Venezuela: The New Struggle for Venezuelans in Peru
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By: Arianna Sanchez
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the KCL Latin American Society or El Cortao.
In the peak of the Venezuelan crisis, South American countries started to see increments in their influx of immigration; Colombia and Peru received the highest levels of Venezuelan immigrants into their countries. A Peruvian newspaper, ‘El Comercio’, refers to it as one of the most important migratory movements Peru has ever seen, and with good reason: from 2016 to 2019, the number of Venezuelan residents in Peru increased from a mere 6,615 to around 862,000 (LR, 2019). On the 15th of June, however, Peru ended this open-door policy. Martin Vizcarra, the current Peruvian president, voiced concerns about the policies that had been taken and announced his government would restrict entrance only to Venezuelan passport holders, to guarantee a ‘secure and organised migration’ into the country (Fowks, 2019). This came as a shock to Venezuelan immigrants who were quick to highlight the costs of getting a passport and the extremely long bureaucratic process that accompanied it (Fowks, 2019). On the days before the policy was implemented, more than 9,000 Venezuelans crossed the border in an attempt to escape the new restriction. This begs the question, what changed? What drove Peru to close its borders?
The downfall of PPK
To attempt and explain this 180-degree change, let us start from the beginning. Pedro Pablo Kuczinsky (PPK) was the Peruvian president back then. Things were really not looking up either for PPK or his government. The growing level of Venezuelan immigration into the country was largely ignored by the majority of the Peruvian population at the time; there were other issues that appeared much more salient. On Christmas morning of 2017, Peruvians woke up to a surprising and enraging event: president PPK had pardoned the ex-president Alberto Fujimori, who led a very controversial administration to say the least. This was taken more as an insult than as a gift as Peruvians were quick to demonstrate their complete rejection to PPK’s act of forgiveness. Reactions did not wait for after the New Year. Two congressmen from PPK’s political party renounced, one of which was the spokesman for the party. Moreover, a mere day after the pardon was approved, a demonstration of at least 5,000 occupied the streets of Lima, making it clear they rejected the pardon, and with it they now rejected PPK too (Presse, 2017). The level of political disruption brought about police forces using tear gas on protesters.
The chaos did not stop there. The next step into the free-fall of PPK involves Westfield Capital and Odebrecht. In December 2017, in the midst of the corruption and money laundering trial of the construction company Odebrecht, a declaration incriminating PPK was made public: Odebrecht claimed the company had paid around $4.8 million to two firms directly linked to the President in a period of 10 years (2004-2014), Westfield Capital and First Capital. These payments were made when PPK was working as a Minister of Estate from 2004-2006, and during his presidential campaign in 2011 (LR, 2017). In 2018, the disapproval of his administration in Peruvians was a staggering 82%, while the percentage of people that wanted him actually vacated from his position was 52% (Gestión, 2018). In that same year, a trial for the vacancy of PPK took place, mainly pushed forward by Fuerza Popular, the main political opposition to his government. On the 21st of March 2018 it was announced that PPK had renounced his presidency, leaving the vice-president Martin Vizcarra in charge until the general elections in 2021 (BBC News Mundo, 2018).
Road to Disaster
PPK was quite known for his welcoming approach to Venezuelan immigration, inviting struggling Venezuelans to migrate to Peru. His reasoning for this approach was not really at fault, as he said himself, in the 1970’s Peru was struggling with a dictatorship and the rise of far-left terrorism, driving many Peruvians to search for refuge in Venezuela (Gestión, 2018). However, his view was bound to have consequences in a medium to long run. It is important to highlight that Peru did not have any type of public policy to help Venezuelans relocate into strategic Peruvian provinces facing an undersupply of labour, such as the highlands or the jungle (Expreso, 2018). Instead, Venezuelans relocated to Lima, an already overly crowded capital given the centralised Peruvian government, making sociocultural tensions imminent.
Moreover, the influx of Venezuelans into Peru was accelerated by the implementation of the Ecuadorian ‘Corredor Humanitario’, a free means of transport for Venezuelan immigrants at the northern border of Ecuador, leaving them at the Ecuadorian frontier with Peru (Comunicacion.gob.ec, 2018). This meant that the rate of immigration kept accelerating, without a stable or efficient set of Peruvian public policy to be able to absorb this without developing spill-over effects in society. This was worsened by the lack of a census of the immigrants coming into Peru, where no documents of identification such as passports were required for entrance, which would then be used against PPK’s government by both political opposition and Peruvian society – claiming this gave rise to the amount of ‘criminals’ that could walk into Peru without being subject to any regulation.
As government failures and regional pressures started to accrue, so did the saliency of Venezuelan immigration for Peruvians. Xenophobia levels were skyrocketing, and Venezuelan refugees were being blamed for levels of crime and delinquency and Peruvians demanded action. According to a survey carried out by Ipsos in Peru, 54% of respondents claimed Venezuelan immigration was negative due to ‘increasing crime’, while 67% of these were against Venezuelan immigration in general (Perú, 2019). Of course, this meant that, in the middle of a political battle between President and Congress, political opposition found a key issue to appeal to Peruvians. Looking past this political polarisation, Ricardo Valdés, ex vice Minister of Internal Affairs, pointed out crime levels in the Peruvian capital were not caused by the presence Venezuelans, but the lack of presence of policemen in the streets (América Noticias, 2019). Likewise, Valdés was quick to highlight the dangers of the discourse Peruvian politicians were carrying out with clear populist ends, strengthening negative perceptions towards Venezuelans within the Peruvian population (América Noticias, 2019).
Closing Borders
After PPK renounced presidency, Martin Vizcarra was left with a clear socio-political disaster. Venezuelan immigration kept increasing and so did pressures from Peruvian society and a political opposition feeding into that societal desperation. Reiterating Peru was not decreasing solidarity towards Venezuelan immigrants, he criticised the previous policies, emphasizing that no personal records or criminal antecedents were checked prior to entrance to the country (Peru21, 2019). He did not fail to mention the saliency of delinquency indexes tormenting Peruvian citizens, stating the government was focusing on making immigration orderly and safe (Peru21, 2019). Moreover, he mentioned around 140 Venezuelans had been expelled from Peru due to crime, a firm approach fit to somewhat appease the rising levels xenophobia in the country (Fowks, 2019). On the 15th of June 2019, policies restricting the influx of Venezuelans into Peru started. From July to August 2019, a reduction of 91% of Venezuelan immigrants was recorded (The Conversation, 2019).
Conclusion and going forward
In essence, it seems both Venezuelan immigrants and Peruvian society have been victims of a large-scale political turmoil, leading to opportunistic fights in Congress which eventually led to the evident scapegoating of Venezuelans. The failure of PPK to implement efficient immigration policies gave the upper hand to political opposition, which saw an immense opportunity to appeal to the Peruvian community once the ex-President was brought down by his own corruption scandal. Venezuelans in Peru might have indeed been successful in escaping the political turmoil of their own country, but now they face another struggle attempting to face that one of Peru – which is keen in making them blameworthy of the inefficiencies of both Congress and ex-Presidency.
With xenophobia levels still on the rise, it seems it will be a very tough task for Venezuelans in the Andean country to successfully integrate into society. With the new elections for Congress on January 26th and the general elections taking place in 2021, it seems Venezuelan immigration will be a key aspect of the debate. We have to hope that, for the sake of the social stability of Peruvians themselves and the prospects of this new demographic, the administration in charge will not be using this as an opportunity to win, but as an opportunity to reduce the tensions instigated by the previous government.
Arianna is a second year BSc Politics student from Peru. She enjoys writing about current affairs, especially those concerning Latin America and domestic or international security issues.