What’s new? Political turmoil, economic ruin and heightening tensions with neighbouring countries have furnished non-state armed groups, including guerrillas from Colombia, criminal syndicates, paramilitaries and pro-government vigilantes known as colectivos, with the means to expand their influence and presence across Venezuela.

Why does it matter? Armed groups filling the vacuum left by a government determined to resist domestic opposition, international pressure and mounting sanctions pose a threat of escalating violence in the absence of negotiations, while also entailing major risks of sabotage in the wake of any eventual political settlement.

What should be done? These groups’ threat to peace must be contained, and that imperative should feature prominently in future talks aimed at settling the crisis. Those negotiations should include Venezuela’s military. Demobilising each armed group will require a tailored approach, but most should aim for deals securing acquiescence in a comprehensive political settlement.

Executive Summary

As Venezuela’s turmoil deepens with no end in sight, power is seeping out of formal state institutions and pooling in the hands of various armed irregulars. Behind this phenomenon are diverse causes. The ceaseless struggle for supremacy between President Nicolás Maduro’s government and opposition forces has turned state organs into partisan bodies that either solicit support from armed groups or overlook them. Economic ruin brought about by government mismanagement – now worsened by U.S. sanctions – has pushed numerous Venezuelans into illicit livelihoods and the orbit of organised crime. Meanwhile, the country’s long, porous borders have allowed Colombian guerrillas to gain footholds deep inside the country. The armed groups are far from identical, but all are ready to use violence and territorial control to further their goals, and any might sabotage a settlement that Venezuela’s competing political forces eventually agree to. Defanging them will require approaches tailored to each outfit, but the main goal should be to demobilise fighters and seek their buy-in to a deal that ends Venezuela’s collective agony.

Guerrillas from Colombia, loyalist pro-government militias known as colectivos, paramilitaries and a catalogue of criminal gangs stand out as the main non-state armed groups now operating in Venezuela. Their methods, goals and affinities vary hugely. Some profess ideological motivations while others pursue naked criminal profit. Some work in alleged collusion with ruling elites, while others purportedly have ties to opposition elites. The opposition led by Juan Guaidó and its international allies, now numbering close to 60 countries, accuse all but the right-wing paramilitaries of complicity with state security forces, or even with the high military command and political elites within chavismo, the movement named after the late president, Hugo Chávez. But the exact nature of the ties between these armed groups and the state, and the mutual benefits that arise from them, are not always easy to identify. Skirmishes between state and non-state actors acting in supposed coordination have exposed the high levels of mistrust that divide them. Formal talks between the government and opposition are moribund, but if and when they restart, they should urgently address the questions of how to reduce the armed irregulars’ influence and how to stop them from scuttling agreements that the sparring Venezuelan sides may reach. As the types of armed groups present different problems, each will need its own remedy. Dealing with Colombian guerrillas will require intensive cooperation between Caracas and Bogotá, ideally as part of efforts in the latter capital to end the insurgencies through negotiations aimed at general demobilisation. Some colectivos may be persuaded to reassume their historical role as mediators between state and society. As for criminal elements, several of them may also accept deals whereby they avoid prosecution or face reduced sentences in exchange for giving up arms. Experience in other Latin American countries shows that such tactics, while not always easy to swallow, are more likely to help the Venezuelan state reassert its writ with a minimum of additional bloodshed. Caracas/Bogotá/Brussels, 20 February 2020

I. Introduction

President Nicolás Maduro’s government is clinging to office in Venezuela, tightening its authoritarian grip on the country’s politics and society even as opposition to it has grown more uncompromising and received the support of a rising number of countries. It is doing so in the name of preserving the power of chavismo, the movement embracing the left-wing populist ideology propagated by Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chávez, but at the cost of growing disarray in state institutions and national economic catastrophe.

The battle between the government and opposition intensified in January 2019, when the head of the National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, asserted his own claim to the presidency, saying Maduro’s re-election the year before was invalid. As a result, for over a year Venezuela has had two leaders claiming to be legitimate president, as well as two legislatures and two Supreme Courts. The government’s move in early January 2020 to seize control over the National Assembly has served only to splinter the country’s institutions further. Meanwhile, the U.S. has imposed sweeping sanctions, including on oil sales, aggravating the Venezuelan economy’s sharp contraction since 2013 due to falling oil prices, government mismanagement and corruption. Despite recent efforts to scrap inefficient state controls and dollarise the economy, much of the population suffers regular interruptions to electricity and water supply, while hunger is rife and the public health system is in ruins. Certain public services still operate, including the main offices of state bureaucracy, urban transport and waste collection and police and fire emergency response, albeit with numerous problems and shortfalls.

Security forces have failed to contain Venezuela’s extremely high levels of criminal violence.

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The central state continues to oversee territorial control, law enforcement and maintenance of public order. It funds, supervises and appoints the heads of the armed forces and other security services, and takes the military’s loyalty extremely seriously. But the ability of the government in Caracas to carry out these functions is also slipping. Security forces have failed to contain Venezuela’s extremely high levels of criminal violence and have themselves been charged with numerous human rights violations. At the same time, the political and economic crisis has both weakened the security forces – which must get by with depleted resources while grappling with desertions and internal tensions – and empowered non-state armed groups, which have grown in size or scaled up their operations in the country thanks to the boom in illicit business coinciding with the formal economy’s collapse.

The result is a realignment in the country’s internal security as irregular armed outfits have partly replaced the state security apparatus in the southern states of Bolívar and Amazonas, as well as in certain other rural and urban settings, particularly along borders. Venezuela’s state forces are not obsolete or irrelevant. Their support for Maduro makes them the backbone of the status quo and will make them critical in any transition. But as their operational power and territorial presence fades, they are forming unstable alliances with, or tolerating the rise of, non-state armed groups, which provide crude versions of state services and assure locals some form of livelihood.

This report examines the main non-state armed groups in Venezuela, assesses their relations with government officials and political elites, and explores how their activities and alliances could affect the outcome of Venezuela’s turmoil. It also points to how negotiators from both sides in future talks could seek to manage the threat posed by these groups in any eventual transition. The report builds on Crisis Group’s continuous coverage of Venezuela’s socio-economic and political crises over the last five years.

II. Armed Groups, Crime and the State

Irregular armed groups have a long history in Venezuela. But in recent years their presence has taken on a qualitatively different character. In theory, non-state armed groups, while not direct enemies of the state like insurgencies, nevertheless seek a degree of autonomy from state institutions and formal politics. Yet in Venezuela, as in other Latin American countries, the relationship between armed groups and the public sector is far from clear-cut. Many irregular outfits have direct relations and common interests with parts of the state, which support or influence them either secretly or openly. For some state officials or politicians, these shadowy groups prove attractive because they can generate income via their illicit activities while also serving political ends, for example by intimidating people in order to secure votes. Growing evidence and eyewitness testimony indicate that such relations are becoming more commonplace in Venezuela, although the country’s highly polarised political landscape has given rise to mutual accusations of complicity in criminal conduct that are not always grounded in reality.

A. Guerrillas

The guerrillas in Venezuela today are largely transplants from neighbouring Colombia, although they do also recruit local members who in certain areas outnumber the Colombians.

The National Liberation Army (ELN) and the disbanded Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) maintained a limited presence in Venezuela well before Chávez assumed the presidency in 1999. Chávez was generally tolerant of their activities, declaring as early as 1999 that his government would be neutral in relation to the armed conflict in Colombia. On occasion, he expressed active support for the guerrillas’ hard left political stances. Ties between Chávez and the guerrillas deteriorated, however, during the last years of his presidency as relations with the Colombian government of former president Juan Manuel Santos improved. Venezuela played an active role in peace negotiations between the FARC and the Colombian government that began in 2012. For at least its first four years, the Maduro administration continued the line espoused by Chávez, supporting the conclusion of peace negotiations and refraining from open support for the guerrillas.

Since 2017, however, Venezuela’s heightened political instability and deepening economic crisis, combined with the spread of new or expansionary armed groups in Colombia following the FARC insurgency’s end, have boosted the guerrilla presence in Venezuela. Colombian guerrillas from the ELN and dissidents from the FARC who reject the peace process use Venezuela as a safe haven and a source of revenue through illicit activities. Their presence has extended far into the interior, with reports suggesting that they operate in at least thirteen of Venezuela’s 24 states, although the heartlands of their activity remain the states of Bolívar and Amazonas in southern Venezuela and the regions of Apure and Táchira, adjacent to the Colombian border. In addition to these groups’ traditional activities of drug trafficking, extortion and smuggling, they are now heavily involved in illegal mining of gold and other minerals, from which they are believed to obtain most of their revenue. According to sources close to these groups, both FARC dissidents and the ELN make more than half of their income from mining inside Venezuela and Colombia.

The presence of these groups on Venezuelan soil, often operating with the connivance of corrupt authorities, has sparked escalating tensions between Venezuela and Colombia, replete with threats of military reprisal. Bogotá insists that Caracas and the guerrillas are acting in concert, a claim that has assumed far greater urgency since a number of FARC commanders announced they were taking up arms again at the end of August 2019, from a location that senior Colombian officials claimed was in Venezuela. Colombian President Iván Duque told the UN General Assembly that he had “irrefutable and conclusive proof that corroborates the support of the dictatorship for criminal and narco-terrorist groups that operate in Venezuela”, although some of the photographs in the file he handed over were later found to have been taken in Colombia, not Venezuela. Venezuelan opposition leaders have used similar language, calling the guerrilla groups terrorists who work hand in glove with the Maduro government. But no one has presented incontrovertible proof of close ties between senior officials in Caracas and the guerrillas.

The activities of guerrilla and dissident groups across Venezuela bring them into close contact with state officials and local residents, while also triggering violent clashes with other groups coveting illicit revenues. In their mining operations, guerrilla groups subcontract other armed outfits to control the miners and the impoverished local population, sometimes through coercion, but sometimes by offering them job opportunities and staple goods. To transport and export the gold, the guerrillas rely on cooperation with state security forces and trafficking networks, both of which take sizeable cuts of the revenues. Evidence also suggests, however, that the relationship between Venezuela’s military and Colombian guerrillas can rapidly turn sour: Venezuelan troops reportedly killed two FARC dissidents on the border next to Zulia state in July 2019, while ELN guerrillas clashed with Venezuelan National Guard in Bolívar state in late November 2018, killing three guardsmen.

B. Colectivos

So-called colectivos are civil associations that in some cases function as para-police groups and that have gained prominence as Venezuela’s political conflict has intensified. Both colectivos’ opponents and their defenders tend to attribute almost mythical dimensions to their importance, yet they have without doubt become chavismo’s backbone through coercive control over street protests and influence in low-income communities. Their relationship with central government and state institutions, however, is far from harmonious.

In Venezuela, the term colectivo has traditionally referred to a local organisation with a left-wing ideology that seeks, in theory, to serve the common good of its members and the general public. In practice, opinions as to what these groups now represent differ markedly. Supporters of chavismo emphasise their community roots and commitment to locals’ well-being as defining features. They argue that these bodies function as social auditors monitoring the progress of what Chávez called the Bolivarian revolution, supporting and helping execute government policies at the neighbourhood level.

From their opponents’ viewpoint, on the other hand, colectivos constitute shadowy paramilitary units, linked to organised crime, which follow government orders and use guns and fear to exercise social control, mainly in the poorest neighbourhoods of Caracas and other big cities. Members of the colectivos engaged in acts of political harassment under Chávez when they attacked TV stations, business organisations, diplomatic missions or figures opposed to the government. Venezuela’s extremely polarised politics have led many in the opposition camp to scorn any public expression of support for chavismo as the fruit of coercive colectivos, prompting violent reprisals against people with no links to these bodies.

Under the Maduro government the colectivos have taken a more active role in “the defence” of the revolution, and during opposition demonstrations of 2014 and 2017 engaged in violent and criminal acts against protesters. Colectivos’ reputation as brutal para-police enforcers has been reinforced over the past year following opposition attempts led by Guaidó to overthrow the Maduro government, which has responded by relying on the colectivos’ power to intimidate opponents and mobilise supporters. Both on 23 February, when Maduro’s opponents attempted to force humanitarian aid into Venezuela from neighbouring Colombia and Brazil, and during the opposition’s failed civil-military uprising on 30 April, the colectivos played a leading role in street clashes. Witnesses to the February events on the Colombian border report that the colectivos were more effective in deterring the efforts of Guaidó’s supporters than the security forces proper.

Representatives of the colectivos [...] recognise that they carry out joint actions with state security forces to “preserve peace”

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More recently, government supporters carrying firearms, rocks and sticks violently prevented opposition deputies from entering the National Assembly while also harassing journalists. The press and the opposition called the mob colectivos, but bona fide members of these groups who were around the National Assembly at the time said they had nothing to do with the violence. Representatives of the colectivos nevertheless recognise that they carry out joint actions with state security forces to “preserve peace”, and many colectivo members are also part of the official Venezuelan civilian militia, an adjunct of the armed forces said by the government to be 3.3 million strong.

A direct relationship connects some colectivos and the government. But not all are the same, and some have stayed relatively independent of central government and remain wary of falling under top-down political control. One group of colectivos, for example, has maintained a continuous presence in Venezuelan politics since the 1970s and 1980s, years before the emergence of Chávez. Members of this group, such as the Coordinadora Simón Bolívar in the working-class 23 de Enero neighbourhood of Caracas, display clear left-wing leanings and are committed to improving community life through better public policies, cultural activities and campaigning against police repression and abuse. However, even these groups are increasingly aligned with Maduro’s government, arguing that Venezuela is under attack from imperialist forces across the region.

Two other categories, which also are branded colectivos, display far less interest in grassroots mobilisation. One is made up of opportunists and criminals who use their supposed affiliation with chavismo to gain legitimacy and act with impunity. The Frente 5 de Marzo, for example, is a colectivo with professed links to security forces and the chavista political elite. Nonetheless, its leader, together with four other colectivo members, was killed in a skirmish with the police in 2014, an event that sent shock waves through the Maduro government and led to the dismissal of General Miguel Rodríguez Torres, then the interior minister. Groups of this sort are mainly dedicated to illegal activities such as extortion, but also do some community work in the areas where they operate in order to win local support and a degree of public complicity. On many occasions, these outfits are at loggerheads with the more politically oriented colectivos, although in moments of crisis they rally to defend the “revolution” and follow government dictates.

A last category consists of paramilitary or para-police outfits. These are directly related to the state, and are often the creations of politicians or senior government officials, which use them as private shock forces. State institutions or specific politicians fund them, and they spend their time working on behalf of their beneficiaries. Chavista strongman Diosdado Cabello, for example, had known ties with one colectivo leader, the late Lina Ron, while the links to the colectivos of the former mayor of Libertador Municipality in Caracas and current “protector” of the border state of Táchira, Freddy Bernal, are also overt. These colectivos do not always have a territorial base and usually coexist with the other two types at state-organised events and initiatives. One colectivo that has direct links with public officials and has allegedly participated in police operations is Tres Raíces, which operates in the 23 de Enero neighbourhood. Its members took part in a joint operation with the special police unit FAES against the renegade police officer Óscar Pérez in 2018, as a result of which both Pérez and the leader of Tres Raíces died.

Central state officials have attempted to co-opt community-based colectivos in recent years with some success, turning a number of them into increasingly mercenary paramilitary outfits. In a series of interviews between 2013 and 2018 with prominent colectivo members in Caracas, Crisis Group noticed that the relative autonomy enjoyed by some of the colectivos had waned over the years. In 2013 the main aim of these groups was to fight for the “communal state” that they regarded as Chávez’s main legacy, while in 2015 the members indicated that their overriding objective was to guarantee food and staples to their community in alliance with the state, and prevent any “private sector speculation”. In 2018, many were working as bodyguards for state officials, and instead of discussing community power spoke far more about “imperialism” and their hostility toward the opposition.

As a result, all three sorts of colectivos have developed common characteristics. All are to some extent armed and opposed previous disarmament policies promoted by the government to reduce gun crime. In addition, they all derive local power by exhibiting connections with the state; they usually operate under strict vertical command systems; and they all defend the revolution and are willing to resort to violence to this end. Even so, it is not unusual for fights to occur between different colectivos operating in the same area. In one of the most recent incidents, five members died in a clash between two groups in the 23 de Enero neighbourhood.

Different factions within the Venezuelan government control separate colectivos, and as a result the groups’ interests do not always coincide.

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That said, colectivos are not necessarily passive recipients of government orders. Different factions within the Venezuelan government control separate colectivos, and as a result the groups’ interests do not always coincide. On several occasions security forces have openly clashed with the colectivos, forcing the government into hard choices as to which side to favour. In 2014, as mentioned above, former interior minister Miguel Rodríguez Torres was sacked after police and members of the 5 de Marzo colectivo fought, with five group leaders killed after the authorities accused them of criminal activities. Members of the group and other organisations demanded that Rodríguez Torres be dismissed, a request with which Maduro complied.

Four years later, frictions between the military high command and colectivos resurfaced when Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino López voiced indignation following the release of a video showing colectivo members with guns announcing their willingness to use violence in defence of the government. “The state and the Venezuelan people have the armed forces constitutionally fulfilling their tasks”, he stated, arguing that there was no need for armed groups to rally to the government’s side. Spokespeople for the colectivos retaliated by accusing Padrino López of failing to understand the “civic-military” bond at the heart of chavismo, and insisting that they had become part of the Venezuelan state and would continue defending the Bolivarian revolution.

The relation between Padrino López and the colectivos does not seem to have improved greatly since then, with the minister recently stating that the armed forces are obliged to combat all armed groups present in the country. Nonetheless, Maduro’s explicit backing for colectivos and their central role in seeking to quash pro-Guaidó protests restrains the armed forces in any action against them.

C. Paramilitaries

Right-wing paramilitaries, to use the Maduro government’s terminology, are illegal combat units usually acting on behalf of foreign governments and in collaboration with the Venezuelan opposition. As with the guerrillas, the paramilitaries are supposedly imported from Colombia, where they were involved for years in both extreme counter-insurgent violence and organised crime, including drug trafficking. Under former president Álvaro Uribe, the government began negotiating their demobilisation in 2003, concluding an agreement in 2006. But some of the paramilitaries were only loosely committed to this peace process, giving rise to a second rash of criminality. Their activities in Venezuela allegedly include crimes such as harassment, extortion and kidnapping of peasants and landowners, as well as intimidation of chavista loyalists and leaders. Although core members of these outfits are Colombian, recent reports indicate that they have tried to recruit new members from among Venezuelan migrants.

The Maduro government has placed great emphasis on the role played by right-wing Colombian paramilitary units in the country, saying there are five that participate in various illegal activities and are tolerated by Colombian armed forces along the border. The Venezuelan military report, not always truthfully, that they have suffered casualties in paramilitary attacks on their posts near the border. They have repeatedly announced the arrest of paramilitary members allegedly seeking to destabilise Venezuela.

The Venezuelan opposition denies any connection with right-wing paramilitary groups, but these disclaimers are in doubt after the publication of compromising photographs showing Juan Guaidó with two Colombian paramilitaries. The photograph was taken as he travelled into Colombia via an illegal crossing, known as a trocha, in order to attend a humanitarian aid concert on 22 February and support efforts to get relief supplies into Venezuela the next day. Guaidó claimed not to have known the paramilitaries’ identity, saying many people had their picture taken with him that day.

D. Criminal Groups

Venezuela is one of the most dangerous countries in the world if judged by its homicide rate, one of Latin America’s highest. A range of criminal groups of varying size and structure engage in robbery, kidnapping, fraud, blackmail, contract killing or illegal trade, notably in weapons, drugs, children and women. Police report that a total of over 100 Venezuelan criminal groups operate across the country, with the three most important categories of illicit organisation being the pranes (criminal bosses in Venezuela’s prison system), megabandas (mega-gangs) and sindicatos (literally, the unions). Despite their criminal activities, in some areas these groups have replaced the state by providing rudimentary law and order.

The pranes are the heads of criminal groups usually dedicated to drug trafficking and extortion operating out of Venezuela’s squalid and extremely violent prison system. In many cases, the pranes control the prisons where they are held, and tend to feel safer behind bars. Ill-advised prison policies made during the Chávez and Maduro governments, including toleration of overcrowding and informal arrangements as to who exercises control over inmates, strengthened the role of the pranes in prisons, giving them exceptional power inside these institutions.

Mega-bandas are hierarchical organisations that are a relatively new arrival to the Venezuelan underworld. They engage in drug trafficking, extortion and kidnapping throughout the country, and have great sway on their own turf. Many of these groups’ leaders have spent time in jail, as a result of which it is not uncommon for them to work together with the prison-based pranes.

Criminal experts have detected the existence of between twelve and sixteen mega-bandas, some with over 300 members.

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Criminal experts have detected the existence of between twelve and sixteen mega-bandas, some with over 300 members. They are heavily armed and, as a result of the threat they pose through territorial control, the government has tried to combat them through fierce police crackdowns, most notoriously the Operation to Liberate and Protect the People between 2015 and 2017. While these massive police raids failed to reduce the gangs’ power, they perpetrated widespread human rights violations wherever carried out. At the same time, the government has also selectively favoured the creation of peace zones in Caracas, entailing informal non-aggression pacts between state security forces and criminal groups in an attempt to pacify and eventually demobilise the latter. Opposition critics have vilified these zones for allegedly offering impunity to criminal groups, despite evidence of security benefits of neighbourhood ceasefires among competing criminal groups, in certain cases brokered by local women.

The sindicatos, meanwhile, are criminal groups operating primarily in southern Venezuela, and largely based in the Orinoco Mining Arc, a vast area in Bolívar state that is home to a government mining initiative created in 2016. Their origins lie in the construction industry, but since the economic crisis began they have focused on illegal mining and other illicit activities. They are able to deploy significant armed force, have alleged links to state officials, and compete with other non-state armed groups, notably the ELN guerrillas. The sindicatos have grown more autonomous from the state as they have become richer and better able to draw on their own support networks. But to a greater extent than the guerrillas, their relations with locals are marked by disrespect, looting and atrocities, provoking indigenous communities to create, or consider creating, “security brigades” or self-defence groups. The sindicatos and their conflict with other armed groups are visible in one of Venezuela’s most dangerous places, the south-eastern mining town of El Callao, where civil society groups calculate a murder rate of over 600 per 100,000 inhabitants – roughly a hundred times the rate in the U.S.

Judicial investigations, generally carried out by U.S. prosecutors, as well as media reports, suggest that a number of senior government officials have direct, profit-sharing links to organised crime. At the same time, weak and poorly supervised state institutions, economic crisis and discretionary public policies have created a permissive environment for criminal activity to prosper by coexisting with and supplanting state institutions, without necessarily depending on full-scale collusion between the two. Recent reports from Venezuela’s rural areas indicate that local people have been reduced to living in “preindustrial conditions”, providing armed groups with the opportunity to supplant an increasingly absent state. “These groups have often taken charge of enforcing business contracts, punishing common crimes and even settling divorces”, witnesses report.

III. Armed Groups in a Political Agreement

Armed groups operating in Venezuela have distinct objectives, modus operandi, political loyalties and relations with the state. As political conflict has intensified, they have increasingly preyed on the state’s absence, fissures or weakness, providing them with the sort of power and economic stakes that they will not easily forsake and which directly threaten the country’s long-term stability. At the same time, engaging with these groups as part of a political settlement or eventual government transition raises profound moral concerns and practical challenges.

Although there is at present no formal negotiation between the government and opposition, previous rounds of talks among the country’s political forces have focused almost exclusively on political and institutional arrangements, with little or no discussion of how to deal with armed groups and criminal actors. Venezuela’s competing forces may be avoiding mention of these groups due to the political cost of addressing the issue or because they do not consider it urgent. But even if these armed factions do not arouse the greatest concern, their growth in a climate of economic collapse and political deadlock, and the consequences for the country’s future security, should help motivate both sides, and their respective allies, to resume the quest for a negotiated outcome. The threat posed by these groups also underlines the importance of ensuring that the top brass is involved in any forthcoming negotiations. Military participation in future talks is essential to ensuring that no faction of the armed forces sabotages an eventual political transition, as well as to designing and later enforcing a long-term policy toward non-state armed outfits.

Dealing with the Colombian guerrillas or rebel offshoots operating in Venezuela requires flexibility and regional cooperation.

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The approach chosen will have to be tailored to each set of groups. Dealing with the Colombian guerrillas or rebel offshoots operating in Venezuela requires flexibility and regional cooperation. The Venezuelan state alone cannot bargain with these forces without risking entrenching them in the country and creating tensions with Colombia. Optimally, both countries’ governments and armed forces would embark on fresh negotiations with the ELN aimed at its permanent demobilisation, while also working to persuade FARC dissidents to lay down their arms in exchange for judicial benefits and reintegration. Venezuela showed in the talks between Colombia and the FARC that it can help end decades of insurgency if it wishes. While such cooperation now seems improbable given the parlous state of bilateral relations, the countries’ shared interest in reducing violence along lengthy borders could help sway both governments. For now, the two countries could build confidence by calling for an independent, multilateral border monitoring mechanism, possibly under UN auspices, so as to prevent and contain flare-ups.

As for colectivos, negotiations may also be an option. Not all the colectivos are the same, and a future political settlement aiming to pacify the country, respect the integrity of the chavista movement and prevent future political persecution could attract the support of these groups, especially if it includes provisions that emphasise their historical identity and mission as social movements auditing the effects of government policy at the local level. Such an approach might appeal to the more community-oriented and politically active colectivos. The ambitions of some colectivo leaders may also facilitate their incorporation into formal political life so long as the state and judicial system can provide guarantees that they will not be subject to criminal investigation or violent retaliation.

Dealing with purely criminal groups, including certain colectivos as well as major gangs and cartels, will require recognition of the state’s limited resources as well a prudent use of sticks and carrots. Whereas civilian authorities should assume the responsibility of gauging the main security threats, it will be up to Venezuela’s armed forces and police to combat and weaken these groups in a range of ways. Purely coercive law enforcement and “iron fist” policies targeted at the largest and most violent criminal outfits will in all likelihood not achieve this goal, and could in fact do the reverse, judging by previous experience in Venezuela and Latin America. Mindful of norms against extending amnesties to perpetrators of certain serious crimes as well as possible domestic resistance to any such moves, civil and military authorities should explore the prospect of leniency for those willing to surrender their weapons, including reduced jail sentences for those who have committed serious crimes on condition that they give an honest account of their acts and do not return to crime. Profit-driven actors may be receptive to offers that allow them to retain some of their resources in exchange for a peaceful life and reduced sentences.

IV. Conclusion

Armed groups have extended their reach across Venezuela as the country’s political convulsions and economic debacle have afforded them the complicity or tolerance of state officials and illicit profit-making opportunities. Colombian guerrillas and rebel offshoots have also taken advantage of these inviting conditions by crossing long, largely unmonitored borders in and out of the country. Although the two sparring sides in Venezuela’s dispute focus on the fight for the commanding heights in Caracas, the spread of irregular armed units that are in effect ruling impoverished populations in urban, rural and border areas highlights the acute danger that a continuing political standoff will lead to the fragmentation of territory into numerous enclaves run by local warlords. Both sides in Venezuela and their international allies should acknowledge that such outcome is to the benefit of neither, and offers a powerful reason to return to the negotiating table.

That said, the challenges posed by these groups to the country’s stability during and after any future political agreement will be considerable. Any effort to tame the threats posed by armed groups after a settlement is reached will most likely coincide with a period in which the state is fragile, violence is rife and reconciliation embryonic. Negotiations or deals with these groups could incur a high cost to the government, give armed actors legitimacy and political prominence, and need considerable effort, time and resources at a moment when all three will be in short supply. But treating these groups as little more than the criminal debris of the central political struggle – to be either ignored or relentlessly fought – could result in a stretch of violence that far outlasts the country’s current turmoil.

Caracas/Bogotá/Brussels, 20 February 2020

Appendix A: Map of Venezuela