When I visited the 23 de Enero neighborhood of Caracas in 2016, I was greeted by a local leader from one of the notorious colectivos – armed, pro-government groups created by former President Hugo Chávez. The leader had agreed to an interview for our investigation of Venezuela’s hybrid state. When we shook hands, he tucked his mobile phone into a small bag slung across his torso. As he closed the zip, I glimpsed a small handgun inside.
This memory surfaced once the impact of the arrest of Venezuela’s then-President Nicolas Maduro had subsided. I first cycled through shock, jubilance, disbelief, fear, indignation, and grief.
The colectivo leader I interviewed might now be dead. The neighborhood’s Montana Barracks, which I visited during my assignment, was heavily bombed during the operation. It’s been more than a decade since I started keeping a watchful eye on organized crime in Venezuela, and it started with that assignment in a barrio whose walls were adorned with colorful murals of Chávez.
InSight Crime has spent more than 15 years building a massive archive on organized crime in Venezuela. The future of the pro-government colectivos, as well as Colombian guerrilla group the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional – ELN), and the fragmented remnants of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia — FARC), are now in flux. What will Maduro’s removal mean for their alliances with the government, their leadership and criminal profits, and the communities in which they are embedded? We’ve already seen a wave of repression unleashed by the Chavista government, which remains largely untouched following Maduro’s removal, much of it at the hands of the colectivos. Worse could be yet to come.
On top of that, from my base in Mexico City for the best part of 20 years, I share the same fears as President Claudia Sheinbaum’s government and that of Colombia’s Gustavo Petro: Are we next in line for a US military intervention?
In this brave new world, everything seems possible. And not in a good way.
