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