‘Exodus Mediaticus’ | Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela |Axisoflogic.com

Figures on Venezuelans who have emigrated to Colombia have been deliberately inflated by those who want to highlight a humanitarian crisis and political persecution in Venezuela.

The official results of the Administrative Register of Migrant Venezuelans in Colombia show that not millions of Venezuelans have crossed the border seeking sanctuary in Colombia, as the right-wing media both at home and abroad have reported, but around 200 thousand people that have entered the neighboring country intending to stay there.

Even the BBC published photos of the Simon Bolivar International Bridge that connects Venezuela and Colombia replete with people crossing the border. “70,000 every day” screamed the headlines – but such media does not mention that nearly all return to Venezuela later that day after buying Venezuelan products that have been smuggled into Colombia and sold at speculative prices.

The absence of the most basic mathematics is the main feature in the “analysis” of these figures. In journalistic reporting born more out of fantasy than fact published internationally including the United States and Europe, the number is guesstimated between 5 and 20 million, but the census carried out by the new authorities has established that the real figure is around 200 thousand.

The Bogotá daily, El Tiempo, cited statements by the Manager of the Border with Venezuela, Felipe Muñoz, and Carlos Iván Márquez, Director of the National Unit for the Management of Risks of Disasters, who gave the figure of 203,989 people, of whom 188,157 expressed their intention is to stay in Colombia, at least for a while.

Venezuela has traditionally been the recipient of migration, to the point of having provided shelter to around five million Colombians. However, the 200,000 Venezuelans now in Colombia is ridiculously low when compared with extensive media reports that amount to an ‘Exodus Mediaticus’ by uninformed hacks determined to show that this is a massive human displacement crisis due to humanitarian failings. Hence, a humanitarian corridor is needed organized and obviously manned by well-trained US Marines and Colombian Special Forces.

Since last year, the media seemed to engage in a competition to see who could exaggerate the most – and get away with it. The Caracas daily El Nacional has been the most convincing so far by placing the figure at 20 million, which would amount to two-thirds of the total population of the country. Other media have bet on between 5 and 11 million. Usually the media resorts to semantic subterfuge by referring to "border crossings", and not migration. Nevertheless, the way they present the information and images is that people are fleeing en masse to leave Venezuela forever.

The expression "border crossings" encapsulates the darker side of the bilateral dynamics between Venezuela and Colombia: drug trafficking, smuggling of gasoline and other basic goods subsidized in Venezuela, trafficking in persons, trafficking in gold and other strategic minerals, and the purchase and sale of Venezuelan cash.

All those "businesses", controlled by bi-national mafias involving military and civilian authorities on both sides of the border, causes a constant flow of people. Only a part of those who pass from Venezuela to Colombia make it with the intention of settling in the neighboring country. Most will only perform commercial operations, many of them illegal or to buy essential commodities such as food and medicine. Paradoxically, many of these goods also come from Venezuela, as they have been contrabanded by smuggling organizations.

A significant percentage of those who really have decided to emigrate use Colombia as a stepping stone on their way to Ecuador, Peru, Chile and Argentina.

Figures can mean anything
To keep the “mass escape” of Venezuelans alive and to justify the need for international aid, Colombian politicians in the border area and the media machinery play constantly with the figures.

Sometimes they give supposedly global numbers and sometimes present them on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. For example, when it was announced that the United States would give US$ 2.5 million to assist Venezuelan "refugees", the media said that 35 thousand people crossed every day into Colombia.

They also employ different spokespersons, from authorities of the Colombian Government to representatives of multilateral agencies, NGO’s and Venezuelan opposition leaders. Each one uses the figure that he thinks best and most convenient at the time.

The official result of the census puts things in a very different perspective, but none of those who have spread the sensationalized version feel compelled to correct or clarify.

So the ‘Exodus Mediaticus’ continues. See you in Cúcuta!

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