The predictable triumph by Maduro loyalists in Venezuela’s rigged November 2021 elections was a symbolic nail in the coffin for the attempt by the de jure government of Juan Guaido to restore the more liberal type of democracy previously prevailing in the country. Venezuela now seems to ever more resemble Cuba, with an authoritarian government in control for the long haul. Yet while Venezuela is unlikely to return to democratic governance anytime soon, parallels to Cuba conceal the complex dynamic between regime figures, external state actors, and criminal and terrorist groups that is shaping the country’s future.
By Diálogo – Digital Military Magazine – Dr. Evan Ellis
Jan 14, 2022
The following characterization relies heavily on interviews with multiple knowledgeable insiders, including current and former senior Venezuelan and Colombian officials, to paint a picture of regime dynamics which is arguably different than that commonly reported.
Context
Venezuela may be understood as a “hijacked democracy”—in which leaders initially elected by democratic mechanisms have subsequently altered those mechanisms in ways that are no longer consistent with traditional Western concepts of liberal democracy. Venezuela has come to be dominated by a complex set of internal and foreign actors with only partially and temporarily aligned interests. Some areas of Venezuela may be regarded as “alternatively governed” by various armed groups.[1] To this end, the dynamic in Venezuela is understandable within the context of what the literature terms a “narcostate” or “rentier state.”[2] The key domestic players are largely focused on survival and illicit earnings, each tied to different foreign actors pursuing their own strategic interests.
Venezuela’s current situation is an artifact of three interrelated phenomenon, on top of the deeper economic and historically rooted sociopolitical context shaping the trajectory of the Venezuelan state:[3]
- First, its oil-based economy generated resources for those controlling the state, both democrats and authoritarians, to rule, while limiting the number of powerbases independent of the oil sector.
- Second, the opportunity to divert rents from petroleum fostered endemic corruption and uneven economic performance sows disillusionment among Venezuelans toward democracy and free markets. This phenomenon, the “resource curse”[4] is not unique to Venezuela, but is taken to new extremes there, with the primacy of the oil sector and the degeneration of others. This structural phenomenon helped Hugo Chávez to capture power in 1998 by appealing to that disillusionment, and later supported acquiescence to his violations of the constitution and spirit of democracy as he captured and transformed state institutions.
- Third, extra-hemispheric actors, particularly the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Russia, in pursuit of their own interests, provided resources to the regime in the form of oil purchases, loans, and some investment, helping to sustain Chávez’s regime as it moved against the private sector and democratic institutions, as Western investors began to flee and/or seek redress in the courts, and as democratic neighbors and multilateral institutions began to react.
A key element of the Chavista model was its collaboration with an array of criminally affiliated terrorist groups, including the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional or ELN) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia or FARC), as well as the Iran-affiliated Hezbollah,[5] among others. Such relationships were generally mutually beneficial, with the Chávez regime providing de facto sanctuary and the opportunity to those groups to protect or generate resources, while they served strategic purposes within and outside Venezuela, including assisting the regime with territorial control, and the organization of illicit resources.
Such criminal entities have also come to interact with each other, and with civic and criminal groups within Venezuela, including the government-organized community action groups, colectivos, to criminal gangs such as the pranes and sindicatos, as well as local Venezuelan regional (Regiones Estratégicas de Defensa Integral or REDI) and zonal (Zona Operativa del Defensa Integral or ZODI) military commands.
Despite the international focus on the political struggle in Caracas, power has devolved to the periphery, and stability has increasingly relied on the shared interest of those groups in the continuity of a weak corrupt state. The fear of key actors of what could replace the status quo compels each in the short term to keep the regime afloat, even while maneuvering to protect their interests if it does collapse.
Domestic Political Figures
At the apex of Chavismo is its titular head Nicholás Maduro. However, he does not hold the real power. He is surrounded by an array of criminally connected figures, each with different ties to select domestic institutions, foreign actors, and armed groups. Their interests are currently aligned with the survival of the current government, yet the disappearance of Maduro, or other fundamental changes to the status quo could change that, setting each actor against the other in a chaotic and likely violent struggle for self-preservation.
Within the Maduro family, the First Lady Cilia Flores reportedly has significant influence and initiative on government initiatives. She (with her experience as Attorney General and President of the National Assembly), more than her less educated, less administratively experienced, more docile husband, is reportedly often the reliable interlocutor with key domestic and foreign players, and who shapes key decisions.[6] Publicly, however, she has sought to reduce political statements and engagements that would showcase that influence.
Nicholás Maduro is reportedly grooming his son Nicolasito to succeed him in power, including a role in the regime’s 2021 negotiations with the opposition in Mexico, and his own radio show, although the level of acceptance of this by the rest of Chavismo, including the first lady (who is not Nicolasito’s mother) is ambiguous at best.
Beyond the first family, Delcy Rodríguez and her brother Jorge are arguably the regime’s key operational-level decisionmakers. They have played a key role in Chavismo since before Maduro came to power and their influence has reportedly increased in recent years.[7]
Delcy, in her current role as Vice President, oversees the administration’s feared intelligence organ the Servicio Bolivariano de Inteligencia Nacional or SEBIN, and retains relationships in the international realm from her prior role as Foreign Minister, including implementing relationships in the Arab world facilitated through the connections of Tarek El Aissami, among others.[8]
Jorge Rodríguez, currently President of Venezuela’s National Assembly and former Minister of Communication, is the key interface with the domestic opposition, foreign democrats, armed groups, foreign friends like the Russians and Iranians. He is also currently Maduro’s most likely successor.[9] Through his background in psychology, he is reportedly effective in manipulating perceptions with those he interfaces with. One expert called him the “Rasputin” of the regime.[10]
Below these first-tier powerbrokers, Diosdado Cabello, nominal head of the Chavista party, Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela or PSUV, plays a more public, yet less important, role, denouncing and threatening enemies of the regime. His influence, including his founding role in the Cartel de los Soles(“Cartel of the Suns”) narcotrafficking organization (including through military colleagues of his own class year) has become diluted as Jorge and Delcy Rodríguez and Tareck El Aissami have expanded their role in Venezuela’s criminal enterprises, diluting the leading role of the Venezuelan military in them.[11] Cabello’s power is also limited because he does not enjoy the full confidence of the Cubans, among other powerbrokers.[12]
Venezuela’s police special forces Fuerzas de Acciones Especiales or FAES of the Policía Nacional Bolivariana or PNB), created in 2017, plays a central role in keeping Maduro in power through terrorizing those that threaten the regime.[13] In the face of international human rights investigations, the FAES has been replaced by the Special Operations and Tactics Unit (Uniidad de Operaciones Tácticas Especialesor UOTE-PNB),[14] in part responding to international pressure on human rights, most recently, a decision by the International Criminal Court to formally investigate crimes committed by the regime.[15] FAES/UOTE is currently headed by former Colectivo leader Miguel Domínguez (“Miguelito”) showing how the organization has partially institutionalized the violence of the colectivos.
Complementing FAES is Servicio Bolivariano de Inteligencia Nacional or SEBIN, the intelligence organization of Chavismo. Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, who oversees the organization, reportedly makes high-level choices for the organization, such as which high-level opposition figures are arrested.[16] Below her, the titular head of SEBIN, Gustavo González López , understands that he serves at the pleasure of Chavismo. Aligned with Diosdado Cabello, González was initially fired by Maduro as head of SEBIN in 2018, but later brought back to head the Presidential Guard in 2019, then restored to lead SEBIN after its head, Manuel Cristopher Figuera, participated in the failed coup attempt against Maduro in April 2019.
Also important within the world of regime “enforcers” is Freddy Bernal, who has been with the regime since helping Hugo Chávez to lethally repress protesters in 2002. He later served as the political commissar of SEBIN. In addition, his former police background afforded him a role with the FAES/UOTE. In 2021, he was made Governor a Tachira, a strategic position due to Tachira’s border with
Colombia, including the gateway Colombian city of Cúcuta, and its role as a historic center of opposition. Control of Tachira provides Bernal and the regime enormous opportunities for criminal revenue opportunities from taxing the flows of remittances and drugs which pass through it. In the process, the role will contribute to Bernal’s wealth and likely expanded power within the regime in the coming years.[17]
Within the group of regime “enforcers,” military counterintelligence (Dirección General de Contrainteligencia Militar or DGCIM), a bastion of Cuban influence in the government, is also important. It is headed by General Ivan Hernández Dala, whose own reported role in human rights abuses and other crimes arguably cements his commitment to the regime’s survival.
Another key regime figure is Tarek El Aissami, currently serving as Minister of Petroleum, and Minister of Industries and National Production. His Lebanese Druze-based commercial and criminal networks pre-date Hugo Chávez and make him a “bridge” among different criminally affiliated groups within Chavismo. He has held a broad range of portfolios within Chavismo over the years including security, immigration, petroleum, mining, and other economic portfolios. El Aissami reportedly orchestrated the opening of the Venezuelan economy to narcodollars to help stabilize the economy while also expanding options for laundering money. His work arguably plays an important role in keeping the regime financially solvent,[18] although his influence was hurt by being sanctioned by the US in 2017 under the Kingpin act.[19] With his Syrian Druze business connections, El Aissami has also been central to regime interactions with both Hezbollah and Irán.
As Minister of Petroleum, El Aissami likely played a key role in orchestrating Iran’s role in temporarily rescuing Venezuelan oil production, including the September 2020 petroleum swap agreement,[20] and previous purchases of Iranian gasoline with Venezuelan gold and the transport by sanctioned Iranian carrier Mahan Air of Chinese components for repairing the Cardon refinery.[21] El Aissami’s influence may have been weakened by his poor health, however, leading to his temporary disappearance from the public spotlight.[22]
For all of these elites, the previously noted ongoing investigation into human rights abuses by the International Criminal Court, formal US Justice Department charges,[23] US Treasury Department sanctions,[24] the detention of Chavista elites such as Cilia Flores’ sons, and the arrest or defection of high level players who have knowledge about the criminal activities of others (including Hugo Carvajal, Manuel Cristopher Figuera and Diosdado Cabello bodyguard Leamsy Salazar), make it clear that the price of losing power is not only forfeiting their fortunes, but likely long prison terms.
The Venezuelan Military
During the past 20 years, and particularly following the failed 2002 ouster of Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan military elite has become firmly tied to the survival of Chavismo. Contributing factors include the politicization of the military promotion system, strong indoctrination within the ranks, and being prioritized to receive large amounts of Russian and Chinese military equipment.
In addition, military leaders were put in charge of key economic sectors, affording substantial opportunities for graft and corruption. They were also allowed to assume a central role in narcotrafficking (the famous “Cartel of the Suns”), as well as illegal mining and extortion and other illicit operations. Such illicit enrichment opportunities were facilitated by putting the military in charge of industries and geographic areas (the previously noted REDIs and ZODIs).
As a complement to such perks, the Chavista regime also acted to neutralize the ability of the military to act against the regime as a coherent institutional actor, albeit with the side effect of also impairing its capability as a fighting force.[25] The division of the country into REDIs and ZODIs, for example, helped to “break” the military chain of command, making it less certain that it could be reliably commanded from Caracas to act in a coordinated fashion against the government.
The regime also fundamentally altered the military’s doctrine, orienting it to act as a principally decentralized resistance force on the Cuban model,[26] as well as encouraging class warfare within its ranks. The regime also allowed extensive penetration of the military by Cuban intelligence officials, making coordination of a plot of any substantial size almost impossible to conceal.[27] The effectiveness of such penetration was highlighted by the detection and failure of the April 2019 attempt to overthrow the regime, even though it included the head of Venezuela’s intelligence agency, Manuel Cristopher Figuera.
The neutralization of the Venezuelan Armed Forces as an institutional threat to the leadership was also furthered through the proliferation of other armed entities in the countries, including the nominally military Bolivarian National Guard (Guardia Nacional Bolivariana or GNB), to armed community groups (colectivos), to militarily capable leftist insurgent groups, including the FARC and the ELN.
The position of the National Guard, under Major General Richard López Vargas, in formally controlling the Venezuelan border afforded it multiple lucrative opportunities to extract rents from illicit activities. This included taxing the smuggling of Colombian gas into Venezuela by the famed pimpiñeros,[28] as well as the GNB’s cut from the movement of drugs from areas such as Norte de Santander in Colombia (especially Catatumbo) into neighboring Venezuelan states such as Tachira and Apure, from which they were flown out to the United States and Europe.
FARC
The FARC has long operated on the Venezuelan side of the border with Colombia. Its presence expanded in the early 2000s, due to both military pressure against it under the Colombian government of Álvaro Uribe, and a welcoming orientation toward it by Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez, who saw the FARC as an ideological ally, a reliable instrument of internal control in the border region, and a buffer against any potential invasion of Venezuela from Colombia.[29]
With the formal demobilization of the FARC under the 2016 Colombian peace accords, Venezuelan border states such as Tachira and Apure became even more important as a secure operating base for dissident FARC elements who rejected the accords and continued criminal operations. In addition, the FARC’s formal abandonment of operations in Colombia made Venezuela more important as a repository for the arms and resources that they had hidden, including real estate.
After some jockeying for leadership, those affiliated with FARC dissident Gentil Duarte built the strongest presence in Venezuela. In 2019, however two key FARC leaders who had initially joined the 2016 accords, Iván Márquez and Jesus Santrich, renounced them to form the “Segundo Marquetalia,” with the mistaken impression that narco-affiliated dissidents such as Duarte would incorporate into their new organization.[30] In a series of conflicts that showcased the power and entrenchment of Duarte’s organization in Venezuela, and the deteriorated capabilities of the Venezuelan military, Duarte’s 10th Front humiliatingly defeated a Venezuelan elite military force sent against them, killing at least 20 Venezuelan soldiers.[31] The incident highlighted the effective expulsion of the Venezuelan armed forces from Apure, as well as its increasing inability to exercise territorial control in other states such as Amazonas and Zulia, as well.
Shortly thereafter, Jesús Santrich, who was reportedly under SEBIN protection,[32] was killed in an operation, likely by either Duarte’s faction or mercenaries not directly affiliated with the Colombian government, forcing Iván Márquez to go into hiding[33] in December 2021.[34]
Colombian military commander Luis Navarro Jiménez estimates that as of late 2021, there were 700 FARC dissidents in Venezuela, a rough tripling of their number from Colombian government estimates two years prior.[35]
In December 2021, Maduro, effectively acknowledging that the forces he had tolerated in the country had gotten beyond his control, ordered the Armed Forces to rid the country of “irregular Colombian armed groups.”[36]
ELN
The ELN, like the FARC, came to operate in the Colombia-Venezuela border region in 1973, following a campaign by the Colombian military, Operation Anori, that substantially displaced them from their original operating area in Antioquia.[37] As with the FARC, the Chávez regime initially welcomed the ELN in as an ally, as a buffer against a possible US invasion, and as a reliable source of governance over a portion of the border region. Under Maduro, the Venezuelan government increasingly brought the ELN into the Orinoco mining arc,[38] as an armed force which could help it organize illicit gold and coltan mining operations there and extract rents from them.[39] Through its military advance, including two high-profile massacres in Turameno,[40] the ELN displaced less reliable domestic criminal groups which had operated in the area including sindicatos and pranes (prison gangs).[41]
Fueled by the income from illicit activities in Venezuela’s mining arc, the head of the ELN’s Northeastern block, Pablito, the key ELN figure in Venezuela, expanded in wealth and power, earning a seat on the ELN leadership council, the Comando Central or COCE. Such ELN-supervised operations have also become an important source of revenue to the Maduro regime.
As of late 2021 there were an estimated 1,200 ELN in Venezuela.[42] The ELN reportedly has interactions with other criminal networks, such as Hezbollah, in the course of criminal activities such as exporting Venezuelan gold, although it does not necessarily coordinate with Hezbollah operationally.[43]
Although the ELN and the FARC have generally coexisted harmoniously in Venezuela, that may be changing. On January 2, 2022, 24 persons were killed in multiple locations from Tame, and Saravena, Colombia (in the border region), to Arauquita and Barrancas de Orinoco, Venezuela, reportedly in combat between the ELN and FARC dissidents from Gentil Duarte’s organization.[44]
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Read More: Diálogo – Digital Military Magazine – Venezuela: Understanding political, external, and criminal actors in an authoritarian state
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