BOGOTÁ, Colombia – Venezuela is conducting its most joint military campaign in years, targeting a criminal group operating within its border near Colombia but also sending an estimated 5,000 of its own citizens fleeing to neighboring countries.
The attack – which began with a few days of airstrikes that security experts have described as Venezuela’s biggest use of firepower in decades – represents a major departure from the largely practical approach it has long used against the illegal organizations operating alongside it. border thrives.
For years, officials in President Nicolás Maduro’s government have tolerated and sometimes even collaborated with these armed groups, many of which took root in Colombia as they transferred drugs and other smugglers between countries.
Now it has struck at one of them, though the reasons remain obscure. Mr. Maduro has claimed in recent days that the attack reflects his government’s policy of zero tolerance towards irregular Colombian armed groups. ‘
Analysts are skeptical of the official explanation.
“We’ve never seen anything like it on this scale,” said Kyle Johnson, founder of Conflict Responses, a non-profit organization focused on Bogotá, on security issues.
The military campaign began on March 21 in Apure, one of the poorest states in the country, killing at least nine people who are guerrillas according to the Venezuelan government and two of its own staff, Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino, said.
Several Colombian rebel groups have been operating in Venezuelan territory over the past few years, including dissidents from Colombia’s revolutionary army who refused to lay down their arms after a 2016 peace deal.
According to local residents, the Venezuelan assault, centered around La Victoria, a city of about 10,000, targeted a faction of FARC dissidents, known as the Tenth Front, who suggested leading security experts that their unwritten rules by the Maduro government or its allies.
The airstrikes that launched the campaign were followed by ground fighting between the Venezuelan army and the Tenth Front that “increased every day”, said Juan Francisco García of the Venezuelan human rights group Fundaredes, which has an extensive communications network in the region. .
He described “a civilian population trapped between warring factions”.
In interviews, witnesses in and around La Victoria described waking up on March 21 from the rumble of government trucks driving through the city, followed by the rumble of low-flying planes.
“It was still dark when I heard the trucks,” said Miguel Antonio Villegas, 66, chief spokesman for the La Victoria Community Council, who saw the military convoy through his window. Soon, he said, “the bombs started.”
When the villagers woke up, Mr. Villegas said, they gathered outside and saw explosions just east.
In the ensuing days, Mr. Villegas said bombings continued in the vicinity of La Victoria, and that soldiers flooded into the city, questioning civilians and entering their homes, accusing them of collaborating with the guerrillas.
The FARC dissidents apparently responded. Two days after Venezuela’s military campaign began, a bomb exploded at the tax office and the city lost power in an attack. Funds are allocated to the FARC group.
By the next day, bombings of government planes were so close to La Victoria that “even the floor moved,” Mr. Villegas said. Terrified, he fills a backpack with belongings and flees with two family members to the banks of the narrow river that separates La Victoria from the Colombian city of Arauquita.
The bank was full of neighbors who also fled, said Mr. Villegas, who used a small boat to move to Colombia, where he and his family live, said.
The army has since increased its presence in La Victoria, according to a civilian witness who asked not to be named, for fear of retaliation from Venezuelan security forces.
The man, the owner of a small market, described how soldiers rounded up villagers, demanded identification, stuck to walls and aimed weapons at them. According to him, a resident was forced to kneel and was then beaten and detained.
A man interviewed by a Human Rights Watch researcher said four members of his family – his mother, father, brother and uncle – were killed by Venezuelan security forces, who accused the family of carrying out guerrillas. was, the group said. According to the researcher, at least 11 civilians were detained by the Venezuelan security forces.
The Venezuelan government has ordered two prosecutors to investigate allegations of human rights violations. the country’s attorney general, Tarek Saab, said. According to Fundaredes, the government has also tried to limit news coverage on the military campaign.
Venezuelan authorities detained two journalists on Venezuelan channel NTN24 and two human rights activists in La Victoria on Wednesday, along with Fundaredes who were trying to document the crisis. According to family members and friends, they were detained for a day before being released.
Tamara Taraciuk Broner, the American deputy director of Human Rights Watch, called the abuse documented by her organization “a case study on the atrocities that the regime carries out with impunity and continues to do.”
She continued: “This should be a wake-up call for the International Criminal Court, which has the duty and power to criminally investigate those ultimately responsible for the most heinous international crimes.”
Isayen Herrera reported from Caracas, Venezuela.