Venezuelan soldiers were accomplices in the crimes of Colombian guerrilla groups in the fighting on the border between the two countries in January and February, the NGO denounced. Human Rights Watch.
The organization, founded in 1978 and made up of 400 people, denounced this Monday “a dramatic increase in violence in the first months of 2022” due to clashes on the border between Colombia and Venezuela.
The fighting between the Joint Command of the East, made up of dissidents arising from the demobilization of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the ELN, have forced “thousands” to flee their homes, he says.
The fighting began on January 1 over the dispute over control of territory and illegal activities in the regions of Arauca, in eastern Colombia, and Apure, in southwestern Venezuela.
The HRW report realizes that both sides were previously allies, but now they have committed “multiple abuses”, including murders, forced recruitment of adults and children and forced displacement.
Venezuelan soldiers, essentially military, “have carried out joint operations with members of the ELN and have been complicit in their abuses,” according to the report, which bases its complaint on the testimonies of dozens of displaced persons and victims of these arbitrary actions and crimes.
Human Rights Watch said it interviewed more than 100 people in the Colombian departments of Vichada and Arauca last month. Among those consulted there are people who fled from Apure, community leaders, indigenous leaders, judicial officials and also local authorities.
The report reveals the participation of a “soldier of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces” of Venezuela during the selective assassination by the ELN of an alleged informer of the Joint Command of the East in El Ripial.
“He saw through a crack in his door how two members of the ELN were pushing Murillo (pseudonym to identify the victim), who was tied hand and foot. Another witness confirmed these facts to Human Rights Watch. Salcedo said that a member of the ELN shot Murillo twice and the guerrillas dragged his body to a truck, ”says the NGO.
Collaboration or “mythomania”
The Human Rights Watch document cites witnesses to affirm that the Venezuelan military used to accompany ELN guerrillas in communities in Apure where they accused certain residents of collaborating with their adversaries.
“Another witness said that members of the FANB came to their community in Apure with ELN guerrillas, who took by force several people whom they accused of collaborating with the Joint Command of the East,” he says.
The deponent told HRW that both the Venezuelan soldiers and the Colombian insurgents “began to shout some names, entered the houses of those people and took them away tied up.”
The government of Nicolás Maduro said it had arrested at least 35 members of groups it identifies as “armed terrorists, Colombian drug traffickers (TANCOL)” and indicated that it had destroyed drug camps and laboratories.
HRW, however, says that these operations “appear to have targeted the 10th Front and other elements of the Eastern Joint Command.”
According to the organization, Venezuela’s security forces were “tolerant” and sometimes acted “in collusion” with armed groups in Apure since 2020.
The Venezuelan ruling party usually repudiates HRW’s reports on the status of human rights in that South American country. Last January, he denied that the executive branch had taken advantage of the COVID-19 situation to increase its controls over the population, as the NGO indicated in a report.
Maduro’s foreign minister, Félix Plasencia, accused his director of “manufacturing a file to please his financiers” and assured that the report was “full of impressions.” He described the text as a product of “pure mythomania”.
Monday’s report reflects the seriousness of the situation on the binational border. “The Colombian National Police reported that there were 103 homicides in Arauca in January and February. That is, by far, the highest number of homicides reported in the first two months of the year in Arauca at least since 2010”, he specifies.
Human Rights Watch acknowledges the efforts of the Colombian authorities to “diminish the power of the armed groups in Arauca,” but warns that their military operations “have not sufficiently protected the population.”
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