corresponding guarantees to Venezuelan nationals and take measures to safeguard and secure their families and belongings."

Tensions are rising in Latin America over migration triggered by the crises in Venezuela and in Nicaragua.

Peru and Ecuador are halting immigrants at the border by requiring them to present passports, which many lack, instead of identity cards.

Last week alone, 20,000 Venezuelans entered Peru, authorities said. On Sunday, 18 undocumented Venezuelans were detained in the capital Lima, according to police.

Brazil closed its northern border on Monday to block the entry of Venezuelans.

The measure followed Sunday’s decision by federal judge Helder Barreto in the northern Brazilian state of Roraima, on the Venezuelan border, to put a stop to the entry of more Venezuelans until a greater number of immigrants from the economically beset nation are transferred elsewhere in Brazil.

Barreto on Sunday ordered the border closed until the frontier state of Roraima can create humanitarian conditions to receive the massive and disorderly influx.

But the injunction has not gone into effect yet pending an appeal by Brazilian government lawyers.

According to the judge, the measure applies to land crossings at the border, not air or sea arrivals.

Over the last three years, tens of thousands of Venezuelans have arrived in Roraima, overwhelming social services and causing a humanitarian crisis with families sleeping in the streets amid rising crime and prostitution.

The state government on Thursday decreed Venezuelans seeking medical and other social services in Roraima would have to present a valid passport, which many of the refugees do not have.

Barreto ruled that such a measure was discriminatory and countered Brazilian laws. He suspended a provision that would allow the deportation or expulsion of Venezuelan immigrants who committed illegal acts and ordered the vaccination of those admitted to Brazil.

However, he ordered the suspension of the entry of Venezuelans into Roraima until the state can reach an equilibrium between the arrival of migrants and their exit to other parts of Brazil.

Following recommendations by the UN refugee agency UNHCR, the Brazilian Air Force in early May began airlifting Venezuelan immigrants from Roraima for resettlement in other cities of Brazil.

To date, some 820 Venezuelans have been flown out of Boa Vista, the state capital, by the Air Force.

But state officials say more than 500 Venezuelans cross into Brazil every day on average and many stay in Roraima because they cannot afford to move on.

Brazil’s federal government has declined requests by Roraima’s governor to close the border. Solicitor General Grace Mendonça renewed an appeal to the Supreme Court on Monday to suspend the state decree restricting services for Venezuelans, saying it interfered with federal powers.


Tourism Observer

ARUBA: Aruba Airlines Launches Flights To Punto Fijo In Venezuela

Aruban flag carrier, Aruba Airlines, launched the world’s shortest commercial flight by jet plane.

The airline, in partnership with the Venezuelan government, inaugurated its Aruba (AUA)-Punto Fijo (LSP) route on its Bombardier CRJ-200LR yesterday.

The two airports are separated by a short 50 miles. However, the two countries are separated by 15 miles (24 km).

Currently, the world’s shortest commercial flight is Loganair’s Westray to Papa Westray, scheduled to last less than two minutes.

However, Aruba Airlines’ flight to Punto Fijo lasts less than eight minutes, becoming one of the world’s fastest active international flights by jet.

The Venezuelan state’s governor, Victor Clark, said that the opening of this route will strengthen the country’s air connectivity.

We welcome the re-start of direct flights to Aruba, said Clark.

The airline will operate the flight twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays, offering connections to Curacao, Bonaire, and Miami.

Even though prices for the short hop are marketed at a high fare of US$235, the inaugural flight carried 50 passengers.

The opening of this route will increment by 45% the number of international passengers flying out of LSP.

The inaugural event was attended by regional authorities, and the airline’s staff, which will set base at the airport looking to open an air bridge between both countries.

We’re very pleased to expand our domestic and international routes out of this airport, the Governor said.

Clark also mentioned that his Government keeps an open relationship with Aruba, looking to strengthen the connectivity and the economies between both countries.

We have set the goal of becoming the country’s most important tourism destination, for both domestic and international travelers, he said.

In January, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro ordered the closure of all air, maritime, and commercial traffic to Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao.

Maduro accused the islands of running illegal operations by extracting from Venezuela gold, copper, food, medicines, and selling them overseas.

They take away gold from this country illegally, and make it legal to sell there, Maduro said.

I didn’t want to take a measure like this one, but I am ready to take even more radical measures, he added.

The blockade lasted almost three months.

Venezuelan Vice President, Tareck El Aissami, announced in April that his government would re-instate all air and sea traffic, following negotiations with the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs, Stef Blok.

Today, after the diplomatic spat ended, Aruba Airlines has partnered with the Punto Fijo Airport and the Venezuelan Falcon State to open this route.

The Punto Fijo Airport is poorly served by Venezuelan carriers to domestic destinations. The airport is often deserted with very little connectivity.

However, not all frontiers have been opened up between both countries.

Flights to Aruba can only depart from three Venezuelan airports: Valencia (VLN), Maracaibo (MAR), and Punto Fijo (LSP); whereas flights to Curacao and Bonaire can only depart from Caracas (CCS).

With the re-opening of the Dutch Antilles frontiers, the Venezuelan government seems desperate to keep some of its international connectivity alive.

In April, Maduro also banned Panamanian flag carrier, Copa Airlines, from flying to Venezuela.

Panama’s government followed suit and banned all Venezuelan airlines from flying into the Central American country.

However, after considerable international pressure, Maduro announced that he was restoring flights to Panama as part of an agreement that he reached with President Juan Carlos Varela.

We have agreed to have the best bilateral relations and to channel differences in the best way possible, Maduro said.

In February 2017, El Aissami was placed on the US Office of Foreign Assets Control blacklist.

According to the US Government, the Venezuelan Executive Vice President aided drug traffickers, therefore freezing all his assets in the United States.

The sanctioned list also includes President Nicolas Maduro.

According to the US Government, El Aissami allowed the shipping of narcotics from Venezuela and owned shipments of over 1,000 kg of Cocaine that left Venezuela to Mexico and the United States.

And just two days ahead of a fixed presidential election, the US Government announced further sanctions against Diosdado Cabello, the second-most powerful man in the country.

The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control claims that Cabello was also responsible for drug trafficking, extortion, money laundering and embezzling government money.

Aruba Airlines was founded in 2006, formally launching operations in 2012 after being awarded its Air Operator’s Certificate (AOC).

The carrier leased its first two Airbus A320s and began flying to short destinations in Maracaibo and Panama City.

In 2016, the airline took delivery of its first Airbus A319, with which it launched flights to Miami (MIA) and Valencia (VLN).

In late 2017, the airline received two Bombardier CRJ-200s, adding up to one active Airbus A319, and one A320. The average age of its fleet amounts to 18 years.

Today, the airline flies to Bonaire, Curacao, Valencia, Maracaibo, Punto Fijo, and Miami.

But, in reality, the success of this niche route is highly unlikely.

Punto Fijo does not offer strong connecting traffic from other cities in Venezuela that require an international reach, strongly relying on point-to-point originating passengers.

And with fares as low as $235 for such a quick flight, a country that forbids transactions in US Dollars makes this new commercial service less likely to succeed.

Rumors are that Aruba Airlines is owned by a group that’s close to Venezuelan Government officials. Should it be true, the commercial rationale behind this niche route would be proven valid.


Tourism Observer

VENEZUELA: Eating One Meal A Day

It has the biggest oil reserves on the planet. But instead of living like Middle Eastern sheiks, many Venezuelans are on the brink of famine.

The economy is in ruins, the currency is all but worthless, shops are empty and people queue for subsidised food rations to survive.

A charismatic former army colonel named Hugo Chavez launched a socialist revolution after he was elected in 1998. But under his successor, Nicolas Maduro, the oil-rich country has become a failing state.

A week in the capital Caracas revealed a city on the edge of destruction.

The first things you see are the queues. They start at about 3:00am across the city, with tens of thousands waiting in line to buy subsidised food. The reward for six hours of waiting might be two small bags of flour.

'They are fine in the government, they eat," one woman clutching a baby tells us in disgust.

People tell us they eat only once a day so there'll be something to give the children for dinner. We hear stories of people fainting from hunger in the slums.

'The whole system has to change," one man cries.

"It can't go on like this."

Word spreads through the crowd that journalists have come and others call us over to talk to them. But we can't stay long.

Police are guarding the food stores to prevent riots and if they spot us we'll be arrested.

We move on to our next location, passing people scavenging through garbage for food and socialist billboards boasting how much more people are eating since the revolution.

We catch a train to the edge of the city. The greater Caracas area has 5 million people and most of them live in slums called barrios on the surrounding hills.

As a general rule, the poorer you are, the higher you live. Taxis don't even go the higher barrios. People climb up winding pot-holed streets or catch communal buses or even motorcycle taxis called motos.

At the top of one barrio we find a crowd of people waiting for government deliveries of gas that were supposed to come days before.

Behind them is a giant mural of Hugo Chavez, the first socialist president who lavished oil money on the barrios before dying unexpectedly in 2013.

"We miss him a lot," says an old woman named Josepina Lopez.

"He used to solve all the problems we have now."

But others have only contempt for the new president, Nicolas Maduro.

"People want him out of power," says a moto driver Leon Guerrero.

"But he does not let us vote because he knows he is going to lose. Every day the situation is harder and sometimes in feel suffocated."

The only business that's booming in the barrios is crime. With close to 4,000 murders a year Caracas is getting a reputation as the most dangerous city in Latin America.

Our translator puts us in touch with a local gang who agree to meet us.

We are taken into a concrete room and searched by young men wearing balaclavas and holding pistols.

The leader tells me nonchalantly what they do.

"A bit of everything," he says, "drugs, kidnapping, stealing cars, contract killings. Mostly drugs."
He says business is good.

"Do you worry about police?" I ask.

"No, we have good contacts."

He takes the bullets from his gun and gives it me to hold, then jokes I've left my fingerprints on it.

They line up to show us their weapons and agree to a group photograph.

We politely decline their invitation to smoke marijuana with them.

One of the gang members escorts us back down to the road with a gun "for safety".

We go back to the city centre to meet an eminent historian, Professor Margarita Lopez Maya.

She unlocks the gate to her compound and the heavy locks on her apartment where we set up the small, tourist-style cameras we've brought to interview her.

She explains that falling world oil prices are only part of the reason for the economy's collapse.

The socialist regime didn't just destroy the market economy though mass nationalisation.

It also ran down the state oil company, putting all the profits into social programs and nothing back into the ageing oil infrastructure.

"Venezuela today has the biggest reserves of oil in the world," she says.

"But the problem has been that during the Chavez era, the company has deteriorated seriously, especially in the last years.

"And we are reducing our oil production. They have killed the golden goose."
But even she is surprised by how quickly the economy fell apart when oil prices halved after Chavez's death.

"It's broken, it's absolutely broken," she says.

"Listen, it's so amazing what's going on in Venezuela and so unnecessary.

"You can't believe it!'

We need to change US dollars for the local currency, the Bolivar, named after the 19th century military leader Simon Bolivar who helped win independence from Spain.

The official exchange rate is a joke.

The currency is almost worthless, thanks partly to the government printing more money to pay its bills.

Everyone changes money on the black market where the rate is five to eight times higher.

I meet a man recommended by a barman in the hotel.

I give him four one-hundred dollar bills. He gives me a sack of bolivars. I am now a bolivar millionaire.

Every day we have to haul out huge wads of money and painstakingly count them out to pay for meals.

It's an inconvenience for foreigners, but a catastrophe for locals.

Their savings have been wiped out and hyperinflation means their wages can't cover food or medicine, even if they can find stores that stock them.

The tension of filming secretly rises each day with news of media crackdowns.

We learn two Brazilian journalists have just been arrested and deported.

An American reporter writes of being held for three days and interrogated after he was caught filming at a hospital.

The government takes CNN's Spanish broadcast off-air after it reports on food queues.

The government hasn't banned television journalists outright.

Like many authoritarian regimes, it's just stopped giving visa or filming permits.

Newspaper reporters and bloggers occasionally slip in, but some have been detained on arrival at Caracas airport and flown straight back out.

The atmosphere of surveillance is oppressive. Police are everywhere.

The streets are plastered with giant murals of Hugo Chavez's eyes, as if watching over the revolution.

Red mask-wearing 'colectivos', the government's civilian militia, monitor the barrios for 'counter-revolutionaries'.

Our translator keeps watch, telling us when to hide the camera.

Our luck finally runs out when a motorcycle patrol of the National Guard spots us filming in the street.

Fortunately we are interviewing a die-hard supporter who has tattooed the eyes of Chavez on his forehead.

We tell them we are socialist filmmakers showing the strong support for socialism in the barrios.

They let us go without checking for our permits.

We visit the heavily secured office of an opposition party called Vente to meet its leader Maria Corina Machado.

She tells us how the authorities are trying to break them. She's been accused of plotting to kill President Maduro.

At a rally she was fired on and the woman standing next to her was shot in the head.

She sent her children to grow up in the US after receiving repeated death threats. The government won't give her an exit permit to see them.

"They are the main reason for me to keep moving ahead," she tells us.

"I'm determined to see my kids as well as all Venezuelan children living in a nation full of opportunities, with solidarity, innovation and prosperity, and freedom."

But she says people are losing hope for change. Opposition parties won control of parliament last year but Maduro simply ignored its rulings.

New restrictions may stop them being able to register for next year's presidential election.

"Even though today over 80 per cent of the population is desperate for a profound change," she says, "they have realised that they no longer can have even uncompetitive elections."

We film around her crowded office. Everyone is white, educated and middle class.

They seem to confirm the government line, repeated endlessly on state-controlled television, that they are part of an out-of-touch elite.

But we learn later it's not so simple.

The regime illegally uses public money to fund its election campaigns but stops any opposition parties accessing it.

Only the middle class can afford to compete. And the regime is working hard to make sure they can never win.

VENEZUELA: In Venezuela, Risk Buying Black Market Beer

Soaring inflation and a contracting economy have forced Venezuela to face shortages over the last few months: citizens have had restricted access to basic goods such as sugar, shampoo and toilet paper, as well as electricity and medicine. But now, Venezuelans can’t even drown their sorrows in cold beer, as the country’s biggest supplier of suds recently shut down the last of its four breweries and laid off 10,000 workers.

Cerveceria Polar, the brewery responsible for making roughly 80 percent of Venezuela’s beer, had to close up shop in late April because of the government’s constant delays in selling the company dollars to import necessary supplies for its operation. As part of a policy introduced by late former President Hugo Chavez in 2003 and continued by current President Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela restricts companies’ access to dollars and decides on which are eligible to receive them. Polar’s beer arm has been cut off, and the company says suppliers for ingredients such as malted barley have frozen its credit lines.

The Maduro administration claims Polar distorts its dollar needs and “hoards products as part of an ‘economic war’ by the business community, politicians and the United States aimed at undermining socialism in Venezuela,”. Additionally, officials have said Polar chief executive Lorenzo Mendoza should use his vast offshore wealth to purchase dollars if necessary.

But the company maintains that it must act in accordance with government regulations. “Without approval and a supply of foreign currency to the supplier, the company doesn’t have a way to operate,” Mendoza said last Friday. “The company cannot go out and buy currency anywhere because it’s against the law.”

Due to the country’s extraordinary inflation, which has reached 700 percent, a bottle of beer officially costs $15. But the official exchange rate is seldom used, and Venezuelans willing to break the law can buy a bottle of Polar for 14 cents on the black market. This is undoubtedly an attractive option for the swill-happy society: according to statistics compiled by Kirin Beer University, per capita consumption of beer in Venezuela, a country of 30 million, was 70.8 liters in 2014—the most in South America.

Still, the current situation is less than desirable for the average citizen. “What are we coming to when we can’t even buy a beer?” said farmer Luis Garcia. “This country is just falling apart.”

VENEZUELA: Beer Shortage Sends Venezuelans Thirsty

Farmer Luis Garcia has coped with many of the shortages that plague his economically distressed nation: toilet paper, shampoo, sugar. But the latest scarcity is more than Garcia can swallow. Beer.

For as long as he can remember, Garcia, 43, has ended each day in this central Venezuelan fishing village with a beer or two at his local tasca (bar). Now, that’s going to be impossible because the country’s largest brewery has shut its operations and laid off 10,000 workers, citing a lack of malted barley.

“What are we coming to when we can’t even buy a beer?” griped Garcia, who said he can no longer support the socialist revolution started by popular President Hugo Chavez and continued by his unpopular successor, Nicolas Maduro. “This country is just falling apart.”

Cerveceria Polar, which produces more than three-quarters of the country’s suds, closed the last of its four domestic breweries in late April. The culprit, the company said, was the Venezuelan government’s repeated delays in selling it dollars to import supplies it needs to keep operating.

Under Venezuela’s foreign exchange restrictions initiated by Chavez in 2003, the government controls access to dollars, deciding which companies qualify for them. Polar’s beer division has been cut off from accessing dollars, and the company claims its suppliers abroad have frozen its credit lines, demanding payment in dollars.

That is not going down well in this nation of 30 million who love their beer, especially given the country's hot, tropical weather.

According to statistics compiled by the Kirin Beer University, Venezuela has the highest beer consumption in South America, 75 quarts per person a year. That places Venezuela 25th in global beer consumption, slightly behind the USA, which averages 80 quarts a person.

A bottle of Polar, which sports a polar bear on its label, costs 14 cents at the black market rate but $15 at the official exchange rate that is rarely used.

Empresas Polar, the holding company that owns the brewery, has had a difficult relationship with Maduro. The Venezuelan president has charged that the company and its chief executive, Lorenzo Mendoza, are waging an economic war against his government.

Maduro claims Polar, especially its food division that produces ground cornmeal, rice and pasta, created shortages to damage support for his government. Maduro, who faces a recall campaign, wins approval from only 20% of the public, according to the latest polls.

Maduro threatened during May Day celebrations on Sunday to seize Polar’s shuttered breweries. “A plant closed is a plant taken over by the working class,” Maduro told supporters. He ordered the country’s food inspectors to determine whether the company really was out of malted barley.

The Venezuelan government under Chavez, who died in 2013, and now Maduro has seized more than 1,000 companies since Chavez came to power in 1999.

The shortages of imported goods stemming from the currency exchange controls have sent inflation soaring above 700% — the highest in the world —and the economy is projected to contract by as much as 8% this year, following a similar contraction in 2015.

Venezuelans have put up with severe shortages of basic goods, medicines, spare parts and electricity. But a shortage of beer is another matter.

“I think that the government is doing this to punish (Polar CEO) Mendoza,” said Minerva Salazar, who runs the tasca here. Salazar said she’s going to take a big hit as well: beer sales make up 50% of her revenue.

Salazar is scurrying to find Regional beer, which the government has allowed to import barley. But that brewer is too small to make up for Polar's shutdown.

“I have enough Polar on hand for a few more days,” said Salazar. “After that, it’s over. I don’t know what I am going to do."