48 The Americas The EconomistSeptember 14th 2019
21growth in their new countries, few govern-
ments appreciate the opportunity.
Destination countries have largely
avoided setting up camps, wisely prefer-
ring to integrate Venezuelans into their
societies. Brazil is relocating migrants
from the border state of Roraima to cities
farther south. Venezuelans do all kinds of
work. Three-fifths of people who took
Chile’s medical exam in July were Venezue-
lan doctors seeking recertification. In Co-
lombia Venezuelans ease labour shortages
in the flower and coffee industries.
More visible are those who appear at
street corners to sell sweets or beg. Un-
skilled workers swell the informal labour
force, in countries where a huge propor-
tion of jobs are informal. Many women in
Trinidad find work in bars and clubs,
sometimes a gateway to prostitution. In
Boa Vista, Roraima’s capital, the popula-
tion of 400,000 now includes more than
50,000 Venezuelans. “We lost control of
the city,” says its mayor, Teresa Surita.
Homelessness in towns on Colombia’s bor-
der with Venezuela has shot up.
Though they are letting in fewer Vene-
zuelans, governments are trying to provide
services to those who have already arrived.
That is a struggle. Hospitals in Roraima
have staff shortages, in part because Cuba
recalled its doctors in the face of hostility
from the country’s right-wing president,
Jair Bolsonaro. Colombia’s government es-
timates that the cost of providing health
care, schooling and other services to Vene-
zuelans will be 0.5% of gdpthis year, about
a fifth of its expected budget deficit. Ecua-
dor, whose highly indebted government
has had to go to the imffor financial help,
will spend $170m a year on health and edu-
cation for holders of an “exceptional hu-
manitarian visa” and Venezuelans who ar-
rived before the visa rule took effect.
“People used to feel sorry for [Venezue-
lans], but now there’s fear of crime,” says
Amparo Goyes, a resident of Tumbaco, a
suburb of Quito, Ecuador’s capital. In Janu-
ary the stabbing of a pregnant Ecuadorean
woman by her Venezuelan ex-boyfriend
triggered attacks on migrants in the north-
ern city of Ibarra and contributed to the de-
cision to tighten entry requirements. A
survey by Peru’s government found that
86% of Peruvians expect to be the victim of
a crime in the coming year.
Such strains are hardening attitudes. A
Gallup poll published in June showed that
support among Colombians for accepting
refugees fell below 50% for the first time.
Venezuelans’ “negative image” rose to 67%,
its highest-ever level. A survey of Chileans
by cadem, a pollster, published in July
found that 73% approved of the govern-
ment’s crackdown and 83% backed restric-
tions on immigration. In Trinidad opposi-
tion politicians have called for tighter
controls on Venezuelans.Colombia does not have that option. It
has been an exemplar, issuing permits that
allow 700,000 Venezuelans to work and re-
ceive public services for at least two years.
It plans to issue a permit for migrants with-
out the right papers, allowing them to stay
if they find an employer. In March mostparties with members in congress signed a
pact promising not to stir resentment
against Venezuelans in campaigns for re-
gional elections due next month.
But its neighbours’ new barriers are
making Colombia nervous. A senior offi-
cial says co-operation among destination
countries started well, but in the past four
months it has moved backwards. Colombia
recently asked its neighbours to open a
“border-to-border humanitarian corri-
dor”. Ecuador agreed to let through mi-
grants with visas for other countries. The
unhas urged all countries in the region to
give Venezuelans the rights of refugees, on
the presumption that staying at home puts
them at risk.
The one thing receiving countries all
agree on is that they need more outside
help. The unhas collected less than a third
of the $738m it sought in 2018, mostly from
the United States. At the unGeneral As-
sembly this month, Colombia’s president,
Iván Duque, will lead a regional appeal for
more. “Unfortunately, the world has not
seen this as a global crisis,” says David Smo-
lansky, an exiled Venezuelan mayor who
leads the migrant working group of the Or-
ganisation of American States. If Latin
America is to continue coping as well as it
has, that must change. 746.129.594.61,40833086128836.41790.5145 8.5111Source: Regional Inter-Agency
Coordination Platform for Refugees
and Migrants from Venezuela *No dataEmptying out
Population of Venezuelans, ’000
September 5th 2019MexicoVENEZUELABrazil
Bolivia*ParaguayGuyanaChileArgentinaCaribbeanColombiaPanamaCosta RicaPeruUruguayEcuadorA
photo ofFidel Castro, the late Cuban
dictator, shaking hands with Xi Jin-
ping, China’s living one, hangs in the en-
trance to the newly opened “Beijing” res-
taurant in Havana. Around it are snapshots
of Chinese and Cuban bigwigs past and
present. One from 1961 shows a smiling
Mao Zedong and Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado,
then Cuba’s president, on a balcony. On a
flight in 2014 from Havana to Santiago de
Cuba, the birthplace of Cuba’s revolution,
Mr Xi promised Raúl Castro, then its presi-
dent, a fine Chinese restaurant. That visit,
too, is memorialised in the vestibule.
It took five years, and millions of dollars
in rent and renovation, before the Beijing
was ready to serve its first dandannoodles.
It opened in August at last, two years later
than planned. Even when the Chinese and
Cuban autocrats bless the enterprise, doing
business in Cuba is hard.
The restaurant, which was the first firm
in Cuba to be wholly owned by a foreign
one (state-owned Beijing Enterprises
Group, or beg), has long mystified habane-ros. They watched as Chinese builders re-
furbished the structure, which was built in
the 1930s. Fussy building inspectors and
slow clearance of equipment and ingredi-
ents through customs held up its opening.
Now Chinese executives, ferried to the
portico in German cars, enter through cir-
cular front doors painted with a huge red
shuang xi, which means double happiness.
The phrase is often emblazoned on cash-
stuffed red envelopes given as wedding
presents. Small fans display table num-
bers. (There is no table four, an inauspi-
cious number in China.) Cuban waitresses
dressed in red qipao—high-necked
dresses—take orders on tablets made by
Huawei, a controversial Chinese maker of
telecoms kit.
Cuban complications intrude. Unlike
eateries in China, where diners can pay by
reading a barcode on the table with their
mobile phones, the Beijing accepts only
cash. It aims for authenticity, but must buy
most ingredients through Cimex, the state-
run export-import company. Ducks for Pe-HAVANA
Autocracy cannot overcome bureaucracy, a new restaurant showsCuba and ChinaDouble happiness