Dissidence of Colombian Guerrillas Penetrate the Venezuelan Amazon
Former combatants of what was the largest guerrilla in Latin America - who separated from the peace agreement signed in 2016 - are in a process of transition and rearrangement of criminal structures, where illicit drug trafficking and illegal mining continue to be the main focal points, now in Venezuelan territory. They have met with indigenous peoples and communities in Amazonas to formalize their presence in the territory, affirming that they have the support of the Venezuelan Government. But they also move to lands of the Orinoco Mining Arc, where they even control coltan mines.
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His
real name is Miguel Díaz Sanmartin, but everyone knows him as "Julián Chollo",
his alias from when he joined the ranks of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia (FARC) in 1996, when he was just 20 years old. If it were not for his
strong accent and the olive uniform without insignia that he wears even after
having separated from the peace agreement signed by the guerrilla group in
November 2016 with the Government of Juan Manuel Santos, he would seem one of
the natives of the Venezuelan Amazon, a state bordering with Colombia, where
Julian controls everything that goes in, is produced and comes out of the
illegal gold mines devouring the heart of Yapacana National
Park.
Despite
of the security force that follows him everywhere, Julian is perceived as a
"lone wolf", which, in addition to his career as a former guerrilla, helped him
generate fear and respect among those who know him or have just heard about
him.
Short,
of mixed race and slanted eyes, characteristic of the indigenous descendants of
the scroungers who inhabited El Dovio, a municipality at the south-west of
Colombia, Julian began his guerrilla career in Front 40 Jacobo Arenas and then
in Acacio Medina, where he hardly appeared in 2012 in the charts as a fourth
"replacement", without changing position again. Despite having had a medium
command in the guerrillas, his name resonated when the Central Chief of Staff of
FARC expelled him from the organization along with four commanders who led the
dissidents "for contradicting the political line" of what was now a
party.
Géner
García Molina, alias "John 40", the highest commander of Acacio Medina Front;
Miguel Santanilla Botache, alias "Gentil Duarte"; Ernesto Orjuela Tovar, alias
"Giovanni Chuspas", head of Front 16; and Néstor Gregorio Vera Fernández, alias
"Iván Mordisco", commander of the First Front, are the four renegades who,
together with Julián Chollo, turned their backs on the peace process in Colombia
and lead the criminal reorganization of the guerrilla dissidence. These five
men, with over 20 years of career and extensive military knowledge, have
something in common, all led fronts of the Eastern Bloc, the financial structure
of FARC linked to coca production, the axis of this guerrilla movement from 1993
to 2002, when it was at its best.
The Heritage
"At
first, they entered Venezuelan territory looking for refuge (...) The guerrillas
was present, especially of FARC, from the mouth of the Meta river to Cerro el
Cocuy on the border with Brazil," says indigenous Baniva Liborio Guarulla
Garrido, Governor for 17 years - until October 2017 - of the Amazonas State. "It
was so evident that one had to attend indigenous communities on both sides.
Sometimes we had to see their flags, their troops and there was no problem,
until Uribe arrived."
Álvaro
Uribe Vélez won the presidency of Colombia thanks to his promise to "restore
peace in Colombia" with a government program called "democratic security"
policy, focused on regaining control of the territory and attacking the
guerrillas’ rearguard. It was 2002 when the new security policy—financially
supported by the United States of America through "Plan Colombia"— guaranteed
the deployment of a military offensive that intensified the attacks on the
insurgent positions and provided the Colombian Government a tactical victory on
the main guerrilla hotspots, until their
withdrawal.
Álvaro Uribe Vélez, president of Colombia between 2002 and 2010.
This
forced insurgents to diversify their portfolio of criminal economies which,
fortunately for them, coincided with the increase in international prices for
gold and raw materials, thus making illegal mining an important source of
financing. From 2007 to 2012 only, illegal gold mining had grown in Colombia
inversely to the cultivated hectares of coca leaf, which, according to the
United Nations, had dropped from almost 99,000 in 2007 to around 47,000 in 2012.
Gold displaced drug trafficking as the most profitable business for guerrillas
and organized crime.
It
was then, between 2011 and 2012, when a large FARC camp was seen on the banks of
the San Miguel river in Maroa municipality, which according to Guarulla, moved
to the Javita Maroa highway, where they established an airport larger than the
village airport, "It even had lighting for the night", he
recalls.
Baniva Liborio Guarulla Garrido, Amazonas state governor for 17 years.
Intelligence
records in Colombia agree with Guarulla's version. On June 10, 2011, in the
village of Danubio, municipality of Puerto Rico, department of Caquetá, a
meeting was held with the participation of commanders Mauricio Jaramillo "El
Médico" —member of FARC secretariat, who assumed the leadership of the Eastern
Bloc after the death of "Mono Jojoy"— and the now dissident Gentil Duarte and
Jhon 40. In the meeting, the creation of the Acacio Medina Front was agreed with
the aim to oxygenate the weakened Front 16 that had 360 combatants in 2002 and
just 76 in 2011. The creation of the Acacio Medina Front was made official in
2012 on the banks of San Miguel River in the municipality of Maroa, Venezuelan
territory, with Jhon 40 as ringleader.
Starts the displacement from the municipalities of Puerto Rico, department of Meta, through San José del Guaviare, area of the Seventh Front, El Retorno, Calamar, Miraflores and then they cross the municipality of Puerto Inírida and Cumaribo, Area of Front 16, ending at the border with Venezuela
The
exploration of the Acacio Medina in Venezuela then connected with the Casiquiare
River, a body of water of 326 kilometers (202.56 miles) that is a tributary of
the Orinoco River. In its advance, the Acacio Medina penetrated the Atabapo
River and took control of the gold deposits on the grounds of Yapacana National
Park.
The
objectives of the Acacio Medina Front were financial and by then, it had already
ventured into gold and coltan mines in the neighboring municipality of Guainía
of Colombia, where mining activity dates back to half a decade. In mid-2015 and
according to a Colombian police report prepared after executing "Operación
Arpón," the front had about 150 troops, fifty in Colombia and the rest in
Venezuela.
Eduardo
Álvarez Venegas —Director of the Armed Conflict Dynamics and Peace Negotiations
Ideas for Peace Foundation (FIP), a Colombian NGO that studies the path of
dissidence since the signing of the peace agreement— explains that the creation
of the Acacio Medina Front was part of a finance and border policy strategy that
was born at the eighth meeting held in April 1993 in Guaviare, where FARC
designed a FARC war economy plan to diversify its finances and a possible
strategic retreat to other countries.
Although
it was implemented much later, the investigator indicates that FARC found in
Venezuela a favorable government for that retreat. "FARC said to itself, 'we may
be able to exploit new criminal economies, we have a government that gives us
shelter and refuge'. As a result, there began to be some sort of adaptation to
the military strategy of the Colombian Government, which clearly managed to
strategically defeat FARC guerrillas, though not tactically. That was part of
the acceptance that allowed them to sit down to talk in Havana, but part of
being tactically afloat was to create structures such as the Acacio Medina Front
to ensure other spaces still far from any type of state and military
intervention in terms of territorial control," he says.
Relevant
information about Julián Chollo, the boss at the Yapacana mines - within the
distributions of duties of the year when Acacio Medina was created -, is the
control he had over a tungsten mine in Guainía, a potential material to
manufacture machines and power devices.
A Perfect Marriage
Cerro
Yapacana National Park is located in the southwestern sector of the Guiana
Shield, in the central-western region of the Amazonas state. In the 230-thousand
hectare natural reserve - established as a protected area since 1978 for its
great scenic and scientific value -, live more than 8 thousand Venezuelans,
Colombians, Brazilians and Ecuadorians, who exploit day and night seven gold
deposits named Cacique, La 40, La 44, La 50, Fibral, Jerusalem and Moyo (the
oldest and largest).
Cerro Yapacana National Park
As
revealed by an action taken in 2017 by the Ombudsman's Office of Inírida in
Colombia, following a miner displacement that resulted in the activation of an
orange alert in that municipality, at just 40 minutes from San Fernando de
Atabapo. At least 600 people walked through the jungle to be safe in Inírida.
Some papers threw from a military plane that urged them to take action ended up
being interpreted as a future bombing of the mines, which prompted thousands of
people to walk for days and nights on improvised trails to avoid the
requisitions and extortion in Venezuelan military checkpoints set out in the
waterways.
Different
versions emerged as reasons for the eviction of the mine, but two previous
events registered in the state yielded to the idea about the strong pressure put
by the Venezuelan central government inside the security forces: the
disappearance for over four months of an MI17V5 helicopter with 13 people on
board, including five civilians and a 4-year-old boy, and the assault on a
military checkpoint in "El Suspiro" area of the Orinoco River, by men identified
as members of FARC, who took arms and cell phones presumably as a revenge for a
seizure made by troops of the Bolivarian National Guard.
The
exploitation of Venezuelan gold has employed thousands of Colombians for several
decades. Julián Mancera, head of the Colombia Migration office in Puerto
Inírida, explains it. "The mines are a sort of livelihood for families. There
are no opportunities here other than working for the Government. Those who have
money suddenly start a business or something like that, but there is no
employment generation. Hence, the mine becomes the only
livelihood."
Sitting
at his dark mahogany desk, with the logo of the Mayor’s Office of Inírida,
accompanied by the phrase “starting to believe,” behind him, Camilo Andrés
Puentes Garzón, the youngest mayor in the history of that Colombian
municipality, smiles and says bluntly, "The truth is that Colombian people live,
work and exploit a mine in Venezuela. We know, and they tell us, that they make
payment agreements or better known here as payment of “vacunas” (vaccines) to be
able to work, pass elements and extract gold from
there."
Camilo Andrés Puentes Garzón, Mayor of the Mayor’s Office of Inírida, a Colombian municipality bordering the state of Amazonas.
But
he does not miss the opportunity to make a unanimous complaint that constantly
and silently resonates as the murmur of the wind in the Amazon jungle, among all
the inhabitants of both sides of the border — the evident marriage between the
irregular groups and the Venezuelan authorities.
-
Who mediates between the Venezuelan authorities and the
miners?
-
They tell us that the guerrillas supposedly protect them from the guard, that
they are the ones who directly negotiate. "
-
The guerrillas have control of the mines?
-
They have control of the mines.
-
Which guerrilla group?
-
FARC.
-
Dissidents?
-
Yes, dissidents, because FARC is over. Although that is very simple; they
changed the bracelet and now they can be called ELN - he pauses before finishing
and adds – I will tell you something. The army here will end the dissidence, but
if they are in Venezuela, it is impossible.
Recruiting among Trails
In
Atabapo, 90% of the population is indigenous and lives in poverty, a
vulnerability that has been integrated into the economy around the mine, in
addition to the burden of the environmental impact and disruption of daily
activities.
Camilo
Silva, a retired educator and captain of the San Juan de Puruname community in
Piauá, is 61 years old and faces the situation by trying to convince young
people not to abandon their economic practices, like small farms and fishing,
urging them to participate in the economy of the mine with the sale of its
products. Together with one of his sons, he created a tourist cooperative that
promotes sport fishing in the Atabapo River, but in 2017, the camp received just
two groups of national tourists. "Foreign tourists stopped visiting the state
due to insecurity."
This
insecurity is generated by the certainty that the territory is taken by former
Colombian guerrillas with extensive experience in kidnapping and crimes against
civilians. But inside the mine, the guerrilla is a source of fear because it
represents order and law. "They are FARC guerrillas who have control over the
mine, but not even a needle gets lost in there," says Junior, a 19-year-old
Colombian who worked in the mine attending a food
stall.
The great fear of the Amazons is that the guerrillas manage to recruit children by offering them gifts to alleviate poverty.
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An
activity associated with the development of illegal mining by criminal groups,
which is of particular concern to the Warelelu indigenous women's organization,
is the establishment of alliances with other criminal activities, like sexual
exploitation and the recruitment and use of children in improvised structures
called "currutelas" where little girls are offered for sexual
entertainment.
While
Warelelu denounces the possible existence of trafficking networks, for the
Indigenous Organization Piaroa Huottuja del Sipapo (OIPUS), of Autana
municipality, the main concern is the recruitment of young indigenous. Carlos
Morales Peña, assistant coordinator of OIPUS and resident of the Caño Uña
community, affirms that the indigenous youth leave to work with the guerrillas,
attracted by money. "The other day, they offered soccer balls, volleyball nets
and also diesel fuel for the power plant in my community. They offered them
things they need and the boys received them. That is how they recruit young
people."
It
was through an indigenous man recruited by the guerrillas that OIPUS received
the first official FARC communication inviting him to discuss his presence in
Piaroa territory. The letter confirmed the rumors of that guerrilla penetration
when they began to notice an unusual fluvial traffic in the dawn, footprints of
boots and dismantling of spaces that looked like itinerant camps, by the roads
and rivers where they settle. The communication received by Otilio Santos,
general coordinator of OIPUS, dated May 14, 2013, did not leave room for
assumptions. FARC was inviting the communities of the Sipapo River tributaries
to a meeting with their presence in Autana as the first item on the
agenda.
That
was the first of three meetings, which the towns and indigenous communities of
the municipality were called to, with uniformed men and women with Colombian
accent, who identified themselves as members of FARC and then of ELN. The
indigenous people of Autana opposed through their organizations to the presence
of these invaders in their territories. The assistant coordinator of OIPUS said
that in one of the meetings "they arrived and said, ‘We did not come to invade.
We did not come to harm. We did not come to recruit children. We came to protect
them’. And we told them, ‘you arrived without prior consultation. That is
already a violation of our human and customary rights. You have already
committed a crime’."
But
it was no use, and today the irregulars show themselves publicly in Autana. The
communities see them going by their boats and showing off their weapons.
"Before, they were not seen, they moved at night (...) but after they were
discovered, they do not care. You see them at any time in the ports, armed,
moving merchandise, visiting communities to buy food."
What
the OIPUS coordinator denounces also occurs in Atabapo and Manapiare
municipalities, where indigenous leaders and authorities say that nearly in all
the waterways, men and women dressed in military uniforms, patrol on the banks
of the river with rifles at their backs. The villagers identify them as members
of FARC guerrillas, and despite the peace process, for them, they are still
FARC, and the dissidents who penetrated the state of Amazonas continue holding
the mark of the armed group.
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)
Lissa
Pérez, president of the Cherejume indigenous women's organization of the
municipality of Manapiare, came face to face with a commando group that
surrounded her bongo, when she was sailing the waters of the Ventuari River
towards Guanay Valley. After a brief confrontation, Lissa reignite the engines
of her bongo and continued on her way, but what was never expected was to find
them again at the National Guard military checkpoint on the San Juan de
Manapiare dock, where they stopped her again to check her boat. "They arrived
greeting the military men very calmly. They even shook
hands."
New Target — The Mining Arc
The
guerrillas also move to the Orinoco Mining Arc (AMO) - a mega project promoted
by the Venezuelan government in an attempt to increase the nation’s foreign
currency income in the midst of falling oil prices -, which covers an area of
111,843 square kilometers (43,182.82 sq mi) and has 7,000 tons of reserves of
gold, copper, coltan diamond, iron, bauxite, and other minerals. The aim is to
boost criminal economies to assure their continuity or establish new alliances
that keep them float.
Camouflaged
in the jungle, they arrived by a trail that connects the municipality of
Manapiare, state of Amazonas, with the state of Bolívar, passing through Los
Pijiguaos, Alto Parguaza, and finally, to the "Y", an intersection between
Puerto Nuevo and the Caicara highway, where there is an illegal open-air coltan
deposit controlled by the National Liberation Army (ELN). There, they occupy the
land of Area 1 of the Orinoco Mining Arc, a block of 24,717 square kilometers
(9543.28 sq mi) where the first two joint ventures - identified as Oro Azul and
Parguaza, incorporated between the Venezuelan state and companies Faoz and
Supraca - operate to exploit coltan.
Orinoco Mining Arc/ Map
The
president of Cherejume indigenous women's organization saw the guerrilla camps
in Cedeño municipality when she traveled to Sabana Cardoza, an indigenous
village at the border of the mining arch in Bolívar state. Together with her
family, she walked for a week on the same trail used by the irregulars. "The
walking route was opened and adapted for four-wheel transmission cars," she
says. It took a week to reach the village where a relative was waiting for them
and saw them for the first time on the other side of the
river.
"I
saw their camps, their cars, their bikes. There were a lot of gas drums. Around
six o'clock in the afternoon, the people arrived, they looked like soldiers. All
my relatives said that it was the guerrilla. Everyone said that these people
bring medicine, food, everything. We do not need gas or diesel." He pauses to
add, "Everyone there is working with these people".
What
is still to be known is the relationship between "farianos" (FARC
members) and their "eleno" (ELN members) cousins, who dominate the
coltan-full deposits.
The “Pata e’Goma”
Puerto
Ayacucho is the capital of the state of Amazonas and home to the state's public
authorities. Businesses close from 12 to 3 in the afternoon, and during that
time, the bustle of the market is turned off and the city is deserted and
submerged in a wave of slow and dusty heat that contravenes with the image of a
place with a rate of 214 violent deaths per every 100 thousand
inhabitants.
So
much violence together in a peaceful village on the banks of the Orinoco River,
barely founded in 1924, has caused panic among its inhabitants, who still have
not lost their capacity to be amazed when they learned that each weekend was
worse than the previous one. On one occasion, the bodies of six people were
found in one place in Los Caobos area, then a group of seven in the countryside
area of San José in Cataniapo, and another two with signs of torture in the
Payaraima area.
Given
the silence of police authorities, Rowinson León, who held the position of
Secretary of Policy and Border Affairs in the State Government of Amazonas for
three years, kept a record of violent deaths. The work reflected that throughout
three years, the number of murders was always on the rise —from 38 violent
deaths in 2014 to 214 in just two years in the municipality of Atures
alone.
The
Church, local authorities, the human rights office, the workers of Raudal
Estéreo community radio, the taxi driver and even the candy vendor in Plaza
Bolívar, agree that the deaths that turned that peaceful town of 100 thousand
inhabitants in the third most violent city in the country - according to the
Venezuelan Observatory of Violence - are associated with the presence of the
guerrillas in the area.
They
identify them as "los pata e'goma" (rubber leg), a pseudonym coined by the use
of rubber boots with military clothing. The pata e’goma are members of
the National Liberation Army (ELN), the last active guerrilla in Colombia, and
the government of Juan Manuel Santos recently cancelled a peace dialogue with
them.
The
former governor of Amazonas, witness for 17 years of the arrival and settlement
of Colombian guerrillas in that part of the country, assures that the presence
of ELN was evident when the Venezuelan government decreed in May 2016 a state of
emergency that remains in force. This concept allowed replacing the civil
authority by the military, "it is at that time that they took over all the ports
of the municipality, controlling the business of smuggling drugs, gas, but also
the security aspect".
Emblem of the National Liberation Army (ELN)
ELN
could consolidate in Puerto Ayacucho what they call "criminal power", an action
that is not limited to the economic sphere, but also covers the social and
political spheres, by exercising duties similar and parallel to those of the
State but under their own rules of game.
All
the complaints indicate that the "elenos" are the ones responsible for the
multiple murders in the city. Jhonny Eduardo Reyes Sequera, titular Bishop of
the Apostolic Vicar of Puerto Ayacucho, assures that these groups play a
criminal cleaning role. "Based on testimonies in the neighborhoods, it is known
that it was the guerrilla, but the most striking thing is that everyone says
that the boys were considered neighborhood scourges to those who had already
been warned once and twice and that they knew that the third call meant they
were going to be eliminated."
Noraima
Ángel, general coordinator of the Human Rights Office of Puerto Ayacucho, an NGO
that works in the field with the indigenous communities located north of the
municipality of Atures, reveals that the guerrillas have also reached the
indigenous communities offering help in the community organization, "trying to
straightening out the boys with bad conduct, behavioral problems, consuming some
type of drug or stealing within the community," he says.
Betania
Topocho is a Piaroa community located 44 km (27.34 mi) by land from Puerto
Ayacucho and is politically emblematic for acting as a pilot in the
implementation of social programs promoted by the national government. The
inhabitants of that community have been benefited with a fruit processing plant,
a community radio, an ambulatory care clinic, a school, a Communal Gas
establishment, and credits for economic and social undertakings. Ironically, it
is also a metaphor for the penetration of guerrilla groups into the social and
political organization of the indigenous peoples and communities of
Amazonas.
Betania Topocho Community in the Venezuelan state of Amazonas
There
have been disagreements among school principals who condemn community leaders
for unloading aspects of the communal order onto armed groups. "A teacher told
us that one day the 'pata e'goma' entered a classroom saying 'let’s see who the
ones who misbehave are'. This occurred in front of some 16 to 17-year-old kids.
Then they called a small group of three by their names, took out the gun and
said 'we are going to kill him right here in front of everybody so he can
learn'. All were petrified, but what was most alarming is that the people in the
community said 'yes, that way they will learn'" says Noraima
Ángel.
That
atmosphere extends to all Puerto Ayacucho. Although the population in general
states that they live in fear of the power that the illegal people hold, they
also justify that they carry out a "social cleaning"
work.
Rowinson
León says that only 10 out of the 214 murders that occurred in 2016 were labeled
as theft to victims identified as workers. As to the rest, the only thing that
could be identified was an age group of victims under 30 years old, mostly with
a criminal record, found with bullet wounds in the head, and the absence of
relatives willing to report.
The
former director of policy and border affairs of the State Government thinks that
it was the population itself that resorted to these groups in search of help.
"People who are tired of being the victims of theft, robbery, who find
themselves with a totally corrupt security organization, who see no progress in
reporting neither respect for their problem, were fed up. I do not justify it,
but if the laws work here none of this would happen."
The
"elenos" have become a "parallel Government" in Puerto Ayacucho, installing an
analogous functionality where the level of connection of the national
authorities is not very clear. What strikes the most, as pointed out by the
general coordinator of the Human Rights Office, is that the guerrillas who
penetrated the communities claim that their role is to protect the border
"because if something happens, like a coup against the current government, they
will intervene, they will defend. They are there to protect the Bolivarian
revolution. That is what they say in the communities."
Revolutionaries and Maduro Supporters
A
group of inhabitants was summoned to a meeting in the Don Ramón Brisa farm, 180
kilometers (111.84 mi) from Puerto Ayacucho, in San Fernando. Two men dressed in
civilian clothes took Professor José Lima, an honorary social comptroller, sworn
by the municipal chamber, from his house. "They did not identify themselves.
They simply said that they had to attend a meeting. They stopped a motorcycle
taxi and indicated the driver where should he take me."
"When
I arrived at the farm, I saw about 15 motorcycles and the presence of some town
councilors. I thought it must be a very important meeting since we were
surrounded by guards, but they were actually the guerrillas, with all their
clothing, uniformed, with their bracelet and a number on the back of the shirt.
Some were in charge of security; others were responsible for distributing soda
and bread. At that moment I said 'no, this is not a meeting with a military man
from the area.' And when I was about to enter they asked
me:
- Sir, where are you
from?
-
I am the social comptroller.
-
Ah yes, you are Mr. Lima. Come in. Do you have a cell
phone?
-
Yes
- Show it to me.
They took it from me and put it in a
bag."
Lima
indicates that there were about 80 people, residents and municipal authorities,
in the closed room. The most prominent attendees were the president of the
Municipal Chamber, José Yavinape; the then candidate for the National
Constituent Assembly for the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, Erika Belsbeth
Lima; the president of the communes, Rodolfo Mirabal; eight representatives of
Communal Councils, and the head of the office of Corporación Venezolana de
Guayana (CVG) in Atabapo.
The
situation was only to observe after a while a tall, thin man dressed as a
soldier who stood in front of everyone and without further protocol said "I am
Commander Jimmy of the National Liberation Army, ELN, we are here to establish
order. We are revolutionaries. We are with the revolution and we are supported
by the Maduro government."
When
the floor was opened for discussion, there were people who expressed their
support, including the representative of the CVG and Rodolfo Mirabal, president
of the communes. "Later, we learned that Mirabal was responsible for organizing
everything. At the meeting they talked about comrades. Until a teacher
intervened and said that she did not agree, that they had to leave town because
we had our authorities," said José Lima.
"I
wanted to go and they told me I could not, that I had to listen to the things
that were being talked about. Then, they wanted to organize us at discussion
tables to discuss the problems of the people. How were we supposed to
participate in that madness? They wanted the communal councils to collect
signatures, write a document recognizing the presence of these people. They were
looking for a refuge here because they cannot go there anymore. The Colombian
Armed Forces chases them."
Two
days before the meeting in San Fernando, two boys were found dead in the street.
It was the only violent event that recorded in 2017. They were one next to the
other with shots in the head and face.
"They
distributed a subversive leaflet here that said that they did not want to see
criminals, that after nine at night they did not want to see people in the
streets. The leaflets were signed by ELN, but they denied their authorship at
the meeting."
"My
biggest fear is that our children are going to take over our grandchildren. They
also need to strengthen their battalion and there are already several boys
recruited. They have their big camp on the road in the Cayo Viejita area, via
Santa Bárbara del Orinoco, in a jungle. They have a power plant and already
order the construction of grills for large pots, because they are quite a few,
over 100. They have money for everything."
In
San Fernando there are those who have given in to the offer of protection and
services offered by the guerrillas, "Now, if you get robbed, people say 'let's
inform the pata e'goma'. People resort to them more than to the guards or the
police. People already know that they are here since a year and a half ago. They
will settle here as the owners and then, we will have to pay taxes to sell
cassava flour. They will not leave this place unless there is a change of
government, because the same government tolerates them.
"
While
Colombia celebrates the end of a war that lasted for six decades - with a
balance that exceeds eight million victims - and is preparing for an electoral
race with Rodrigo Londoño Echeverri - former number 1 of the largest guerrilla
in Latin America - as a presidential candidate, Venezuela faces the consequences
of an inherited conflict that count on the alliance of local and national
authorities, which indicates that peace will not cross the
border.
