US attack in Venezuela creates risks and opportunities for guerrilla groups

The U.S. attack on Venezuela has changed the terrain for guerrilla groups operating across the country’s border regions with Colombia, raising fears of possible betrayal by Venezuelan regime officials while opening the door to broader conflict if U.S. boots ever hit the ground, local security experts say.

Reports of increased guerrilla movements on both sides of the border have surfaced since the January 3 attacks. The region’s most powerful guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), has reportedly closed some camps in Venezuela, fearing a possible betrayal of their locations by regime officials to US authorities, leading to strikes, experts say.

“They are reconfiguring their security frameworks and protocols, consolidating and reviewing the systems of social control that the ELN maintains in certain communities in Venezuela where their leaders are present,” said Jorge Mantilla, a Bogota expert on armed conflict and national security.

The ELN also suspended its training operations in the country as well as its plans to develop 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 ELN has long anticipated a U.S. attack in Venezuela, Mantilla said.

In September, Pablo Beltrán, one of the ELN’s main negotiators, suggested in an interview that the United States would attack Venezuela for its resources.

In 2019, the ELN sent a letter to Maduro that was intercepted by Colombian intelligence, warning the then-Venezuelan president about traitors within the upper echelons of the Venezuelan military, Mantilla said.

Continental ambitions

The attack could also open the door for the ELN to achieve its long-held goal of becoming a continental guerrilla force if the U.S. military establishes a presence in the country or if the Venezuelan regime fragments into factions, he said.

“This would become the military and political platform that the ELN was hoping for… to transform into what they call a continental guerrilla, a symbol of resistance, not for Colombia or Venezuela, but for Latin America,” Mantilla said.

The leader of one of the ELN’s main guerrilla foes along the Venezuela-Colombia border released a video statement late in the week calling on guerrilla groups to form a common front with the Venezuelan military to resist the United States.

Ivan Mordisco leads a group from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which officially disbanded in 2017. It said armed groups should put aside their differences because they “face the same enemy.” Mordisco, whose real name is Néstor Gregorio Vera Fernández, called for a meeting between the leaders of the different guerrilla movements.

Gerson Arias, a researcher at the Colombian Ideas for Peace Foundation, said he doubted anyone would respond to Mordisco’s call because he is not trusted.

Mordisco also brings too much heat as one of Colombia’s most wanted criminals, Arias said.

The Colombian government of President Gustavo Petro has placed a price on his head of approximately US$1 million.

The ELN and Venezuela share a long history

A group like the ELN, with an estimated force of between 6,000 and 8,000 people, which operates in Colombia and Venezuela while controlling about 1,200 kilometers of borders, has no reason to make peace with Mordisco’s organization, Arias said.

Arias said the ELN operates in large swathes of Venezuela’s southern Amazonas and Bolivar states, including territories rich in natural resources like rare earth minerals. One of its main sources of income is illegal mining and drug trafficking.

The ELN has a long history with the Venezuelan regime dating back to the presidency of the Hugo Chavezelected in 1998, Arias said.

The ELN leadership moved to Venezuela in 2002 and the group shares the same political ideology as the Venezuelan regime, Arias said. He considers the defense of the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela an essential duty.

“The ELN considered itself the rearguard of Venezuela, but, gradually, it transformed into a place where it could develop its political and military project,” Arias said.

In a recent phone call, U.S. President Donald Trump and Petro agreed to work together to fight the ELN, Colombian Interior Minister Armando Benedetti said in a local radio interview. Petro is expected to visit the White House next month.

Eliana Paola Zafra, a human rights defender in the border city of Cúcuta, Colombia, said the United States has long funded the Colombian military to fight the country’s armed groups, but has never brought peace.

“We need a policy of total peace, we must empower Latin American communities to defend life, to defend peace and to defend human rights,” Zafra said.