Violence soars along Venezuela-Colombia border as rebel groups break truce

Violence has increased along the Colombia-Venezuela border in recent weeks due to the breaking of a truce between FARC dissidents, the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the Venezuelan military, leaving at least 86 people dead in 2022, Colombian authorities revealed on Monday.

FARC’s 10th and 28th fronts have positioned themselves in Apure, Venezuela where they keep supplies and maintain communications channels with members of the Venezuelan army and the ELN terrorist group.  

"The pact that was broken between these groups has had violent and retaliatory effects in Colombia,” said Colombian Minister of Defense, Diego Molano.  

The increase of violence on the border between these two countries has also increased the forced displacement of thousands of people on both sides of the border and so far 2,687 individuals and 808 families have had to flee Venezuela so far in 2022.

According to Colombian Interior Minister Daniel Palacios, at least 86 homicides have been reported along the border to date – suggesting that "they were clearly linked to one of the criminal organizations, whether ELN or FARC dissidents.”

“Bandits are executing bandits,” the minster added.

According to Colombian officials, Venezuelan military officials work closely with Colombian terrorist groups, as they consider that such groups could be their first line of border defense.

Molano also noted that evidence exists which establishes a clear drug-trafficking relationship between FARC and ELN dissidents and that traffickers operate out of clandestine airstrips in the Venezuelan states of Apure, Zulia and Tachira.

But Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez has claimed that outside forces are attempting to “Colombianize” the Venezuelan border region by means of a “para-economy” and through the employment of “paramilitary gangs.”

"The country is a victim of this unleashed violence, and it must always be viewed through a geopolitical lens. We cannot understand what is happening in Venezuela if we do not understand what is happening in Colombia,” Padrino added.

The Venezuelan minister also referred to the use of “leg-breaking” mines throughout the border region – describing them as "improvised explosive devices that carry shrapnel, gunpowder, and do a lot of damage.”

But it is not only the forced displacement of people or the use of such mines that have made the border dispute so costly. As analysts on both sides of the border have observed, Colombian paramilitary forces have increased their recruitment efforts on both sides of the border– thus increasing their numbers and allowing them to conduct further deadly operations.

According to a military intelligence report, three out of every ten new recruits are Venezuelan citizens, perhaps attracted to such illegal groups by an ever deteriorating economic reality.