Survival and Corruption in the Scorched Lands of La Guajira
By Indira Guerrero
La Guajira (Venezuela).– Upon the desert savanna of La Guajira rise the blades of a rusted, abandoned wind farm where rain does not fall, plants do not sprout, animals do not fatten, children do not grow, and nothing happens if not for smuggling.
After more than two years of drought in La Guajira, the fields lie abandoned. What were once trees are now vast stretches of dry branches filled with trash, where skinny goats and donkeys have also been forgotten.
Now, the border closure in the northwestern state of Zulia has shone a spotlight on the indigenous community inhabiting this territory—a settlement of 400,000 people, mainly from the Wayúu ethnic group. Most live without water or electricity, marked by poverty, unemployment, and malnutrition, from which they are saved only by contraband largely operated by children.
The edges of dusty dirt roads serve as trading hubs for small operators of the illegal fuel and food market, a trade learned from their parents.
Where corn does not sprout, reselling basic products and fuel subsidized by the Venezuelan state to feed communities is a profitable source of income for locals living with dry pipes.
The children are thin, their skin dry, and far too short for their age due to malnutrition. As soon as they can lift a few kilos, they take to the streets to carry food or suck fuel from car tanks with their mouths to sell it on the Colombian side of the border.
A Wayúu woman dedicated to smuggling for years has ten children in her care. Although she enrolled them in school, she cannot change the future of her sons, who decided from a very young age to leave class to carry a few kilos of rice across the border.
“When a Wayúu sees his son driving a truck, working, or being independent at such a young age, for the father that child is a source of pride,” says Ayari, a Wayúu teacher, explaining that in the eyes of her culture, these children are simply working for their homes’ food.
In an attempt to erase the stigma branding indigenous people as smugglers, she adds that they do not see it as a crime. The Wayúu have worked with this all their lives, and even if outsiders call it smuggling, the Wayúu are merchants.
“What else are we supposed to do if there is a drought,” she adds.
She herself turns to smuggling when she leaves school; she learned to drive a truck at ten to help her father. She is not surprised by school desertion, which fluctuates depending on whether the public cafeteria is functioning or not.
“If that child doesn’t go out to work thinking only of studying, most likely he or his mother will get sick from hunger before finishing school,” she says.
They all serve a few men waiting for them daily on the other side of the border who, in exchange for their traded future, will pay a few pesos to each child who, like their parents, will become the mules of contraband.
The mothers are the bachaqueras—a term alluding to a species of ants that travel carrying food. They travel at night in rickety buses to the city of Maracaibo to sleep on the sidewalks of shops, waiting for them to open the next day so they can be the first to buy products regulated by the Venezuelan socialist government.
In that city, a hundred kilometers from the border in the community of Canchancha—another indigenous settlement located at the foot of an expensive shopping mall—a man understands what his countrymen are living through because his and his children’s history is a replica of the portrait of La Guajira.
The indigenous man, who minutes earlier warned of the passing of a car loaded with rice contraband stored in community depots, reflects on his trade and the impact government measures might have on fighting the crime.
He believes that for the Wayúu, smuggling ends when they die. “If they close the door on my people, they will go through the window. Nobody ends bachaqueo, period.”
The Crime Nobody Hides
Despite border closures, this remains the crime that nobody commits in secret.
“Park there and tell them you’re going to unload a point,” explains a 12-year-old boy to a client he has managed to capture among dozens of competitors. Like him, they all wave cardboard signs offering what they are willing to pay for every 20 liters of gasoline a driver allows them to siphon from their car.
Once the transaction is done, the boy returns to the dusty road to wave his sign, looking for a new client. His cardboard reads 1,800 bolivars. These days, it is the highest bid in the street auction.
In this territory, the illegal trafficking of fuel, food, and materials—controlled largely by the indigenous people inhabiting the border zone of Zulia state—occurs calmly right next to the military posts guarding the area since the closure was ordered.
The “office” for these street operators is the nearly 120-kilometer stretch of asphalt from the Venezuelan city of Maracaibo to ‘La Raya’, the line between Colombia and Venezuela.
Here, a 1976 Fairlane 500 is the most desired car on the road. It has a trunk that doesn’t fit, no air conditioning, and a driver’s door held shut with wire. Its value lies not in its vintage, but in its massive 120-liter tank, from which up to five “points” of gasoline can be extracted.
Every morning, hundreds of cars that disappeared from the market at least 30 years ago line up in front of the checkpoint in the border town of Sinamaica. They are stripped of upholstery, crashed, and corroded, but their tanks are full of gasoline.
Venezuelan authorities have estimated that the country, which produces nearly three million barrels of oil a day, loses about 200,000 barrels diverted as contraband to Colombia.
The business is driven simply by the rock-bottom price of fuel for Venezuelans, who pay less than a single bolivar for 20 liters at a service station, yet can sell it for up to 1,800 if they carry it in their tank as close as possible to the border.
Alongside the gasoline, large signs on the roadside advertise milk, sugar, soap, rice, personal hygiene products, baby food, diapers—almost anything that has been scarce in the formal market for over a year.
Soldiers pass by without surprise. They walk past the street vendors known as bachaqueras or, in the case of gasoline, pimpineros, who occasionally hide their signs in a futile attempt to keep up appearances, though they cannot hide the large containers full of fuel beside them.
Locals admit that many soldiers only approach to collect a quota in exchange for ignoring the sellers, creating a perverse market where no one needs to hide.
Military corruption explains why a car loaded with dozens of boxes of shoes managed to pass through nearly ten checkpoints where vehicles are searched even under the seats. It also explains why a female soldier was tucking two pairs into her gear while her colleagues picked out their own cuts before letting the car pass.
Although the border is officially closed, the illegal trails—known as trochas—are having their best moment, and toll collection is another well-known business.
“Go in through there, and every time they lift a rope for you, just take out 100 bolivars. There are several little points where you have to pay until you reach Colombia, but go early because the Army gets involved later,” a soldier explains to a taxi driver who swears he is only going to visit his mother.
Visiting family doesn’t require going far. Next to the last checkpoint, a fat, disheveled woman, cursing the soldiers in Wayúu every so often, can pass you into Colombia for 1,000 bolivars. After all, the border is just in the backyard of her house. EFE
Indira Guerrero 