The Rights of Venezuela's Colombians As North Americans debate the questions of cross-bor- der class relations raised by NAFTA, Antonio Navarro Wolff, the former guerrilla leader and cur- rent candidate for president of Colombia [see "Interview With Navarro Wolff," p. 12] has sparked an Andean version of the same debate. There are somewhere between one and a half and three million Colombians currently liv- ing and working in neighboring Venezuela. 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. Navarro Wolff has accused the Venezuelan National Guard of human rights abuses against undoc- umented Colombian immigrants. He claims the Guard sells immi- grants false Venezuelan identity papers for exorbitant sums, and submits those who are unable or unwilling to pay to various forms of torture and abuse. On October 19, 1993, with Navarro's active assistance, some of Venezuela's Colombians sought to amplify their human-rights con- cerns by holding a "First Encuentro of Colombians in Venezuela" at the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas. The meeting, together with a recent Amnesty Internation- al 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. The meeting took place as the quality of life for most Venezue- lans continued its rapid decline. 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. Squeezed and demoralized, most Venezue- lans seem in no mood to support the human rights of immigrant workers. In fact, as prices rise, incomes fall, and social spending is cut, many Venezuelans are scape- goating Colombians for the grow- ing social disorder. Colombians are vilified for living off social assis- tance, for petty thievery, and for introducing the guerrilla-Colom- bia's ELN operates along the bor- der, occasionally kidnapping ranch- ers and attacking National Guard Patrols--to Venezuelan soil. month after the Colom- bians' First Encuentro, Venezuela's Foreign Minis- ter, Fernando Ochoa Antich, joined the chorus of intolerance. He called the meeting "unacceptable," and announced he would check with the "competent authorities" to deter- mine precisely which laws had been violated. In a letter to the organizers, he said: "In your condi- tion as foreigners, you can't hold meetings with political ends on Venezuelan territory." 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 Colom- bians' contributions to Venezuela. "If the Colombians in Venezuela didn't get up at four in the morning to milk the cows and run the print- ing presses," he told a Bogoti press conference, "Venezuelans wouldn't have milk or newspapers for their breakfasts." Following Navarro's remarks, Venezuela's Minister of Defense, Radam6s Mufioz L6on, ordered a military indictment against him for defaming the country. "If he sets foot on Venezuelan soil," said Mufioz Ldon, "he will be detained and taken to an appropriate tri- bunal." 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. "If I, a presidential candidate," he said "could almost be taken prisoner for making a simple statement, imag- ine what could happen to a person living in Venezuelan territory." The Colombian underclass in Venezuela forms a part of Navar- ro's natural constituency, and his standing in the presidential polls has risen since he has presented himself as their defender. Mufioz Le6n's natural constituency is the Venezuelan clase dirigente, and, as the populist President-elect Rafael Caldera prepares to take office, Mu- fioz is seen by many as the strong- est and most reliable defender of the business community's neoliber- al agenda. Indeed, many in that community have openly been call- ing 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. A military bid for power would look nothing like the intentonas of 1992 which were led by middle- level officers with roots in Vene- zuela's popular classes. The coup that many now fear would come not from some ill-defined populist space, but from the Right. It would be led not by lieutenants, but by generals. And it would call not for popular participation, but for order, open markets, and a "clean- ing out" of the barrios. The benign model is Fujimori; the more realis- tic model is Pinochet. Beneath the layers of nationalist rhetoric, the Mufioz-Navarro conflict is not between countries, but between social classes.
