THE HAGUE–The Netherlands is establishing a humanitarian hub in Curaçao for assistance to troubled Venezuela, at the request of the Dutch Caribbean country, the United States and Juan Guaidó, the parliament president who was recently recognised by the kingdom as interim president of the neighbouring crisis-hit nation.
The hub is intended for the coordination of social assistance to Venezuelans, of whom millions have become impoverished in recent years under the leadership of President Nicolás Maduro. An estimated 16,000 Venezuelans have migrated to Curaçao, most of them with illegal status.
“By setting up this hub in Curaçao, we want to ensure that aid is close by so it can be easily made available to the people of Venezuela when we actually can send humanitarian aid,” Foreign Minister Blok stated in a letter to the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament on Wednesday. Maduro largely blocks humanitarian aid.
Blok met with the Second Chamber’s Permanent Committee for Foreign Affairs on Thursday morning. The Second Chamber understood why Curaçao was selected as hub for humanitarian aid goods, but several parties such as the Democratic Party D66, the green left party GroenLinks and the Socialist Party (SP) questioned the cooperation with the US in this.
The three parties warned that the aid in Curaçao might become a source of a political game. “It seems a good idea to make use of Curaçao as a hub because it is close to Venezuela, but why do we do this with the Americans? Humanitarian aid should not be politicised, and involvement of the US in this assistance will not help,” said Member of Parliament (MP) Sjoerd Sjoerdsma of D66.
“We have to prevent that the aid becomes part of a political duel. Maybe the United Nations, the Red Cross or the Organisation of American States (OAS) are better partners in this than the US, considering the latter’s dominant role,” said MP Bram van Ojik of GroenLinks.
MP Sadet Karabulut (SP) referred to the Red Cross’ warning last week that humanitarian aid could be politicised. “The US and Guaidó are setting up a show. I hope that the minister doesn’t aim to involve our Kingdom in that game,” she said.
“Why do we follow the US? The people of the islands don’t know what awaits them,” said Karabulut, who also denounced harsh economic sanctions against Venezuela. “These murdering sanctions will create even more suffering for the Venezuelan people.”
Blok explained that the hub in Curaçao would mainly serve to store relief goods such as food and medication so these can be transported to Venezuela as soon as the possibility opens up. He emphasised that it concerned humanitarian aid and not military aid.
As to the role of the US, Blok said: “We have a concrete request for help from interim president Guaidó and we have a concrete offer of the US. We haven’t had such a request from other organisations.” He said the Netherlands would certainly consider other requests if they came in.
The Netherlands recognised Guaidó as the interim president of Venezuela last week after Spain, France, Great Britain, Austria and Denmark had already done so. The US, Canada and most other South American countries immediately supported Guaidó when he proclaimed himself president on January 23.
Source: The Daily Herald https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islands/85238-curacao-base-for-humanitarian-aid
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