President Maduro last week closed a major crossing between the two countries and declared a state of emergency in several western cities after three army officers were shot and wounded by gunmen he said belonged to paramilitary gangs operating from Colombia.
Advertisement
Venezuela and Colombia’s 1,400-mile border is porous and highly unregulated.
He said he would speak with the Venezuelan leader in the coming days and that foreign ministers from both countries would meet this week in hopes of quickly reopening the border.
“If Colombian authorities did their part to contain the contraband and smuggling of products out of Venezuela the reality would be different”, he said.
The transfer got here after the governor of Tachira state in western Venezuela stated greater than 1,000 undocumented Colombians had been expelled over the weekend for suspected black market actions.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro vowed to extend a crackdown on smugglers and illegal migrants from neighboring Colombia who he blames for rampant crime and widespread shortages, while authorities across the border struggled to attend to droves of returning deportees.
The Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) 29-member leading political opposition coalition has accused Maduro’s government of using last week’s smuggler attack for political benefits ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for December. 6, as a way to distract Venezuelans from the country’s security issues and worsening economic crisis.
Colombian foreign minister Maria Angela Holguin oversaw humanitarian efforts in Cucuta amid reports from deportees that families had been broken up and the circulation of videos on social media showing homes being bulldozed.
The two countries have been at odds over trans-border trade.
People carry their household belongings across the Tachira River…
“Venezuela won’t tolerate this anymore”, said Maduro.
Shutting the crossings and deporting Colombians will not solve security problems along the border, the ministries said, adding that dialogue was the way to a solution.
They were joined in their criticism by Uribe, who lashed out at Maduro’s “dictatorship” at a rally Monday night at the barbed-wire border checkpoint in Cucuta.
Santos said the two countries had the same interest in eliminating gangs of smugglers that operate on the border, and should work more closely together. An estimated 5 million Colombians live in Venezuela, many of them without permission, and the flow of people and goods across the border has been a fixture of daily life for decades, changing direction with the shifting fortunes of each nation’s economy.
Advertisement
Also in the statement, the Colombian government expressed its “concern” over the expulsions and reported rough treatment of the expelled Colombians at the hands of Venezuelan authorities.
