During the visit of President Iván Duque and the military leadership to Arauca on January 16, as part of a security council, 18.4 km away, members of the National Liberation Army (ELN) walked through the streets of La Esmeralda. , in the municipality of Arauquita, frightening the population.
This is one of the events that have been taking place for at least 30 years in this region.
On the border between Colombia and Venezuela, groups outside the law coexist, such as the ELN, the extinct FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), which from this century began to migrate to Venezuela, and hybrid criminal actors who clash over rents. illegal.
The shared zone between both countries has witnessed the transformation and mutation of the armed conflict along with the precarious state presence, both in Caracas and Bogotá.
Although violence and insecurity in the area have persisted for three decades, in 2021 and 2022 the situation has deteriorated to the point where the actors involved are increasingly diffuse.
This border area is a geographic microcomplex of great strategic importance that has fostered the development of a large-scale binational criminal network.
On the Venezuelan side are the territories of Alto Apure, comprising Guasdualito, El Amparo, Puerto Páez and Elorza.
On the Colombian side are the municipalities of Arauquita, Saravena, Fortul and Tame, in Arauca; and Cubará, in Boyacá.
In this area, added to the absence of formal institutions in both countries, those who exercise control and govern are the criminals who compete for the routes of drug trafficking, trafficking in people and weapons.
From 2016 to this year, in Arauca and Apure, the structures of the ELN and the Décimo Frente Martín Villa group coexist as dissidents from the FARC. Both compete for illicit markets carrying out armed actions that resulted in more than 30 deaths and 400 people displaced in early 2022.
There are several reasons for the current problems.
On the one hand, the Venezuelan narrative maintains that there is a campaign to destabilize Colombia by sending violent actors to commit criminal acts in its territory.
In fact, in the last 14 months there has been fighting between the Venezuelan armed forces and Colombian irregular groups. This has led to severe displacement of families and exacerbated the humanitarian crisis in the region.
On the other hand, the Colombian version of the crisis is that military operations were launched from Bogotá against the dissidents of the former FARC. The version is shared by Human Rights Watch’s 2020 report on the rise in violence in Apure and Arauca.
However, the aggravating factor is that there is an actor who has been little named in the media and has received little importance in the analysis of the subject.
This is the Venezuelan guerrilla Patriotic Forces of National Liberation, which, according to several international organizations, has a close relationship and approval to operate with Venezuela’s local authorities.
Regardless of the armed actors operating there, it is the civilian population that has been the victim and the center of gravity of the situation.
In this sense, by chaining together the series of phenomena and issues of the crisis, the explanations can be deepened even further.
Security in Colombia is not at its best. The country has entered a spiral of insecurity and violence of different natures as a result of the proliferation of various groups that seek to control territories due to illegal rents.
In fact, the low implementation of the Peace Agreement signed in 2016 (30%) worries the country due to the murder of social and environmental leaders, the forced displacement and the murder of ex-combatants.
This phenomenon, and the inability of the Colombian State to reach the entire territory, could lead to a third cycle of violence, in which Arauca plays an important role.
Colombian security authorities have tried to regain control of the area, but they feel that neither the military nor the police is viable.
One of the explanations for the causes of the violence between Arauca and Apure has to do with the Duque administration’s erroneous notion of militarized security.
The excess of soldiers does not imply greater security. Furthermore, there is a disconnect between the decision-makers’ idea of security and the daily life of territorial violence.
And finally, there is Venezuela’s permissiveness that allows the ELN to act as a binational guerrilla.
Meanwhile, the foreign ministries of both countries are unaware of the importance of having de-ideologized relations for the good of territories and communities.
Although Bogotá and Caracas have not re-established diplomatic relations, irregular armed groups will have more capacity to administer Arauca and Apure than state institutions.
If neither Casa de Nariño nor Miraflores govern the area, criminals do.
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