Back

LatinNews Daily - 11 September 2019

VENEZUELA-COLOMBIA: Venezuelan Military deployed to Colombian border

On 10 September Venezuela’s Bolivarian armed forces (FANB) were deployed to the shared border with Colombia, although the “military exercises” ordered last week by de facto president, Nicolás Maduro, after he declared an “amber alert” in the face of “the threat of Colombian aggression”, did not take place.

Analysis:

The fact that not a shot was fired on the first day of the military exercises suggests that their real purpose was a symbolic show of force as the Maduro government seeks to project the impression of strength and unity. The Colombian government, while describing the military exercises as a threat to regional peace, repeated the mantra that it would not give in to provocation.

  • Admiral Remigio Ceballos Ichaso, the commander of strategic command operations (CEO), one of six branches of Venezuela’s FANB, is leading the military exercises, which are due to last until 28 September. While the FANB brought out anti-aircraft guns, tanks, helicopters, and multiple rocket launchers, they were not alone, with the police and members of militias also present, swelling the number of participants in the ‘military exercises’ to an estimated 150,000.
  • Colombian authorities gave a calm and measured response, ruling out sending additional troops to the border but stressing that the military was on “maximum alert”. And in a long interview with the national daily El Tiempo yesterday, the commander of the Colombian armed forces, General Luis Fernando Navarro Jiménez, stressed that “we are ready to defend our borders and our territorial integrity [but] Colombia will never fire first”.
  • Venezuelan opposition leader and interim president Juan Guaidó reacted to the military exercises by accusing Maduro of seeking to distract attention from the country’s domestic political, socioeconomic, and humanitarian crisis.

Looking Ahead: The Colombian authorities are well acquainted with bellicose rhetoric and posturing from Caracas. But with so many armed personnel stationed along the 2,219km shared border, not just from Venezuelan security forces but also nearby Colombian military, as well as guerrilla and paramilitary groups, there is a genuine risk of confusion and a mistake leading to a firefight.

LatinNews
Intelligence Research Ltd.
167-169 Great Portland Street,
5th floor,
London, W1W 5PF - UK
Phone : +44 (0) 203 695 2790
Contact
You may contact us via our online contact form
Copyright © 2022 Intelligence Research Ltd. All rights reserved.