The Economist - USA (2019-11-02)

32 The Americas The EconomistNovember 2nd 2019

2

Bello Living beside the volcano

U

nder a pitilesssun, the river of

humanity crosses the Simón Bolívar

bridge without cease, its flow more

powerful than the muddy stream be-

neath. Each day at least 40,000 people

cross from Venezuela to Villa del Rosario

in Colombia. Most cross back again,

laden with bulging sacks and suitcases

containing fresh food, clothing and

medicines. Each day, some 1,500 do not

return, joining the 4.6m Venezuelans

who have left their country in search of

work, safety and a better life.

This is a humanitarian crisis, but one

that Colombia is coping with admirably.

In Villa del Rosario hundreds of people

line up for lunch at a communal kitchen

operated by the local bishop. Many still

live in Venezuela, but are malnourished.

Others are heading on. Nearby, there is a

health post for migrants. More than 1.5m

have been vaccinated. A shelter provides

temporary accommodation for those

who are ill, who have come to give birth

or who need to rest. Although the unand

ngos are helping, foreign aid covers less

than a fifth of the additional costs Co-

lombia is incurring, mainly in health

care and education.

That is not the only price of living

next to Nicolás Maduro’s dictatorship in

Venezuela. At police headquarters out-

side the nearby city of Cúcuta, Colonel

José Palomino has a colour-coded map of

the 143km (89 miles) of border in his

charge. Each colour corresponds to a

criminal outfit, ranging from the eln, a

Colombian guerrilla group, to several

Colombian and Venezuelan drug, extor-

tion and smuggling gangs. “Each group

has a slice of the border,” he says.

Until now, they have stayed there. The

murder rate in Cúcuta, a city of 800,000

people, is similar to the national average.

But for how much longer? The first wave

of Venezuelan migrants consisted largely

of businessmen, professionals and work-

ers. Now, says Colonel Palomino, “bandits

and delinquents” are starting to come

“because there’s nothing left to rob there”.

The government of President Iván

Duque bet on Mr Maduro’s downfall. In

February Venezuela broke diplomatic ties

after Colombia tried to send humanitarian

aid across the border in partnership with

Juan Guaidó, the opposition leader whom

it recognises as interim president. Mr

Maduro shelters the eln, which runs

illegal mining in southern Venezuela. He

welcomed dissidents from the farc, a

much larger guerrilla army which signed a

peace agreement in 2016. In September

Venezuela carried out a military exercise

near the border. “Misunderstandings or

deliberate provocations by...armed groups

could easily drag the two countries” into a

fight, worries Crisis Group, an ngo.

Mr Duque says he has undertaken no

aggressive actions. “We’ve placed no

troops on the border, or flights close to it,”

he told Bello. The problem is that there is

no sign that sanctions by the United States

will dislodge Mr Maduro. Political

change in Latin America, including the

election of Alberto Fernández, a left-of-

centre Peronist, as Argentina’s president,

is weakening the diplomatic front

against the Maduro regime. “The only

way to change the migratory flow is to

end the dictatorship,” insists Carlos

Trujillo, Colombia’s foreign minister.

The flow may even increase as condi-

tions deteriorate.

This comes when the internal situa-

tion in Colombia is delicate. Álvaro

Uribe, the leader of Mr Duque’s party,

campaigned against the farcpeace

agreement. In office, Mr Duque has

implemented it. It is working, albeit

imperfectly. More than 11,000 former

guerrillas have entered civilian life. The

government is moving ahead with devel-

opment plans in the areas where they

operated. But its critics claim that under

the influence of Mr Uribe it is dragging

its feet on promised land reform.

Colombia is failing to collect a full

peace dividend. The murder rate has

remained broadly stable since 2016,

despite the end of the war. The security

forces are “strategically confused on

priorities”, says a retired general. Mr

Duque’s defence minister, who is close to

Mr Uribe, is criticised for having poli-

ticised the army. In an unprecedented

move in August, a group of retired offi-

cers published a letter complaining that

corruption and poor leadership were

damaging the army’s public standing.

Even the government’s critics admit

that the situation is not disastrous. But it

is worrying. Colombia has made huge

strides in this century. Because of the

threat posed by Venezuela, the consoli-

dation of internal peace has become even

more urgent. Mr Duque, once a sceptic of

the peace deal, must now achieve that.

Colombia faces an external threat. It needs more internal political unity

country in Latin America, thanks in part to

its healthy public finances and robust priv-

ate sector. Mr Piñera is likely to resist de-

mands for a constituent assembly to re-

write the constitution. This might push

reform in the direction of populism and

discourage investment.

One problem for the government is that

the protesters’ demands are unclear. Their

movement grew largely through social me-

dia, without identifiable leaders. Another

problem is that Chile’s political class has

lost credibility. A survey conducted in May

this year by cerc-Mori, a pollster, found

that the senate, the chamber of deputies

and political parties were among the coun-

try’s four least-trusted institutions. (The

fourth was the pension-fund managers.)

Mr Piñera’s own approval rating

dropped last week from 29% to 14%, an all-

time low for a president in the democratic

era, according to Cadem, another pollster.

A rich businessman, he is seen as an exem-

plar of what is wrong with Chile. His co-

alition, Chile Vamos, has a minority of

seats in congress, which has made it hard

for him to govern. Anger over human-

rights abuses may further complicate his

efforts to introduce reforms.

Mr Piñera wants to overcome such ob-

stacles by convening town-hall meetings

similar to those held by France’s president,

Emmanuel Macron, in response to the gi-

lets jaunes (yellow jackets) protests this

year. These could help, says Juan Pablo

Luna, a political scientist at the Catholic

University in Santiago, provided they bring

together people from different back-

grounds. Mr Piñera is betting that dialogue

and a revamped government will break

deadlocks over how to reform the country.

The result could be a new Chilean model. 7