Disturbing testimonies of the recruitment of children and young people by the guerrillas on the border: they reveal that the ELN acts alongside the Venezuelan army

Death has not stopped at the border. The arrest, disappearance and murder of guilty and/or innocent civilians, due to the confrontation between guerrilla groups over control of the territory, continues; some are made public, most do not. A few days ago, one of those kidnapped and killed by the ELN was Juan de Dios Hernández, a leader of the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV). The most recent Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, presented by Tamara Taraciuk Brones, acting director for the Americas, reveals what many Apure residents have said: the joint action of Venezuelan Army officials with the ELN.

The crudest war for territorial control began on December 30, in Venezuelan territory, with the murder of José Noel Ortega Fandiño, alias El Cherry, an asset of the National Liberation Army (ELN), an organization that held responsible the dissidents of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), whom HRW called Joint Command of the East.

As many testimonies have revealed to Infobae, so have multiple witnesses, displaced persons and humanitarian officials told Human Rights Watch “that members of the Venezuelan security forces, in particular the FANB and the GNB, have conducted joint operations with ELN guerrillas and would have been complicit in their abuses.”

A witness told HRW: “That morning more than 10 armed men arrived on motorcycles and vans, some identified themselves as the ELN and others were from the Venezuelan military force. I saw their FANB badges on their uniforms.”

Another witness said that members of the FANB came to their community in Apure with ELN guerrillas, who forcibly took several people they accused of collaborating with the Joint Command of the East (FARC dissidents). “The military came along with the ELN, I thought 'they're going to kill us all, '” he said. “(The military and members of the ELN) began to shout some names, entered the homes of those people and carried them tied up.”

HRW states that “since January 2022, Venezuelan authorities have said that Venezuelan forces have destroyed guerrilla camps and drug laboratories and arrested 35 members of armed groups they call Colombian Terrorists, Armed, Drug Traffickers (TANCOL). However, all these operations seem to have targeted Front 10 (FARC) and other elements of the Joint Eastern Command, not other groups.”

“The Joint Eastern Command is a coalition of FARC dissident groups that includes groups known as Fronts 28 and 45 and Front 10, which is the most important in the area. The Eastern Joint Command operates under the leadership of alias “Gentil Duarte”, a former FARC commander who did not accept the peace agreement and who coordinates multiple dissidents in Colombia.”

FANB and ELN

One of the testimonies revealed by HRW relates that two members of the ELN and a FANB soldier arrived at the home of Darío Salcedo (pseudonym) in El Ripial, Venezuela, early on January 2, asking him where they could find their neighbor Fernando Murillo (pseudonym). The soldier accused Salcedo and Murillo of being “informants” of the Joint Command of the Orient (FARC dissidents). Salcedo denied it and the cast members threatened him with death.

He added that when another member of the ELN arrived at the house he said they had found Murillo. “When the guerrillas left, Salcedo saw through a crack in his door how two members of the ELN were pushing Murillo, who was tied hand and foot, to the ground in Salcedo's backyard.”

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 into a van.”

At the start of the crude clash between the groups on January 2, “members of the ELN took Pedro Benítez (pseudonym), a 42-year-old peasant, from his home in a rural area of El Ripial, Venezuela. The guerrillas tied Benitez hand and foot and forced him into a van, said a relative who witnessed the events. A member of the ELN accused Benitez of being an informant for the Joint Eastern Command and told the family to leave the community immediately, the family member said.

“Some fled to Arauca's apartment, but two of their children, who were working on a nearby farm that day, did not show up,” the relative said. A few days later, a neighbor told Benitez's relative that ELN guerrillas had killed Benitez and his children, she said. The neighbor showed her two photos of the bodies”, that version was also obtained by Human Rights Watch, to whom the neighbor confirmed that those who appeared in the photos were Benitez's relatives.

Just as it happens on the border on the Venezuelan side, it also happens on the Colombian side; HRW highlights two specific cases, that of the murder of community activist Miguel Alexis Amado Carrillo as he left his home in Arauquita on January 17; and the one that occurred on January 25, when two armed men shot Álvaro Peña Barragán in a farm in Tame, Arauca; the next day, his wife, Rosalba Carmenza Tarazona Ortega, was murdered during his funeral. In such cases, the authors would be from the Joint Eastern Command on the grounds that they had cooperated with the ELN.

The children, the victims

On both sides of the border, the ELN and the Joint Command of the East (FARC coalition of dissidents) have forced numerous people to join their ranks, including minors. On January 20, members of the ELN broke into a house in rural Puerto Paez, Apure, and forcibly took away a 14-year-old girl and her 18-year-old brother, a family member said. On Jan. 28, a neighbor told her mother that her children had been killed during clashes with a FARC dissent and told her where to find their bodies. The mother went to the area and found the bodies of her children. He said there were many more bodies there.

Credible allegations, as Human Rights Watch catalogues, cases of disappearances, abductions and forced recruitment by armed groups against people at the border including children. “In the early morning of January 2, ELN guerrillas entered the farm where Celina Franco (pseudonym) and her family lived in a rural area of El Amparo, Apure.”

The terrifying experience, according to what Franco revealed to HRW “the members of the ELN accused her and her husband, Pedro Ramírez (pseudonym), of feeding members of the Joint Orient Command (FARC) and being their informants. They denied the accusations, but the guerrillas threatened to recruit their children, aged 8 and 15, if the family did not leave the area immediately.”

“Franco, her husband and children began walking towards the Arauca River to flee to Colombia. But the ELN guerrillas stopped Ramirez, hit him with the butt of a rifle in the ribs and tied his hands. Celina Franco fled to Colombia. Three days later, a man she didn't know came up to her and said she shouldn't ask about her husband.”

Another testimony is that of Elvia Rodríguez (pseudonym), a 34-year-old Saliba indigenous woman who lived in a rural area of Puerto Páez, Apure, said that on January 26 ELN guerrillas broke into her home, where she and her husband, Ramiro Meneses (pseudonym), were sleeping with their four children. The men told their husband that “he was already warned; either he left with them or they took their children”. “I had no choice, it was his turn to go with the group. On January 29, his father-in-law told him that Meneses had died in a clash with FARC dissidents.”

While that happens in Apure, it is also repeated on the other side of the river, in Colombian territory. On January 2, ELN guerrillas arrived in a rural area of Arauquita, Arauca, and removed at least 20 young people from their homes, a witness told HRW. The guerrillas tied their hands and forced them to get on vans and motorcycles. Four cast members broke into the woman's house and took her 18-year-old son to join the guerrillas; she was threatened with death if she did not leave the community; the woman left and has not heard from her son since. “All the families in town fled frightened,” he said.

HRW claims that, as of March 11, more than 3,300 people, including Colombians and Venezuelans, had fled Apure to the Colombian departments of Arauca and Vichada, according to humanitarian organizations. This is in addition to the people who are internally displaced in Arauca.

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