Sunburned European holidaymakers amble around the island’s colonial capital or lie sprawled on lounge chairs. From Curaçao’s postcard-perfect beaches you can sometimes see the coast of Venezuela, but tourists enjoying the sun are unlikely to see many of the thousands of Venezuelans who live here.
A spate of mass killings in southern Venezuela is stirring international concern as the country’s political and economic crisis continues to drive a migrant exodus.
The Dutch island’s geographic proximity – it lies 65 kilometres north of the Venezuelan coast – and cultural and economic ties to its mainland neighbour make Curaçao a logical destination for those fleeing Venezuela’s economic meltdown and autocratic rule.
Yet the island is anything but a safe haven.
Until a week ago, Enrique Ceballos was a High Court judge in eastern Venezuela. But now he’s waiting on a plastic chair outside an NGO-run registration centre for asylum seekers in Port of Spain, the capital of Trinidad and Tobago.
Some 1,300 metres above sea level, where millennia-long tectonic movements pushed golden veins to the upper crusts of the earth, sits an ancient town.
The village now is at the centre of an international legal battle, because of a free trade agreement that enables multinational companies to claim high sums of money from the Colombian state at a World Bank tribunal if projects are perceived to be unrightfully halted or blocked.
