Colombia revives the humanitarian drama of the war and has to turn to Venezuela

by Andrea
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MAYARA PAIXÃO

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA (FOLHAPERSS) – The humanitarian drama that has been taking place for a week in the northeast of Colombia has revived the scenes of the conflict against the guerrillas, led the government to say that crimes against humanity were being committed there and made the president, Gustavo Petro , seek help from the dictator of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro.

The conflict that rages in the Catatumbo region, close to Venezuelan territory and where there are one of the largest reserves of coca (the raw material for cocaine) in the world, served as a dramatic reminder of the paradoxical relationship between Petro, himself a former guerrilla, and the heir of Hugo Chávez (1954-2013).

Armed disputes between members of the ELN (National Liberation Army) and a dissident group from the former FARC, Frente 33, have left 60 to 80 people dead in recent days, many of them civilians.

More than 36 thousand people had to leave their homes, most of them in land and river caravans heading to regions where there is still relative peace or even to the neighboring country, Venezuela, which in a sad irony is the origin of the largest diaspora today in America Latin. There are at least 1,600 Colombian refugees on the Venezuelan side.

Reports made to the local newspaper El Espectador show that entire peasant families are hiding in the forest for fear of returning to their homes or going to a shelter and being caught in the crossfire.

The conflict is the worst since the peace agreements were signed in 2016, one of the most serious in recent decades and a risk, among other things, for the possible recruitment of more young men by the guerrillas. The situation risks imploding the dialogues that Petro has been trying to hold in his “total peace” strategy.

He announced that he will decree “interior commotion” in Catatumbo, a form of state of exception that allows the government to make decisions more quickly and issue decrees with the force of law without the need for Congressional approval. The measure is initially valid for up to 90 days and is under the supervision of the Constitutional Court.

If the situation itself wasn’t already delicate, there is the element of the border and the “timing” – one of the most sensitive for Petro. The left-wing leader elected and sworn in in 2022 did not recognize Maduro’s election (but neither did the victory of opponent Edmundo González) and made much more vocal criticisms of human rights violations in Venezuela than President Lula (PT), in Brazil, for example.

Petro adopted pragmatic diplomacy, walked on eggshells and said he did not want to break with Venezuela. It was his government, in fact, that reopened the border between the countries, catapulting border trade.

When announcing this Thursday (23) that he has been in dialogue with Maduro to reach a joint strategy with the aim of combating violence in Catatumbo, he called him “the one who holds the Presidency in Venezuela”, thus avoiding recognizing him.

The crux of the matter lies in the fact that the ELN, the last Marxist guerrilla with a political agenda still in force today, has become a force with binational action. Venezuela serves as a rearguard for the organization’s leaders and, not surprisingly, one of the states that guarantors the agreements that Petro tried to make and which are now frozen.

One of the main scholars of the dynamics of the ELN, Jorge Mantilla, PhD in criminology from the University of Illinois Chicago, explains that the dynamics of binationalization of the guerrilla began in the 2000s, the height of the action of Colombian paramilitaries who, under the argument of combating the group, stigmatized local communities and committed large-scale violence. Venezuela became a refuge.

“From 2015 onwards, when they closed the Colombia-Venezuela border, the ELN became a decisive actor because it began to control all illegal crossings: they controlled the smuggling of gasoline, meat, drugs, as well as immigrants fleeing Venezuela” , it says.

“In other words, the ELN becomes a trading asset. The more distant or deteriorated the relations between the Colombian and Venezuelan State or governments, the closer Caracas’ relationship with the ELN will be, because it will be useful to socially and economically control the border and to influence the Colombian agenda in an important way, as it is being done exactly now.”

Clinging to power, but marginalized by the international community, Nicolás Maduro has said that one of his priorities now is peace in Colombia. He sent his Interior Minister, Diosdado Cabello, one of the strongest names in Chavismo, to the border, where he appeared in photos delivering supplies to the displaced.

The luck of destiny knocked on Maduro’s door, says Mantilla. “This helps the regime to migrate the tension that is on the electoral issue and authoritarianism to tension on the border, and also helps it to mitigate the international pressure that Petro could exert.”

Colombia is just over a year away from national elections for the Executive. The first left-wing president in the country’s history is not in a comfortable situation: last December, according to the Invamer consultancy, his approval was only 34% of the population.

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