Venezuela calls for promoting supportive spaces for discussion to serve refugees without politicization
Published at: 15/12/2023 02:32 PM
In the voice of the permanent
representative to the Geneva headquarters of the
United Nations (UN), Ambassador Hector Constant Rosales, Venezuela
called on all countries to promote supportive spaces for discussion and
dialogue on caring for refugees without intolerance, conditioning or politicization.
During his
speech at the second edition of the World Refugee Forum, the
diplomat explained the need to create these channels to deal with cases
of people displaced from countries that are still in the process of
achieving peace, such as Colombia, which has generated a refugee population to Venezuela for 70
years.
In this regard,
he highlighted that 75% of the current number of refugees “are hosted by
developing countries, such as Venezuela, which has been offering, for decades, comprehensive protection
to those fleeing persecution.”
Constant denounced
the harm caused by the imposition of illegal unilateral coercive measures
by the United States and its allies, which “hinder access to financial
resources aimed at the proper protection of refugees. In addition,
they build fictitious media narratives to attack and weaken sanctioned
States, promoting induced human mobilizations that only
regularize when they have falsely declared themselves persecuted, thus misrepresenting the sacred figure of refuge”.
In this regard,
the Ambassador demanded the lifting of these measures and reiterated the commitment
of the Bolivarian nation to “continue to protect refugees with
its own resources, since Venezuela rejects the commercialization of refuge.”
In addition, he rejected
the use of the term “refugees” to refer to migrants: “it is not negotiable
for Venezuela to accept another concept of refuge other than that established in the 1967
Protocol and in our legislation. We must protect the mandate and purposes
of the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees).”
The diplomat
noted that this “edition of the Forum is taking place in a context of serious
humanitarian crisis, both because of the human cost and because of the terrible violation of
international law that we are witnessing, including the norms of Refuge”, while
describing the genocide of the Palestinian people by Israel as “painful and unacceptable”.
For this reason, he
ratified Venezuela's urgent call to guarantee international protection
to the Palestinian people and condemned the cowardly massacre of more than 8,000 children since the
beginning of hostilities: “we reiterate our call for a ceasefire, for
access to humanitarian assistance and to guarantee a definitive and just peace
for Palestine, on the basis of two States, in compliance with the relevant UN resolutions.”
MPPRE