Colombia is once again experiencing violent times and hundreds of people have been forced to cross the border with Venezuela to get away from the guerrilla conflict that is being waged in the Catatumbo region, in the northeast of the country, where they are facing the Army. … of National Liberation (ELN) and the FARC dissidents.
The Venezuelan Government, responsible for one of the largest migration crises in the region, has taken advantage of the opportunity to appear magnanimous in the face of this new wave of Colombian immigrants. “A child hugged me and started crying and I told him that the difficult part was over, because they were already in safe territory,” said Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello after approaching the border region to personally receive the victims of the conflict.
But Chavismo, more than a savior of the Colombian people, is pointed out as one of the collaborators that has made this difficulty possible; There are numerous complaints that point not only to the tolerance but also to the complicity of the Venezuelan State with the ELN, allowing the guerrilla group to act and move through its territory with impunity. Even Colombian intelligence agencies claim that the ELN has received support and protection from Venezuela and some of the guerrilla leaders are believed to live in Venezuelan territory.
Even so, President Petro assured that he was in contact with the Government of Nicolás Maduro to “establish a joint plan to eradicate armed gangs on the border” and “close all space for action to the owners of drug trafficking on the border.”
The announcement was made on Thursday through X, from Haiti. A trip that has been strongly criticized by the Colombian opposition, since the visit began after Catatumbo began to burn, and many reproach the president for being absent in the middle of the crisis.
Defensive cooperation
This Friday, the Defense Ministers of Colombia, Iván Velásquez, and Venezuela, Vladimir Padrino López met in Táchira, Venezuela, to organize the coordinated response to the Catatumbo conflict, where the violence that began on January 16 has caused death of at least 80 people and the displacement of another 41,000.
“The cooperation we expect from Venezuela is for them to contribute with us to the capture of these people,” said Velásquez in a press conference, as well as “containment actions” against the ELN. Likewise, the minister claimed to have discussed with his Venezuelan counterpart on the issue of drug trafficking, since Catatumbo, according to Velásquez, has 44,000 hectares with coca crops, and a good part of the cocaine that is processed there leaves for Venezuela.
“Venezuela does not serve, nor will it ever serve, as a platform for armed groups outside the law, regardless of their nature, ideology or nationality,” declared Padrino López, who is accused by the United States of participating in drug trafficking operations. along with the Cartel of the Suns and on whom there is a reward of 15 million dollars for any information that leads to his arrest.
ELN rebels
Fire on the border
Until now, Petro’s government has attempted to confront one of its worst security crises in recent years by declaring a state of internal unrest, suspending peace talks with the ELN, reinstating arrest warrants against its leaders and deploying more soldiers in the area.
There are 9,000 Colombian soldiers who are spread out in the mountainous area of the conflict, as announced by the Colombian minister, who assured that “there has already been a first combat between the Army and members of the ELN” and that “the order is to take the territory.”
It is estimated that the ELN forces are made up of around 5,800 men, who are trying to occupy a strip of Catatumbo that concentrates numerous plantations and trafficking routes that supply much of the world’s cocaine.
But, according to a report in the Colombian magazine ‘Semana’, the fight between guerrillas is not exclusively for the control of drug trafficking, but also the interests of the Venezuelan authorities to dominate the border to contain any destabilizing plan. According to what a senior member of the public force shared with the Colombian media, the ELN is a retaining wall, the first security ring for the Maduro regime in the event of a military invasion. And these paramilitary movements occur days after former President Álvaro Uribe declared the need for military intervention to achieve the overthrow of Chavismo.
Even so, there are those who believe that there is little objective in establishing that the violence in Catatumbo responds to an order from Caracas. “It is difficult to say that Catatumbo was an order from Venezuela,” shared Jorge Mantilla, a doctor in criminology from the University of Illinois, to the ‘BBC’. But it is a bet by the ELN to position itself along the entire border, take over it, assume a more aggressive and belligerent position and remember that whatever the outcome in the peace talks with the ELN, it is a conversation that passes through Venezuela.
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