Venezuela, one of the deadliest countries in the world, is teeming with armed men.
The motley network of criminal gangs, armed paramilitaries and "rogue" soldiers poses a major threat to President Donald Trump's desire to "govern" the country - as well as to any American company considering investing.
Although Acting President Delcy Rodriguez has shown some willingness to cooperate with the United States, none of these violent actors answer directly to her.
“All of these armed groups have the power to sabotage any transition, by causing instability,” said Andrej Serbin Pont, a military analyst and director of the Buenos Aires-based organization Cries. “Parastate armed groups are present throughout the entire territory of Venezuela.”
To have any chance of keeping them under control, Rodriguez must retain the support of two of the regime's leading hardliners, known for their anti-American views: Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello and Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino.
“Delcy has to tread a careful balance,” said Phil Ganson, an analyst at the Crisis Group in Caracas. She and her faction “are in no position to reach any kind of deal with Trump unless they get the approval of the men with the guns, which are essentially Padrino and Cabello.”
Since Washington captured President Nicolas Maduro on Saturday, pro-government militias known as "colectivos" have been deployed to quell resistance.
Moving in groups of at least three on motorcycles, often dressed in black, masked and armed with automatic rifles, they set up checkpoints throughout Caracas, checking citizens' phones for evidence of "subversion" and subversion. The men, recruited from poor neighborhoods, see themselves as guardians of the sacred flame of socialism.
They were founded to act as a local link between the Venezuelan people and the revolutionary socialist government of the late President Hugo Chavez, but have since turned into regime soldiers.
“We are the ones who are calling for a radical, unwavering defense of this revolutionary process - we, the collectives, are the fundamental means to continue this struggle,” said Luis Cortes, commander of the “Catedral Combativa” group in downtown Caracas. “We are always fighting and we will always fight, in the streets.”
These groups are controlled by the powerful Interior Minister Cabello, a fierce anti-imperialist who is wanted by US authorities for corruption, money laundering and drug trafficking - charges he denies. Cabello, who is also in charge of the police, has long been seen as a rival to Rodriguez.
But outside the major cities, the government has relinquished control of entire swaths of the country. Colombian guerrillas operate along the entire 2.219-kilometer border with Venezuela's western neighbor and operate illegal gold mines in the southern regions, near the vast Orinoco oil belt.
“If the US were to try to push into the southern regions of Venezuela, it would face fierce resistance from organizations that know how to blend into local communities, using them as human shields,” said Bram Ebus, founder of the Amazon Underworld Project, which investigates crime in the Amazon. “It would also pose a huge risk to foreign investors, including those in the oil and mining sectors.”
At the forefront is the National Liberation Army (ELN), a group of between 4.000 and 6.000 fighters with Marxist roots, which has been fighting against the Colombian state since the 1960s and is on the US list of terrorist organizations.
“The ELN is a hardened, trained, capable and sophisticated guerrilla organization, not some fledgling criminal enterprise,” said Elizabeth Dixon, Crisis Group’s deputy director for Latin America. “In Venezuela, it is an organization that has operated, essentially, as a paramilitary force, aligned with the interests of the Maduro government – until now.”
The group is skilled in the use of explosives and drones, and has long relied on drug trafficking, racketeering, and illegal mining to finance its political ambitions, which have now been squandered.
Local populations in Venezuela's mining belt are regularly subjected to brutal summary judgment, rape, and other human rights violations. Entry and exit from guerrilla-controlled areas are strictly controlled, and forced and child labor is widely used in the mines.
Although guerrillas in Venezuela have not often attacked the oil industry, they regularly steal Colombian oil, blow up pipelines and extort money from producers.
Hours after Maduro's capture, the ELN Central Command announced that it would "oppose imperial plans against Venezuela and the people of the south."
Carlos Arturo Velandia, a former ELN commander turned conflict analyst, said: “If there are cracks within the Venezuelan power bloc, the ELN will side with the radical wing of Chavismo, with a clear anti-imperialist stance.”
However, Colombian intelligence officials say that some leaders of the group in Venezuela have begun planning a return to Colombia, encouraged by the buildup of US naval forces.
Also present is the Segunda Marquetalia guerrilla movement, a breakaway faction of the now-defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which demobilized after a 2016 peace agreement with the Colombian state. Colombian intelligence officials say its presence in Venezuela has been significantly weakened in recent months, during the conflict with the ELN.
Both guerrilla groups also cooperate with local criminal syndicates, known as “sistemas,” which have ties to local and national politicians.
The notorious Tren de Aragua cartel, designated a foreign terrorist organization by the United States, has expanded beyond Venezuela and has cells in Colombia, Chile and the United States. Its influence inside Venezuela has diminished after expanding abroad, where some of its key leaders have been arrested, but it remains involved in extortion, drug trafficking, kidnapping and smuggling.
The armed forces are also intertwined with guerrillas and criminal networks.
Over the past two decades, cries of “Gringo, respeta!” (“Gringos, respect us!”) have often echoed during military maneuvers, as often corrupt military officers handled Russian and Chinese weaponry.
However, according to analysts, the opposition and US law enforcement, the military is polarized, poorly trained and deeply involved in crime - making it unlikely to be an effective or willing partner for the United States in combating drug trafficking or securing the country.
The military began to profit from drug trafficking in the early 2000s, earning it the nickname "Cartel of the Suns" (Cartel de los Soles), after the small yellow suns that high-ranking officers wear as a rank insignia.
Now, experts say, it allows cocaine to be transported through the country from Colombia, smuggles gasoline and controls some of the cocaine production inside Venezuela. The generals have also long held high positions in the state-owned oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela.
The Venezuelan government denies that the military is involved in criminal activities.
After Maduro launched a crackdown on illegal mining in 2022, some military units entered the field to take “control of the mines,” said Cristina Folmer Burelli, founder of SOS Orinoco, an organization that monitors local environmental destruction. Others, according to a report by the International Crisis Group, charged extortionate fees or allowed local guerrilla allies to continue mining.
Nevertheless, the military remains crucial to political stability.
Most units answer to Defense Minister Padrin, another socialist ideologue and revolutionary loyalist. However, some units are sympathetic to Kabalj.
Padrino, as Jose Garcia, a Venezuelan military analyst, says, "is in the eyes of some a potential traitor who was never a combat soldier like Diosdado, and is not a killer like him."
Part of the recent US strategy has been to create a split within the military that could topple Maduro. That could have led to “a civil war situation,” Ganson said, but “now the chances of the current situation going wrong are based on the possibility of a split between the civilian authorities and the military.”
Although "there are no cracks yet," warned one senior officer, there is "dissatisfaction" in some quarters.
Prepared by: NB
Bonus video:
