WILLEMSTAD - In the SDKK prison on Curaçao illegal and ordinary prisoners (in orange) are mixed. Fearing the Maduro regime and the disastrous living conditions in their country, thousands of Venezuelans have fled to Curaçao in recent years. They are not very welcome here.
“You can't visit me now, I don't dare. But when I finish working, we'll be able to call." Carlos sounds rushed. He is one of the 21 Venezuelans who escaped in May from the alien detention of the SDKK prison in Koraal Specht in Curaçao. Some have been picked up again, but Carlos managed to stay out of the hands of the police.
Nobody knows how many there are, but estimates of the number of Venezuelans hiding on the island range from fifteen to twenty five thousand. That is a substantial part of the population on Curaçao, which officially has 169,000 inhabitants.
NO REFUGEES CONVENTION
Curaçao has never signed the Geneva Refugee Convention and therefore officially has no refugees. On the island you are either legal or illegal. The government calls undocumented migrants the latter group.
Anthropologist Ieteke Witteveen is concerned about their fate and founded Human Rights Caribbean a year ago. In her office in Willemstad, Carlos tells his story over the phone: “I had to escape. My wife is still trapped in the alien barracks and our children are with grandma in Venezuela. They have almost nothing to eat there. I want to support my children, take care of my family. That is not possible if I am behind bars."
Airing for one hour a day
Carlos has work three days a week. Then he cleans in people's homes or does odd jobs. "I was detained by the police when I arrived by boat and I am afraid of being jailed again," he says. “The situation in the SDKK prison is humiliating. Airing for one hour a day. No water, no soap, no toothpaste. You lie in the same dirty sheets for weeks and there is not enough food.”
Witteveen agrees. “When I recently came to bring food to the gate, the guard asked me if I could come more often with food. He said: the government has no money and we don't get enough to hand out.”
“Most Venezuelans cannot cope with the daily intimidation of the immigration service,” says Carlos. “You are constantly being talked about how they will send you back, that you are worth nothing and a burden for Curaçao.”
Witteveen adds that her organization has been denied access to her clients, while an employee of the Venezuelan consulate may walk in and out freely to increase the pressure on Venezuelans to return. “A representative of the Maduro regime has access,” says the human rights activist, “while Carlos and his wife, a police officer, have just fled to stay out of Maduro's hands.”
“They cannot read the documents in Dutch”
There is much more wrong in prison according to Witteveen. “Venezuelans who are arrested because they have no residence papers are not prisoners who have to serve their sentences. Yet they are treated that way. A number of them even get prison clothing and are placed among convicted criminals,” she says. “It also happens that Venezuelans are deported” voluntarily “because they sign papers written in Dutch that they cannot even read.”
Her organization does not get a foothold with the government. “Recently I was even asked by the judiciary whether I could not afford legal and medical assistance for the Venezuelans in the immigration barracks. The inverted world! ”, Witteveen says indignantly. “Curaçao is locking up Venezuelans and aid organizations should pay the bill for this?”
Witteveen believes that the Netherlands should assist Curaçao in the reception of Venezuelans who arrive illegally and want to stay on humanitarian grounds. “The accent of the Curaçao authorities is on repression and deportation. Requests for assistance from Curaçao to The Hague are also about strengthening borders and optimizing foreigner processes. I wish that the 23.8 million euros from Undersecretary Knops will not go to repression, but will be spent on sheltering and employment for Venezuelans and unemployed young Curacao people.”
Carlos only wanted to tell his story anonymously as a refugee not to pay extra attention to himself. His real name is known to the chief editor.
Reporting by Persbureau