Catatumbo: The Colombian counterinsurgency and the militarization against Venezuela

By Oscar Rotundo

Bourgeois liberal democracy and the “Deep State” of the pro-imperialist power bloc form the superstructure on which governance in Colombia is based, with the colonized army as guarantor.

In this reality, a permanent struggle is taking place between the interests of the popular sectors for the construction of an equitable society with social justice, economic and political sovereignty and those of the civil-military oligarchy that have no qualms about turning Colombia into a colonial republic, subordinated to the policies and geostrategic interests of the United States.

With the victory of Gustavo Petro to the presidency of the country, many sectors “got excited” that the task of pacifying and democratizing economic and political life in 4 years would be a less complicated task than it could actually be, taking into account the broad arc that this candidacy built and accompanied the presidential formula.

Situation in Catatumbo

In the department of Norte de Santander, specifically in the western sub-region, is the Catatumbo region (house of thunder) in the Barí language, which has about 300 thousand inhabitants.

The Colombian Catatumbo region is highly complex in economic, social and political terms, being located on a binational border with a history of ethnic and social conflicts including armed conflict.

That is why Catatumbo is the weak link in the “total peace” policy, especially for the populations, societies and communities of the 11 municipalities in that region.

Within this complexity we find that the government’s proposal for “Total Peace” with community participation has not had the result that was expected from the campaign narrative. This has been due to the responsibility of the different actors involved, mainly the High Commissioner for Peace Otty Patiño, and other members of Gustavo Petro’s government.

The failure to implement comprehensive agrarian reform, the failure of the voluntary substitution policy for illicit crops, and the (lack of) protection of the lives of former combatants who signed the 2016 peace accords and remained in the region to implement the reform, reveal the dangerous absence of the State, as reflected by various social, indigenous, and peasant organizations.

The issue of land ownership and legal clashes with bureaucracy increase conflict in the region. “Effective access to rural property faces difficulties related to a high level of informality in property, interethnic conflicts and the undue occupation of protected areas,” according to a report by the Territorial Development Program (PDET).

On January 20, clashes between the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the dissident 33rd Front of the FARC left an estimated 80 dead, according to counts by the Ombudsman’s Office and the Government of Norte de Santander. Estimated, because only 41 bodies have been recovered due to the situation in remote rural areas of Catatumbo, where the authorities had not yet been able to access.

The fighting caused the displacement of more than 36,000 people, mainly to Cúcuta, the departmental capital, and the towns of Ocaña and Tibú.

In the first days of the confrontation, it was estimated that hundreds of people crossed the border into Venezuela every day.

The Venezuela factor

This fact occurs in accordance with the visit of Álvaro Uribe Vélez on January 12 to Cúcuta, capital of Norte de Santander, governed for the third time by William Villamizar, the former president’s successor, where he led a rally in the city center in support of María Corina Machado and Edmundo González and in which he expressed, “what we are asking for is an international military intervention, accompanied by the Venezuelan Army and preferably endorsed by the UN, to dislodge the dictatorship.”

It is worth remembering that Norte de Santander, Colombia, shares a border with the Venezuelan states of Táchira and Zulia, the latter being the most populated electoral district of that country, governed by Manuel Rosales, one of the historical leaders of the Venezuelan opposition. Over the years, Zulia has been the theater of a series of conflicts, including the presence of armed groups, the illegal exploitation of natural resources, smuggling and a migration crisis.

Days after Uribe’s presence in Cúcuta, this tragedy occurred, which is functional to the agenda of destabilization and chaos in which the pro-imperialist deep state is engaged. On the one hand, they point to the increasing wear and tear of Gustavo Petro’s government and on the other to the chaos and militarization of the border with Venezuela, which also serves as a guarantor of dialogue between the ELN and the Colombian government to reach a peace agreement.

In view of the serious events in that region, President Gustavo Petro traveled to Tibú (Norte de Santander) to announce the “State of Internal Commotion and Militarization”, mounting a counterinsurgency operation, while continuing to postpone the signing and execution of the so-called Territorial Pact for Catatumbo, an agreement by which the National Government committed itself to the communities so that the State would begin to pay the historic social debt with this area of the country.

The “state of emergency” in the northeast of the country is a figure that gives him extraordinary legislative powers and the possibility of restricting some rights with which he seeks to address the recent escalation of violence. This presidential decision has not occurred in that area since Álvaro Uribe Vélez created “special zones” in Arauca more than 20 years ago when the insurgency was still strong.

With the application of this measure, we have observed that military forces wearing uniforms and carrying backpacks with the Colombian and United States flags have begun to land in the area, belonging to the “Southern Vanguard binational exercise” to take up position and deploy in the region (exercise of North American and Colombian troops).

A story and a scenario of unpredictable consequences

José Carlos Cueto, a paid journalist from the establishment and correspondent for BBC News Mundo in Colombia, has pointed out in an editorial, fed by sources from the imperialist sense-making network: “On multiple occasions and through the commanders of the Eastern Front of the ELN, guerrilla leaders declared loyalty to Maduro and his project, which they conceive as a continent-wide socialist one.” Cueto adds, “a 2024 report by the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation in Colombia described that the ELN arrives in territories presenting itself as defenders of the “Bolivarian revolution” and that “the Human Rights Watch organization, also based on information from ‘multiple witnesses, displaced persons, and humanitarian officials’, testified in 2022 about ‘joint operations’ of the FANB and the Bolivarian National Guard with “ELN guerrillas.”

This script, repeated over and over again to associate the Bolivarian government with the Colombian insurgency, is back on the table at a time when Donald Trump, a conspirator and necessary participant in the coup against Evo Morales in 2019, places Cuba among the countries sponsoring terrorism without any solid argument, and Marco Rubio, the new Secretary of State of the Trump government, gloats by saying in his column in the Miami Herald in August 2024, “The result of this electoral farce was totally predictable from the beginning. Even more so because of the three years of concessions and negotiations with the Maduro narco-dictatorship …” and in July 2017 he said, “Diosdado Cabello is not a simple political leader, he is today’s Pablo Escobar of Venezuela, a drug trafficker.”

In the midst of this operation to destabilize both the Petro government and the Bolivarian Revolution, from Haiti, the Colombian president said that he “has been in contact with Nicolás Maduro to launch an action plan to “eradicate” armed groups from the border with Venezuela,” leaving a rather striking post on X: “I have spoken with the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro , to cover illegal crossings, especially on the Catatumbo River, and to take action with flights from both sides, we contacted (sic) the presence of 1,580 compatriots in a refugee camp on the other side.”

Between threats and ambiguities, the situation on the border between the two countries is becoming very worrying. On the Venezuelan side, the military exercises “Escudo Bolivariano 2025 in defense of peace and democracy” are being carried out, and on the New Granadan side, with the presence of the regular army in a war scenario, all kinds of provocations can be set in motion.

An executive power harassed by the public prosecutor’s office and the legislative power that is showing increasing deterioration months before an electoral process, cannot present itself ambiguously in its relationship with a neighboring government that is essential to unblocking the events in Catatumbo.

The criminal, paramilitary and mafia right wing that governs the north of Santander knows how to exploit the contradictions between the government bureaucracy and the needs of the peasant and productive population of the region. The right does not want peace, nor crop substitution, nor respectful relations with the Bolivarian government. It wants to continue fueling chaos for its own benefit and destabilize the region to complement the hegemonic plans of the southern command.

The militarization of Catatumbo opens the door to a provocation that will further harm the unity and understanding between two governments that, given the regional reality, should be closely linked. The poor interpretation of what happened in the elections in Venezuela on July 28 and the timid attitude in the treatment given by President Petro to Nicolás Maduro can complicate things even more.