The bi-national Colombian-Venezuelan guerrilla character provides the Maduro regime with another shock force in the face of external military harassment or a coup d'état.

• ELN has reached some 2,400 fighters between the two countries; its main funding now comes from illicit businesses in Venezuela, such as drugs and illegal mining.

• FARC dissidents number at least 2,300; the group with the greatest projection is the one led in Venezuela by Iván Márquez, ex issue two of the FARC.

• Elenos' and ex-FARC cooperate operationally in certain activities promoted by the Maduro regime, but their future organic convergence is unclear.

▲ FARC dissidents led by Ivan Marquez announce their return to arms, August 2019 [video image].

report SRA 2020 / María Gabriela Farjardo[PDF version].

MAY 2020-The consolidation of the two main Colombian guerrilla groups -the ELN and some remnants of the former FARC- as active forces also in Venezuela, thus articulating themselves as Colombian-Venezuelan groups, constitutes one of the main notes of 2019 in the field of American regional security.

Both groups would have some 1,700 troops in Venezuela (two thirds would be from the ELN), of which one third (570) would correspond to recruitment among Venezuelans. Used by the Chavista regime for guerrilla training of its irregular forces and as a shock vanguard in case of external military harassment or coup, the ELN and the ex-FARC are involved in drug trafficking, smuggling and extraction of gold and other illegal mining, both in the areas close to the border with Colombia, where they have operated for many years, and in the Venezuelan interior, such as the mining-rich states of Amazonas and Bolivar.

Following the agreement peace deal signed between the government of Juan Manuel Santos and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in November 2016, the National Liberation Army (ELN) began a process of expansion that allowed it to fill the vacuum left by the FARC in various illicit activities, although its estimated issue of 2,400 troops falls far short of the more than 8,000 that the FARC had at the time of its demobilization. Although it has had to compete with FARC remnants that are still active as mafia elements, the ELN has become Colombia's main guerrilla force, also focused on organized crime. The ELN's January 17, 2019 attack in Bogota on the Police Cadet School, which killed 22 people, marked the end of an agonizing peace dialogue with the government and a flight forward as a criminal organization.

In this process, the ELN has also been establishing itself in Venezuela, not only in border areas and as a place of refuge and hiding place as before, but also in other parts of the neighboring country and as an area of activity. The same has happened with the FARC dissidents led by Iván Márquez, Jesús Santrich and El Paisa, who on August 29 announced their return to arms, in a video presumably recorded in Venezuela. The interest of Nicolás Maduro's regime to count on the help of armed elements of these characteristics has led the ELN and the ex-FARC of Márquez, who was the FARC's issue 2 and its chief negotiator in the peace negotiations held in Havana, to become binational groups, with recruitment of Venezuelans as well.

ELN

The growing presence of these groups in Venezuela has been noted by Colombian authorities. The commander of the Military Forces, General Luis Navarro, indicated in the middle of the year that some 1,100 ELN members (slightly more than 40% of 2,400 fighters of this organization, although other sources consider leave this total figure) were taking refuge in Venezuela and that group had at least 320 Venezuelan citizens in its ranks.

Meanwhile, while attending the United Nations General Assembly at the end of September, President Ivan Duque raised the ELN's presence in Venezuela to 1,400 troops. Duque indicated that there were 207 geographical points controlled by the ELN on Venezuelan soil, including several training camps and twenty airstrips for drug trafficking, as documented in a controversial dossier that was not released to the public because it contained some erroneous test photographs.

A few days earlier, Foreign Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo told the OAS about the location of ELN fronts and FARC dissidents in Venezuela and referred to their close connections with the Chavista regime. "The links would be made with members of the armed forces, the national guard, military intelligence, as well as with irregular groups such as the Bolivarian Liberation Force," he said.

Other details were investigated by the Ideas for Peace Foundation (FIP), which in its report stated that the ELN finances itself through criminal activities such as extortion and maintains control of gasoline smuggling and mining in several regions of Colombia and Venezuela. In Venezuelan territory, with a presence in at least twelve of its 24 states, it controls gold mines in Bolivar state, hundreds of kilometers from the Colombian border, and coltan mining activities in Amazonas state. These illicit acts would account for 70 percent of their profits according to information attributed to Colombian intelligence. Thus, the ELN's base of operations in Venezuela would currently be the largest source source of income for the insurgent group .

FARC Dissidences

As for FARC dissidents, Colombian government sources midway through 2019 put the number at around 2,300 individuals (including non-demobilized elements, others who returned to arms, and new recruits). While this is close to the figure offered for the ELN, it must be taken into account that FARC dissidents are atomized.

Some 600 of them are reportedly in Venezuela, including some 250 Venezuelans who have reportedly joined their ranks (almost 10 percent of their total strength). Although they are separate groups that operate on their own, most attention has been given to the one led by Iván Márquez, due to its coordination with the Maduro regime. One episode that has featured in this group was the alleged assassination attempt in Colombia of Rodrigo Londoño, who led the FARC as Timochenko and who has remained loyal to the peace accords. Londoño accused Márquez and El Paisa of ordering the action, foiled by Colombian security forces and unveiled in January 2020, so that other former guerrillas would return to arms as they ran out of leadership in civilian life.

Internal documentation of the Venezuelan secret services published by Semana reveals the close partnership relationship between the Maduro government, the ELN and the ex-FARC. "The regime went from hiding fugitive guerrillas in the early 2000s to serving as the headquarters of operations for these groups. Not only do they prepare themselves militarily, but they also train the militias and the so-called colectivos in guerrilla warfare tactics and strategies," the weekly indicated.

All this is producing an operational convergence in Venezuela between the ELN and the ex-FARC. However, the status does not necessarily lead to a merger of both groups, which in Colombia maintain their differences, further encouraged by the aspirations of the different criminal groups into which the FARC dissidents have split, which are referred to in the plural for a reason.

On the other hand, the implementation of the Peace Accords was framed in 2019 in a growing climate of insecurity caused by the murder throughout the year of 77 former FARC guerrillas (totaling 173 since the peace signature in 2016) and 86 local social leaders, according to the report of the UN University Secretary, António Guterres. Colombian organizations raise the latter figure, such as the programs of study Institute for development and Peace(Indepaz), which speaks of 282 homicides, often linked to the attempt to replace coca with legal crops in regions where drug trafficking is active. In any case, this is a decrease compared to 2018, something that can be attributed to the fact that the new territorial distribution of the armed groups has already been consolidated and they have less effective resistance.