Venezuela is teetering on the edge following the US capture and arrest of former President Nicolás Maduro, as armed militias, guerrilla groups and criminal networks threaten the path to stability, reports show.
As interim President Delcy Rodríguez takes control, backed by President Trump’s administration, analysts have warned that the country is completely saturated with heavily armed groups that could derail any progress toward stability.
“All armed groups have the power to sabotage any type of transition simply by the conditions of instability they can create,” Andrei Serbin Pont, a military analyst and head of the Buenos Aires-based think tank Cries, told me. The Financial Times.
“There are parastate armed groups throughout the territory of Venezuela,” he said.
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Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who the State Department says heads the Cartel de los Soles, sits next to members of Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang in an apartment building in Aurora, Colorado. (Jesus Vargas/Getty Images; Edward Romero)
Experts say Rodríguez must keep aside the regime’s two most powerful hardliners: Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello and Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino.
“The focus now is on Diosdado Cabello,” Venezuelan military strategist José García said Reuters“Because he is the most ideological, violent and unpredictable element of the Venezuelan regime.”
“Delcy has to walk a tightrope,” said Phil Gunson, an analyst at the Crisis Group in Caracas.
“They are not in a position to make any kind of deal with Trump unless they can get the approval of the people with the guns, who are basically Padrino and Cabello.”
Since Maduro’s removal, government-backed militias known as “colectivos” have been deployed throughout Caracas and other cities to enforce order and suppress dissent.
“The future is uncertain, the colectivos have weapons, the Colombian guerrilla is already here in Venezuela, so we don’t know what will happen, time will tell,” said Oswaldo, a 69-year-old shop owner. The Telegraph.
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Protesters critical of the government clash with state security forces. After the recent days of conflict, interim President Guaido, with the support of his supporters, wants to continue to put pressure on head of state Maduro. (Rafael Hernandez/Picture Alliance/Getty Images)
“That environment of instability plays into the hands of armed actors,” Serbin Pont added.
Outside the capital, guerrilla groups and organized crime syndicates are exploiting the power vacuum along Venezuela’s borders and in its resource-rich interior.
Guerrillas now operate along Venezuela’s 2,219-kilometer border with Colombia, controlling illegal mining near the Orinoco oil belt.
The National Liberation Army (ELN), a Colombian Marxist guerrilla group with thousands of fighters and designated as a US-designated terrorist organization, has operated as a paramilitary force in Venezuela.
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Armed colectivos are deployed in Venezuelan cities as guerrilla groups control the borders following the arrest of former President Nicolás Maduro. (Juancho Torres/Anadolu via Getty Image)
Elizabeth Dickson, deputy director of the Crisis Group for Latin America, said the ELN “in Venezuela… has essentially functioned as a paramilitary force, aligned with the interests of the Maduro government to date.”
Carlos Arturo Velandia, a former ELN commander, also told the Financial Times that if Venezuela’s power bloc were to collapse, the group would side with Chavismo’s most radical wing.
Colectivos also act as armed enforcers of political loyalty.
“We are the ones called to defend this revolutionary process radically and without hesitation – we colectivos are the fundamental instrument to continue this struggle,” said Luis Cortéz, commander of the Colectivo Catedral Combativa.
“We are always fighting and always will be.”
Other armed actors include the Segunda Marquetalia, a splinter group of former FARC rebels in Colombia. Both guerrilla groups work with local crime syndicates known as ‘sistemas’, which are linked to politicians.
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The Tren de Aragua cartel, designated by the US as a foreign terrorist organization, has also expanded across Venezuela and into Colombia, Chile and the US.
