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The organization issued a statement, this Thursday, before what it considers “xenophobic statements” by the president against Venezuelans and asked the Government of Colombia that this does not have violent repercussions.
From Miami, where it is based, Veppex stressed that López attributed an increase in the index of insecurity in the Colombian capital to the participation of Venezuelans in criminal gangs.
The mayor’s statements followed days later by pointing out that almost half of the thefts in Transmilenio are committed by foreigners.
“Claudia López’s statement is, in addition to being irresponsible, dangerous, due to the consequences that this could generate in a quite significant Venezuelan migrant population that has fled the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro and has settled in the sister country of Colombia,” he says. the president of Veppex, José Colina.
According to Colina, what López said can “generate aggressions not only from the Colombian population towards Venezuelans, but it can also translate into mistreatment by Colombian security agencies towards the natives of Venezuela who reside there.
Once the mayor’s statement was known, Migración Colombia responded that only 3.2% of the crimes that occur in the country are committed by Venezuelans.
For this reason, Veppex appealed to the Colombian authorities and the President Iván Duque to avoid “this type of situation that could lead to very harsh actions against a community that already lives a nightmare of having to leave in highly risky conditions to flee from tyranny ”.
Those words earned Claudia López not only rejection of the Venezuelans, who even with a tutelage claimed the violation of their rights, but also of the international community, as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) questioned their claims.
The Venezuelan press also spoke of “Bogota xenophobia,” and both politicians and diplomats from the oil country asked him to retract.
Similarly, Veppex called on the Venezuelan community living in Colombia to denounce and point out to the compatriots that “with their bad behavior they are causing terrible damage to those who are in Colombian territory.”
The exile organization has previously declared the former president of the Spanish government Jose Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, a mediator in the failed dialogue between the government and the opposition in Venezuela, and the high representative of the European Union (EU) for foreign policy, persona non grata, former Spanish minister Josep Borrell.
Also to the Turkish chef Nusret Gokce, who entertained the President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, in his restaurant in Istanbul, and the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Keith Rowley, among others.
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