Is Venezuela going to sink into a civil war?

By Regulo H. Diaz

Since the beginning of the Bolivarian Revolution, using armed civilians as proxies against defenseless and unarmed citizens is familiar. Moreover, to accomplish the aims imposed by Maduro's government, the government provides arms, communications, and logistics with the only scope to defend the revolution, causing panic and fears to the opposition population. By doctrine, the state has the right to exercise legitimate authority or violence over a given territory. Nevertheless, this classical principle does not happen in Venezuela because Maduro's government ceded its functions to criminal groups that act as proxies of the revolution. 

According to article 332 of the Venezuelan Constitution: "Article 332: The National Executive, in accordance with the law, to maintain, and restore public order; protect citizens, homes, and families; support the decisions of the competent authorities and ensure the peaceful enjoyment of constitutional guarantees and rights, shall organize: (1) A uniformed national police corps. (2) A scientific, criminal and criminological investigation corps. 

(3) A civilian fire department and emergency management corps. (4) A civil defense and disaster management organization. Organs of civilian security are civil in nature and shall respect human dignity and human rights without discrimination of any kind. The functions of the civilian security organs constitute a concurrent competence with those of the States and Municipalities, on the terms established in this Constitution and the law." 

However, neither the state nor the civil police forces have guaranteed security of the people, their property, or peace. 

What is follows now? Following the plans of employ the Armed Forces to restore public order, this task corresponds to the Venezuelan National Guard. By Constitution, this corp shall cooperate in carrying out these operations and shall have its primary responsibility to conduct operations as required to maintain internal order within the country. Therefore the Bolivarian Armed Forces must by law guarantee the homeland sovereignty of the integrity of the land and the peace of the Republic. In the twenty-first century, we have seen a tendency toward blurring the lines between the states of war and peace. This faint line is a current situation in Venezuela.

Moreover, under the pretense that Venezuela is a peaceful territory, Maduro's government created the peace zones abandoned the state functions, leaving these functions to organized gangs groups or collectives—colectivos— that have the entire control peace zone assigned by the government. Such peace zones have a military structure under a warlord leadership. For example, the Cota 905—a peace zone in the southwest of Caracas— warlord called alias the Koki. However, the "Koki," this week, challenged the authority of those who gave him control of the peace zone, creating chaos in this area of the city where the conflict displaced many civilians, many of them resulted injured or even died since the authorities could not defeat the criminal gang. Therefore, the civil war in Caracas-Venezuela is no longer declared and, having begun, proceed according to an unfamiliar template. Under the direction of Nicolas Maduro and the internal minister, civil police forces and military forces engaged in combat with the members of "The Koki's" gang to restore public order without considering applying the rules of engagement by military forces such as the National Guard. So the very "rules of war" have changed in Venezuela. Such as happened in the Bolivarian revolution, where the paramilitary role of groups —Tupamaro's group among many others—, means of achieving political and strategic goals, has grown and, in many cases, has exceeded the power of force of weapons in their effectiveness. So the civilian armed forces become impotence to reduce or eliminate the criminal's band. Additionally, the political situation in the country has become more complex due to the actions of Colombian guerrilla groups such as the FARC and the ELN. They are also disputing part of the territory for the trafficking of drugs, arms, diamonds, and gold.

 In our opinion, to defeat these enemy forces is essential to have a clear understanding of the forms and methods of the application of the force conducting throughout the entire depth of gang's territory asymmetrical actions to enable the nullification of gang's or paramilitary groups that not only operated in the capital Caracas but the rest of the Venezuela territory. Otherwise, the civil war will be imminent, and the collateral damage will be incalculable.