Diaspora in Venezuela pushes ramped up Immigration services to stem cross-border trafficking

Dec 03, 2018 News

Director of the Guyanese Community Representatives in Venezuela (RCGV), Antonio Hamraj, is advocating for increased immigration services for Guyanese living in Venezuela.

RCGV Director,
Antonio Hamraj

Hamraj formally made this request last week to the Director of Venezuela’s Administrative Service of Identification, Migration and Aliens (SAIME), Gustavo Adolfo Vizcaino Gil. Hamraj requested increased collaboration between the diplomatic representatives of both countries to ensure that citizens traveling from one country to the other can do so safely and legally.
Additionally, he requested more action by that authority to ensure that Guyanese in Venezuela receive proper documentation.
Hamraj told Kaieteur News that Venezuelans traveling from the state of Bolivar to Guyana usually take an uncharted route through the Orinoco River, and that they do so at their peril. According to RCGV, the port of Barges in San Felix is not safe to travel. He said that the passage puts travelers at risk of harm by natural elements and by sinister individuals who use the river as a regular trafficking route.
He said that his objective is to minimise the inconvenience faced by migrants, and conflicts between Venezuelan National Immigration Policy and Guyanese travelers, though he applauded Venezuelan President, Nicolas Maduro, for establishing this operation to combat the illegal trafficking of persons in Venezuela. He asked Maduro to reopen the commercial flight between Puerto Ordaz and Georgetown, which he says will benefit the Guyanese population in Venezuela.
The Guyanese Diaspora there predominantly consists of the first generation to Indo-Guyanese who traveled to Venezuela in 1969. They have managed to develop a thriving community. RCGV Administrator, Satish Ramkissoon, had told Kaieteur News that the Guyanese in the city of Ciudad Guayana, in Northeastern Venezuela, number about 54,000.
He said that the population predominantly consists of Guyanese and their first generation of Venezuelan because they considered the presidency of the late President Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham to be a dictatorship.
RCGV has been working with the Guyanese community in Venezuela since 2004. They intend to have meetings with the Presidents of both countries, or ministry officials with responsibility for matters of Public Security and Foreign Affairs, to discuss work to re-establish flights and cooperation between the two nations, whose governments are currently in conflict due to a territorial dispute that has been in force for over a century.

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