Remittances that help family and friends to survive, sadly, usually, help keep in power those who forced migrants to leave their homelands.

Sir, Gideon Long (and Vanessa Silva) report “Migration has also helped Mr Maduro to stay in power. The UN estimates that 2.3m people — 7 per cent of the population — have left Venezuela since 2015. Many are prominent opponents of the regime and while their voices are still heard from exile, they are no longer in Caracas orchestrating protests.” “Venezuelans display resilience in face of hyperinflation” August 25.

But how many millions Venezuelans are kept alive by the remittances from their emigrant family members or friends? Several millions? So that clearly helps the Maduro government to hold on to power much more than the absence of some prominent (but also until now quite ineffective) opponents.

Fifteen years ago I served as an Executive Director in the World Bank. My Chair also represented nations from Central America like El Salvador and Honduras, which had millions of migrants working abroad, primarily in the United States, and from where with great sacrifices, they constantly sent their families vital monetary assistance.

As much as I admired these emigrants, I abhorred knowing that their remittances were also helping to keep in power those who were basically responsible for them having to emigrate.

For instance if we assume that migrant workers remit 20% of what they earn, then according to remittance data supplied by the World Bank, in 2008 and with respect to Honduras, we could calculate Honduran migrants gross earnings abroad, representing 122% of Honduras GDP. And so, in economic terms, where is really Honduras?

Time and time again I push for the idea that, as a minimum minimorum thank you for providing their homelands with these lifelines, the migrants should at least have an important representation in their respective general assemblies. That way they could at least try to change the realities so as to be able to go back to their homelands, before they forgot these. “No remittances without representation”.

We often hear about the dangers that brain-drain could represent for these countries. I always thought heart-drain to be much worse menace.

@PerKurowski