The Hungarian-Venezuelan diaspora wants to return to the home country
Members of the Hungarian Diaspora in Venezuela are asking the help of the government and the Parliament, Magyar Hírlap said.
More and more members of the Hungarian diaspora in Venezuela want to return to the motherland. The once 5,000 strong Hungarian colony in Venezuela has become mired in the civil war, and according to latest reports, recently, about one hundred Hungarians and their descendants signalled their intention to return to Hungary learned magyarhirlap.hu.
Representatives of the families wrote a letter to Sándor Lezsák, vice-president of the Parliament, in which they proposed possible solutions that could smooth their return and reintegration in Hungarian society.
Repatriation, however, is a difficult process – due to the poor economic situation in Venezuela, a large part of the savings accumulated by members of the Hungarian community in Venezuela are devalued and their properties can not be easily sold off. It is typical of the fact that a family who returned to Hungary eight years ago could sell its Caracas home only now and members of the family have not been receiving pension since 2009.
The families asked the Parliament and Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to reach out to the Hungarian community in Venezuela and speed up their passport application process. They also urge the government to provide three months free accommodation for returning families, and create targeted scholarship programs for young people, who want to continue their university and college studies in Hungary.
In Venezuela, people have become accustomed to work hard because they had to fight for everything, so the repatriates “would not be a burden on the social welfare system but they can become useful and productive citizens of the country,” they wrote.
A woman who returned from Venezuela years ago and has been living in Budapest ever since said the Hungarian community needed medicines, basic foods and other important household items to survive but unfortunately, those items could not be easily sent to Venezuela because authorities often confiscate the deliveries.
Another problem is that there is no Hungarian embassy in the Latin American country only an honorary consulate exists. The nearest Hungarian diplomatic outpost is in Colombia whose personnel try to help the Hungarian diaspora as much as they can but the distance unfortunately limits the margin of their maneuver.
According to sources, it would be a major step forward if the Hungarian government could arrange essential items to be sent to relatives who left behind delivered under diplomatic status – including passport applications and other official document – because that would increase the chances of getting the aid to the needy.
What we are seeing in Venezuela today is in many ways reminiscent of the 1956 Hungarian revolution, the difference is that in Caracas and in larger rural settlements for the time being young people are battling with stones and Molotov cocktails rather than weapons said one source.
Photo:MTI/AP/Ariana Cubillos
Source: magyarhirlap.hu – hungarianambiance.com