Colombia condemns Venezuela expulsions after border closure

The socialist leader said he was acting to defend residents along the border after gunmen he claimed were paramilitaries linked to former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe shot and wounded three army officers on an anti-smuggling patrol.

In Venezuela it has become customary to see long lines of people waiting to buy goods produced domestically and those imported by the government or by business owners who obtain foreign currency from the state to do so, and that 40 percent of those products are smuggled out of the country to Colombia, officials said.

The deportation was carried out as part of the Venezuelan government’s Operation for Freedom and Protection of the People, a campaign by the national police force that seeks to eradicate gangs of smugglers operating in the border between the two countries.

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.

Most of the refugees have lived for years in Ernesto Guevara, an extremely poor Venezuelan border village, or other nearby settlements, but they were forced to leave after Venezuelan authorities marked their homes with a “D” for “demolition” over the weekend.

Colombia’s NoticiasRCN news site said 1,113 Colombians had either been deported or left Venezuela in recent days – a move condemned by Colombian authorities – worsening already tense relations between the two neighboring countries.

Ms Holguin and her Venezuelan counterpart are scheduled to meet today in Cartagena, Colombia, in a bid to end the crisis.

Colombian minister of foreign affairs María Ángela Holguín visited the border on Monday to speak with deported migrants.

In strongly worded attacks, Mr. Maduro has also said recession-hit Venezuela was a “victim” of the Colombian right and black-marketeers intent on exacerbating shortages by smuggling everything from detergent to gasoline across the border.

Local journalists at the border published photos purportedly showing an exodus of Colombian families from the Venezuelan city of San Antonio across the Tachira River into a Colombia border town.

Mr Maduro said those expelled were treated with respect, adding that he is a good friend of Colombians.

People cross the Tachira River from Venezuela, behind, to Colombia, …

“The border will remain closed, gentlemen, whatever they say”, Maduro concluded.

Uribe, a fierce critic of Maduro, traveled Monday to Cucuta to express “solidarity with those mistreated by the dictator”. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly, said most of the deportees were living without permission in Venezuela and likely involved in contraband activities.

Opponents of Maduro’s administration have denounced the security offensive as an attempt to distract attention from a deep economic crisis ahead of key legislative elections in December that they are favored to win by a landslide.