The U.S. attack on Venezuela has given way to guerrilla groups operating across the country’s border with Colombia, raising fears of renegade officials and opening the door to more conflict if U.S. boots hit the ground, local security experts say.
There have been reports of an increase in guerrilla fighting on both sides of the border since the January 3 attack. The National Liberation Army (LN), the most powerful guerrilla group in the region, has reportedly closed some of its camps in Venezuela.
“They are restructuring their security frameworks and protocols, strengthening and reviewing their social control systems that the ELN maintains in certain communities in Venezuela where their leaders are,” said Jorge Mantilla, an expert on armed conflicts and national security in Bogota.
The ELN has suspended training operations in the country, along with plans to create a special forces unit with the help of the Venezuelan military, Mantilla said.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty about what could happen,” he said.
However, the LN has been expecting a US attack on Venezuela, Mantilla said.
In September, Pablo Beltran, one of the LN’s chief negotiators, suggested in an interview that the US would attack Venezuela for its resources.
In the year In 2019, the LN sent Maduro a letter intercepted by Colombian intelligence, warning the then Venezuelan president of defectors in the top leadership of the Venezuelan military, Mantilla said.
Continental ambitions
The attack, he said, could open the door for the LN to achieve its long-term goal of becoming a continental guerrilla force if U.S. forces are stationed in the country or the regime in Venezuela splits into factions.
“This will be the military and political platform that the LN has been waiting for… to what they call a continental insurgency, a sign of resistance, not for Colombia or Venezuela, but for Latin America,” Mantilla said.
The leader of the LN’s main guerrilla adversary on the Venezuela-Colombia border released a video statement late this week calling for the guerrilla groups to form a common front with the Venezuelan military to resist the US.
Ivan Mordisco leads a splinter group from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). It was officially disbanded in 2017 He said the armed groups should put aside their differences as they “face the same enemy”. Mordisco, whose real name is Nestor Gregorio Vera Fernandez, called a meeting between the various guerrilla leaders.
Gerson Aria, a researcher at Colombia’s Think Tank Foundation for Peace, said he doubted anyone would respond to Mordisco’s call because he was ill-equipped.
As one of Colombia’s most wanted criminals, Mordisco brings a lot of heat, Arias said.
The government of Colombian President Gustavo Petro placed a bounty of nearly one million dollars on their heads.
LN, Venezuela share a long history.
A group like the ALN, which has an estimated force of 6,000 to 8,000 men and operates in Colombia and Venezuela and controls nearly 1,200 kilometers of border areas, has no incentive to make peace with the Mordisco organization, Arias said.
According to Arias, ELN operates in the Amazonas and Bolivar states in southern Venezuela, including a region rich in natural resources such as rare earth minerals. They depend on illegal mining and drug trade as their main source of income.
The LN has a long history with the Venezuelan regime since the presidency Hugo ChavezIn the year Elected in 1998, Aryas said.
The leadership of the LN moved to Venezuela in 2011. Venezuela considers the prevention of the Bolivarian revolution as its main task.
“The ELN used to see itself as the protector of Venezuela, but it has gradually become a place to develop its political and military project,” Aria said.
In a recent phone call, US President Donald Trump and Petro agreed to work together to fight the LN, Colombian Interior Minister Armando Benedetti said in an interview with local radio. Petro is scheduled to visit the White House next month.
Eliana Paola Zafra, a human rights activist in the Colombian border city of Cucuta, said the United States has not brought peace despite funding the Colombian army to fight the country’s armed groups.
“We need an absolute politics of peace, we need to enable communities in Latin America to protect life, maintain peace, respect human rights,” Zafra said.