U.S. attack in Venezuela creates risk, opportunity for guerrilla groups

The U.S. attack on Venezuela has shifted the ground for guerrilla groups operating across the country's borderlands with Colombia, raising fears of possible betrayal by Venezuelan regime officials, while opening the door to a wider conflict should U.S. boots ever hit the ground, local security experts say.

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

"They’re reconfiguring their security frameworks and protocols, consolidating and reviewing their systems of social control that the ELN maintains in certain communities in Venezuela where their leaders are present," said Jorge Mantilla, a Bogotá expert in armed conflicts and national security. 

The ELN has also suspended training operations in the country along with plans to develop a special forces unit with the help of the Venezuelan military, said Mantilla. 

"There is a lot of uncertainty with what could happen," he said. 

However, the ELN has long anticipated a U.S. attack in Venezuela, said Mantilla. 

In September, Pablo Beltrán, one of the ELN’s chief negotiators, suggested in an interview that the U.S. would attack Venezuela over its resources. 

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

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

"This would become the military and political platform the ELN has been hoping for … to turn into what they call a continental guerrilla, a symbol of resistance, not for Colombia or Venezuela, but for Latin America," said Mantilla. 

The leader of one of the ELN’s main guerrilla enemies along the Venezuela-Colombia frontier issued a video statement late this week calling for guerrilla groups to form a common front with the Venezuelan military to resist the U.S. 

Ivan Mordisco leads a group that splintered from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which officially disbanded in 2017. He said the armed groups should set differences aside because they "face the same enemy." Mordisco, whose real name is Néstor Gregorio Vera Fernández, called for a meeting between the leadership of the various guerrilla movements.

Gerson Arias, a researcher with Colombia’s Ideas for Peace Foundation, said he doubted anyone would take up Mordisco’s call because he’s not well trusted.  

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