Latest / ACLED Audio / WEBINAR: How will Colombia’s election reshape security ties with Venezuela?

Transcript

WEBINAR: How will Colombia’s election reshape security ties with Venezuela? · ACLED Audio

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Hi everyone and welcome to the webinar.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Laura Calderón Fuentes.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the South America Assistant Research Manager at Accolid.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: And in this session, we will be discussing Accolid's recent report titled Colombia-Venezuela Cooperation on Border Security is Necessary for Investment, but unlikely in the short term.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: The report delves into the importance of the border between both countries for economic opportunities and how it has also attracted the interest of several armed groups who have exploited tense relations between Bogotá and Caracas to dispute the control of criminal economies.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: With the election in Colombia of right-wing Avelardo de las Playas, the new president and the interim presidency of Delcy Rodriguez, we will be facing a new chapter in bilateral security relations between both countries.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: And that is what we will be discussing today.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: And for that purpose, we have a stellar panel.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: First, we have Titiano Oreira.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: He's a senior analyst for Latin America and the Caribbean ad accolade.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Titiano has been at accolade since January 2024, and in his role, he contributes to the analysis of conflict demonstration and political violence patterns in Latin America.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Before joining Accolade, he spent over seven years carrying out research on Latin American politics and security for the International Crisis Group and AAI, five of which he lived in Colombia and Guatemala.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Titiano also holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from the University of Padua and a master's degree in international relations from the University of Bologna, enriched with conflict resolution studies at Johns Hopkins University and Universidad Nacional de Colombia.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: We also have Bram Evos, he's the founder and co-director of Amazon Underworld.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Bram is a criminologist and investigative journalist based in Colombia.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: He specializes in natural resources, conflict and environmental crimes and illicit economies in Latin America.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: He's also a conflict and environmental consultant at the International Crisis Group, working analysis security dynamics in the Amazon region.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: He has degrees in cultural anthropology, development sociology, and global criminology from Utrecht University.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: And he conducts field work in various countries across Latin America and Europe.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: His investigations have been published in outlets such as The Guardian Times, BIES News, Newsweek, and Al Jazeera.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: And he has been recognized with multiple awards, including online journalism awards and two Gabo Journalism Awards.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, we have Angelo Lallaya, who is the co-founder and director of Fundación Code.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: Angela holds a bachelor's degree in political science with a minor in Colombian history from Los Andes University in Bogota, Colombia.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: She has experience in the analysis of the interaction between organized crime, armed conflicts, and humanitarian impacts.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: And she was an advisor to the Ministry of Defense in Colombia, where she supported the implementation of security public policy.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: She has led also multiple investigations about transnational organized crime in Latin America.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: And recently, with her Corey research team, she received a Simón Bolívar Journalism Prize for the podcast Disidencias por dentro about armed groups that emerged following the 2016 peace agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: I would also like to lay out a bit the structure for this webinar.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: To start, Tiziano, who's the co-author of the report, will present its main findings.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: And after that, we will engage in a discussion with our panelists, Angela and Bram, centered around what to expect from the Colombian and Venezuelan government in terms of security strategy towards armed groups and their bilateral relations.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Each intervention will last around 10 minutes, after which we will have around 25 minutes to answer questions from our audience.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: So we invite you to use the sim QA function to post your questions, and we'll do our best to address them during this session or afterwards.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I would also like to remind our audience that the recording for this webinar will be available in NACLED's YouTube channel afterwards with subtitles in Spanish.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: With that, I give the floor to Tiziano, who will share the main findings of the report.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: So Tiziano, could you give us a bit of an overview of the main conflict hotspots along the border, armed groups that operate there, and the main risks?
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you very much, Lara, for the introduction and thanks to Bram and Angela for joining and enriching this timely conversation.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_03: Well, first of all, before starting, um I think I speak on behalf of all of us to send thoughts and prayers for those who've been affected by the earthquakes in in Venezuela.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_03: Um an event that um whose catastrophic impact I think will also have consequences for much of what we will be discussing today in terms of dynamics between governments along the border, security, humanitarian, economic, and so on and so forth.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_03: So I was saying um in the initial remarks, I just wanted to sort of briefly go through uh the findings of the report that Laura and I wrote together and we published last week, which was basically aiming at looking at the main drivers of violence uh along the border between Colombia and Venezuela, and also exploring areas uh or opportunities for uh finally an increased cooperation on security matters between um Colombia and Venezuela uh following the meeting that uh took place between uh Glaci Rodriguez and Gustavo Petro a couple months ago and some of the agreements that were reached there.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so of course, as Lara was mentioning, the border is rich in resources, it's full of uh trade and economic opportunities, um, but it's also attracted uh a number of uh sort of armed groups interests in uh illicit economies that develop along the border.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_03: The most important probably are the ones that I mentioned there, so the extortion to the oil and coal mining sectors, um illegal mining at large of gold and rare earth minerals, uh, and indeed the armed groups that um sort of exploit these oil and mining um sectors uh often attack workers and infrastructure in these sectors, as you can see in the blue dots in the map in the visual.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_03: Um we record around 200 events of this sort over the past um eight years.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_03: Um and of course, drug trafficking is also um a huge uh catalyst for um sort of armed groups' interests, particularly in the NC labs of Catatumbo in the North West and their departments, and the sort of related routes uh towards the Caribbean as well as uh around the Amazon basin.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_03: And there's of course the human and contraband smuggling um dimension to it, which is a uh sort of activities that benefit mostly a wide variety of gangs.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_03: Um, human smuggling has probably diminished over the past few years due to the slowdown of the Venezuelan exodus, but certainly uh it's one of the dimensions that the earthquakes could impact more in case uh sort of the government and uh the international support was not able to address concretely the crisis and and uh provide relief and new housing for those who've lost everything.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um that's in terms of economic economies or drivers of conflict.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_03: In terms of actors, um there's a multiplicity of actors that we track across the border.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_03: Uh the main probably actors are, of course, the Golf clan, uh the autodefensas conquistadoras de la Sierra Nevada, FARC dissidents, um, a number of Venezuelan gangs that operate in different parts of Venezuela.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_03: Uh but the the the actor that really stands out, stands out in recent years is the LN, which has um basically come to have a presence or record some sort of activity in around more than one-third of the municipalities on the Colombian side of the border.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_03: A percentage that would probably be higher if we excluded Boyaca from the from the count, because it's a department that is rich in municipalities but does not um share a long stretch of uh territory with uh with Venezuela.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_03: Um and also around half of the 75 municipalities that compose the Venezuelan uh border states.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_03: Um but in the report we do sort of uh share the the need not to dissect border.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_03: Um the dynamics that uh take place al along the northern and central part of the border are very much different from what's going on in the south.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_03: Um and uh the um sort of subsequently the ability for the both governments to address this crisis also varies, and the possibilities for cooperation to be successful uh vary accordingly.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_03: So on the northern and central part of the border, the first of all, there's we've we've noticed an increase in the levels of violence over the past uh couple of years, um driven by, first of all, an offensive, no, or several offensives by the ELN against five dissidents, particularly the General Center staff in Apure and Arauca, um, as well as the 33rd Front belonging to the Estado Mayor de Bloque Crente in the North Santander department, um, which really caused a humanitarian disaster and displaced uh around um hundred thousand people last year.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_03: Um but on the other hand, there's also another conflict that is looming over this side of the border, which is the one between the Gulf clan and the auto-defenseless conquistadores de la Sierra Nevada, which has primarily took place um or unfolded in La Guajira and Cesar departments, uh increasing increasing the levels of violence in these two departments last year, but increasingly is displacing also southbound towards the Catatumba region and almost at the door of the Catatumba region, um, an issue that would probably further complicate a already quite dire situation along that side of the border.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_03: On the other hand, in Venezuela, the levels of violence have gone down significantly over the past few years, um, due to a mix uh of uh reasons between the crackdown of the Maduro administration and towards gangs who lost the political support of the Chavismo, as well as the economic collapse and subsequent exodus of millions of Venezuelans, including Venezuelans involved in this kind of illicit activities.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_03: Um but at the same time, we still record a dozen active armed groups since 2025 in Zulia alone.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_03: And we've seen in 2026 a reactivation after the capture of Maduro of certain uh sort of illicit economies, such as extortion and kidnappings, uh, which has already brought uh that part of the country, particularly the Zulia state, to record similar levels of violence to the whole uh of 2025 in just the span of six months.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_03: Um but nevertheless, the presence of great economic interest by national energy projects um in this part of the border, a relatively more developed infrastructure, the fact that the LN's dominance is still contested by several actors, and its image has been tainted by the impact of its offensive against uh uh the 33rd Front in Catatumbo.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_03: Um all these factors make it make cooperation wary to happen a bit more feasible, uh, we argue in the report and probably likely to sort of yield some results.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_03: It's a different story when we go to look at the south, and Brahm uh will surely tell us much more about it.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_03: But in essence, um sort of the uh there the we notice that the LN's presence uh stretched, stretched uh to towards as far east as the border with Guyana uh over the years.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_03: Um it has built relations with local communities or co-opted local communities through force, um, and at the same time has shown very working, very much for functional relations with the military involved in uh or turning a blind eye on illegal mining activities.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_03: Um and apparently has sort of established a sort of spax mafiosa with with other groups that operate, particularly in the eastern part of Bolívar, um and such as those gangs known as Syndicatos and Tren de Agua and others.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_03: Um so the violence has also gone down significantly in this part of the border, but it doesn't mean that the situation has improved.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_03: Um also the remoteness of these areas, much of the many of these areas, um, and the lack of reliable information coming out of uh Amazonas and Bolivar make it also harder to sort of really gather what's going on um precisely on the ground.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_03: And security forces limited um sort of equipment and reach also make it more difficult to think of a possible possible successful um sort of um cooperation in this part of the border.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_03: Uh wrapping up, um indeed uh we just we just uh uh looked also at uh sort of the response of both governments to organized crime.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um and we've seen um in sort of shared interest or similar uh resumption of uh of confrontation towards certain armed groups on both sides of the border with um more military operations against armed groups um both in Colombia and Venezuela since 2024, although for very different reasons.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_03: In Petro's case, um the resumption of operations against the ELN and the EMC is related to the failure of the negotiations under the Total Peace Strategy, um, whereas probably for Maduro it was more um an issue of regaining legitimacy after the disputed 2024 elections and um an attempt to showcase commitment against drug trafficking uh to prevent a military action, probably.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_03: It was unsuccessful in that regard.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_03: In any case, these actions have been disjointed and armed groups have only benefited from it.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_03: And um uh we sort of argue, we see in the agreements between Petro and Rodriguez a starting point to sort of overcome this um lack of coordination, but there certainly this uh agreement of sharing intelligence and operations are hard to operationalize in the first place, probably will be reversed under the La Spiria presidency in Colombia, and looking forward to hearing Angela's thoughts on that.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_03: And it's unclear whether the US will use um sort of its sway over both governments to um yeah, to increase, to go towards greater cooperation or not.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and we'll have time to discuss that uh during the webinar.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_03: So I'll I'll end up here and turn it over to you, uh Laura.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Tisierano, for sharing the findings of the report and also uh all all the opportunities and risks of cooperation between both countries in different areas of the border.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'll hand it over to Angela now.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um Angela, what actions can we expect from the Lesbia's presidency in Colombia in terms of uh how he will uh address our uh armed groups and how this will impact also conflict dynamics at the border.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Laura and Tiziano.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh well, um as I'm going to show there is some topics that we have to and some topics that we have to have previously to discuss what is going to be like the new election with President uh Avilardo.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: So firstly, uh I would like to say that distances uh between President uh Pedro and President Avilardo, that is something that is key, and is that they decided decide like a different strategic to face the armed groups.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: For Pedro was the strategic for uh these dogs, and for Avilardo, the strategy is going to be like the hard uh hand, what it means exactly.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and to say that we need to have like the profile for Avilardo.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: Avilardo is a lot of uh criminal defenders uh who focus mainly in to define the like the narco traffickers and the uh and all these kind of uh groups and leaders who are focused on the drug trafficking.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: And for that, it means that he knows exactly how is the uh rule of law uh to manage the how to submit these uh drug traffickers into the like the ordinary justice.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: And what I why um I am saying this is because this is key in the way how he is going to manage the security uh politics.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: He announced before he got elected that he was going to have 30 days uh of ultimatum for all the groups in the borders, not with Venezuela, but all the groups in Colombia.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: And how he is going to do it, he's going to do it uh with basically with the public forces, military forces.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: Also, he said that he's not going to use the peace talks in any way, uh, otherwise, they are going to submit primarily uh to the military forces and the police uh forces.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: And this means exactly that they are going to use combat, they are going to be to use like the military intelligence and they are going to use uh basically all the like the arms that the state has to fight against that then.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: But there is an issue with this, and it's that he's relating this security policy with the economic criminal economics, and it means that they are going to focus on uh uh aerial communication, uh eradication, they are going to to to focus basically in the first step of the of the chain of for drug trafficking, but not the focus on the chains that are more important in the border with Venezuela, that are all those that are sent in uh to Central American and uh USA.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: The other issue is what he inherited from from this transition.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: And as Tisana said, there are several groups in the border, but and most of these groups are have peace talks with the with the Uranian uh government.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: And as you see in the in the right screen uh imagines, most of the the the groups that are asking for for like new uh new peace talk with the new government.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: They are saying that they hear what he was saying, they hear uh what was he presenting for those for pieces that they did.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: But basically, what they are saying is that they have the governability in their territories.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: And if they have the governability in their territories, it means that probably not just with military um police forces are going to be okay to have a relationship with them.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to stop too much in this, in the describing what's going on during the doctor this because uh I think Christiana described it perfectly, so I'm not going to stop there.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: But I I just want to say something, and it's that most of them that are like the main commanders are request for USAID to be uh in this tradition.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: I would like to to focus on one of the cases that is the uh case study that is Santa Marta and La Guajira with the auto defense of conquistadora de la Sierra and the AJC.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: And with the strategic that Abelardo Las Breñas is proposing a focus in the fight against each group, like if they were only the only group controlling the territory in this area, means that probably they could do that, they could do what they want to do.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: That is just uh have com combatants, have uh some fightings, and that's it, and and capture like the main commanders.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: But as we see with the La Guajira and Santa Marta.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: Probably that is not the best way to do it because there is multi multilateral actors that works in both sides of the borders, especially for AGC or Clan del Golfo that use La Guajira and all the Caribbean border to send the drugs to Central America and USA.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why they are fighting with the Auto Defensas Conquistadoras de la Sierra, which means that at the end of the day, all the focus could have really good political impacts, but not have a really good strategy to actually fight against the group.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: The joint military planning, the intermediate intelligence coordination and sharing, and the socioeconomic strategics and projects.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: But there is one issue with this.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: And these are just proposals.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: There is no full strategic to do that, and a full institution architecture to do that.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: To create the full architecture, architectural strategic, to have not only the military forces, not only the intelligence, but also have the economic institutions, have the social institutions to fight against the criminal governance that works in this area.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: And also there is something that I would like to highlight here, and is that this was the best idea to provoke and to create a coordination, intelligent coordination, but not only from the military side, but also from like the civil central side.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: And that's something that we have to pay attention now, because now the designated president Delcy Rodriguez has designated as Minister Defense someone who was in charge of this intelligence before.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: So probably what we will see is trying to not just undermine the groups from the military side, but also undermines the group from the military from the political alliances, probably.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: So what could continue or what could not continue with this uh chain of uh president de la spread?
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I will say that probably as they agree to fight against organized crime as the main focus for the collaboration, probably they will go to focus only in drug trafficking, but no other uh criminal activities.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: And this is been a very, very key and very great area to work on.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: Because as you see in the whole border, there is a lot of a lot of other criminal economies, and probably those are going to get deep and undermined with this focus.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: Especially because most of the time when you think in criminal economies, you think about the relationship with the criminal groups, but not the its own um dynamics about the economy and how this could work with other actors that not necessarily put into the into the beginning the the military arms.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: Oh they they talk about something that is the territorial control and how they how they are going to recover the territorial control uh from these criminal groups.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: But what we what we have been seeing in core for these criminal groups is that the territorial control is not the main objective for the groups.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's just like uh a way to get into what they want.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: And it means that at the end of the day, this political uh strategic, or at least what he's proposing to is focused without a proper understanding on how the groups work now and how it impacts in the whole uh border, especially because of the fragmentation of the uh criminal actors and the and the conflicts itself.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: Also because the internal cohesion of the of the group is is also in a debate note.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like you can see them as before with the FAR or the ELN, that you will see a very hierarchical positions, we you will see a very internal, clear uh decision and instructions.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: You it is more like a network.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: And if you don't realize about this, probably you are getting you are giving them more opportunities to create uh criminal governance.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: And there is here there is a key point in the relationship with Venezuela, and is that he said that all the relationship with Venezuela is going to be through the Secretario de Stado, uh Marco Rubio, which means that probably they are going to do it with this understanding of what is the main problem, and the understanding that they don't have the false dilemma that they don't have a political group, they have just a criminal economic group.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: But this is not the reality in these areas.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: The reality in this area is that probably they there is no more not that into uh ideological group, but it doesn't mean that they don't have political issues and political uh strategies.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: And also the relationship with the economies is going to be depending on which economy or not they are focused on which one is easy to get into or which one is getting more money at the moment.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: So it means that it needs it needs um a strategic that understands that it is a priority and it changed during the time and depending on the territories.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's not the same in La Guajira and Maracaibo, it's not the same in in Arauca and Zulia, uh, or as Brown is going to focus more in the whole Amazonia.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's very different between them.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: So what we expect about this proposal is probably like to have a very hard year trying to put the military forces in like the best uh activities that they can do, but probably with uh a demoralization of the of the forces as well, and asking for more money to get in increase the capacities, probably the intelligence capacities.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: And finally, I would like to say that the limits of this uh have certain topics that I would like to discuss.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure in which ways it's going to be, but that is certain uh questions that I have.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_01: For instance, when Marco Rubio and um the military forces were facing the crisis of the Catatumbo in 2024 and what is going on in 2025, it is not clear if you try to focus for doing a like um um a balance of what he has said about trying to implementate a Colombian, a new Colombian plan, referring like the plan from the 2000s.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: If you try to do that in Catatumbo to focus in a certain area with the best capacities of the military forces, the best capacities of intelligence for police, even though you will have a balloon effect, and we don't know how it's going to move that balloon effect.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: It could be in the border area in the north, it could be going down, or it could be moving forward Venezuela.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: And if you move uh to Venezuela, probably it is going to be hard to have an accountability on or on how uh the humanitarian balance is going to be.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: Especially because the whole architect uh humanitarian architecture for for Venezuela is getting an increase, but it this is focused on the the disaster that we now uh have in Venezuela with the uh air stroke, but also it is a humanitarian architecture that is focused on that, not in facing the effects of the of the conflict.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: The other issue that I don't know exactly how it's going to move, but probably we need to think about it, is the disconnection with the ground realities.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: And it means I have been saying about the criminal governance that all this group has in their territories.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: But this is not only the criminal governance related with economies or related with certain rules about uh who is going to to take advantage of micro trafficking or extortion or or kidnapping, this uh criminal governance is more related to having a long period relationship with the population to regulate all the activities of the population as possible, which means that if they focus on a military strategic only with combats and with fighting against the group, probably what they will receive is uh that they are going to get stronger the legitimacy that the criminal groups have now.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: So that's something that we we need to keep in mind.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the other issue is no clear legal framework.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I know that at least inside Colombia, this is a whole discussion about how it's going to be, how necessary it is to face what uh the groups are challenging.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: But the truth is that at least what President Elect uh Abel Lardo had said is that the legal framework that he's going to offer is a legal legal framework that doesn't work at all.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: And if you want to see some results about why I'm saying that, I recommend to see the report that we did with the with UnityR about this specific population that are those that uh get out individually from the groups, from these criminal groups, and they try to find a way to do uh a transit to civil life.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: And what you see is the offer that the state have now is uh has now is a very limited offer uh that besides trying to keep the all these individuals in into the civil life, what they are doing is pushing the individual that tried to escape from the group to another group.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: So that's something that we need to keep in mind.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: At what President de la Spleya have said is that he's going to offer that, no more than that, uh, which is going to be like um a tie tension uh also with the with the courts about this.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: And finally, the the big questions that we all have about uh de la Spleya and his 19 days for to recover the country is how much he has to do that.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: Because at this moment we are with we we had a fiscal deficit and I have debit that we have to to define how we are going to do.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: And if he said that he's going to put all the money or most of the money into the military strategy and focus on that, probably what is going to happen is that they don't have a proper um I sorry forgot uh the the name, even in Spanish, they they they don't have a uh a proper idea of which capacities need the money, more than having more gas, uh put more money for food for the for the tropas, they don't have like a list of capacities well done.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_01: So it is it is more likely that they are going to between the military forces and the police fight and competition and have a competition because of those results.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: And as we see previously in other governments, this kind of competition is not the most democratic way to do it, because create like negative incentives to push the line, uh, especially when you have to give results to receive the money.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: I think I'm going to leave here.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Laura, thank you.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Angela, for your insights on this topic.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: Before I move uh on to Bram, I would like to remind our audience to pose your questions using the QA function in Zoom.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: So please, uh Brian, could you um tell us a bit about uh the main challenges challenges that both countries are facing in the southern part of the border, especially related to ligand mining, and how this shift in in policy from the Venezuelan government uh could uh change or alter the the equilibrium uh that's being reached in the Venezuelan mining arc until this point.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks Laura and thanks Aklet and Tiziano for for hosting this webinar session.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um let me straight dive into it.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_02: When we talk about the southern Colombia-Venezuela border, and this is a hugely geostrategic area of interest when we look at its corridors in terms of drug trafficking, but also when we understand the presence of natural resources, um specifically in the Orinoquia and Amazon areas.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_02: Oftentimes when we look at the Colombia-Venezuela border, we see violence erupting in the northern and central parts, but not so much in the south, which begs the question whether there's a certain calm when it comes to conflict dynamics, whether armed actors are not present in these areas of the border, um, or whether something different is going on.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um let me quickly share one of the slides of a presentation I made.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_02: Umise I can't definitely not do the whole presentation.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_02: But if you look at the southern border of Colombia, Venezuela, we see multiple armed groups, specifically the ELN, the National Liberation Army, which is a Colombian Greece organization founded in the 1960s, and the Segunda Marquetalia, with its Ocasio Marina Front, which is a faction of a far-dissident franchise.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_02: Both have operated across the borderline, also in Venezuela, in the Amazon areas, and specifically expanded into these southern mining districts of the state of Amazonas, Bolivar, but also Delta Macuro, uh bordering uh Colombia, Brazil, and Guyana.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_02: These groups are present because of the mineral riches, but also when we look into something which is really interesting, specifically this year, um, which is changing drug trafficking routes.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um what we have seen is that the Amazon and its thousands of rivers and tributaries offers huge potential to drug traffickers, to funnel drugs through the jungle, um, of course, with the objective to reach port cities on the Atlantic, specifically in Guyana, Suriname, French Guayana, and Brazil, which are routes towards Western Africa and Europe.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_02: What we saw when the Trump administration last year decided um on its strategy to pump alleged drug trafficking vessels, is that not only criminal groups adapted their models of branding, what we've seen on the Pacific and the Caribbean is increased flux of cocaine shipments on container ships and semi-submergibles.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_02: But we also saw how drug trafficking routes increasingly go through the Amazon, which means that the Rio Negro, which borders Colombia and Venezuela and then dips into Brazil before reaching the port cities, but also the Rio Orinoco, which traverses Venezuela and then de-embouches into the ocean near to Trinidad and Tobago.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_02: But what we know is that oftentimes the cocaine from the Rio Orinoco is loaded onto semi-submergibles, goes to the open ocean, and then is transshipped onto container ships with no Venezuelan flags that go towards Europe.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_02: But we also see a lot of uh clandestine airstrips south to the Orinoco River in Venezuela that then service routes towards Central America, Brazil, and the Guayanas.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_02: These routes are increasingly used, which means that there's also more friction for the control of these routes.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_02: So when we go back to the map of armed group presence, what we've known is that the ELN and Segunda Marquitalia have been collaborating.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_02: Both Colombian Guerrilla organizations have been dividing access to the mines in southern Venezuela, but sometimes they even shared the same boats on Amazon rivers used for drug trafficking.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_02: Nevertheless, the criminal alliance between the ELN and Segunda Marquitalia came to a brutal end in August last year.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, when we saw that the ILN basically set up a trap for the Segunda Marquitalia near Puerto Colombia along the Rio Negro and tried to aniculate it to eradicate some of its leadership in the Amazon.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_02: And then we saw uh a dispute erupting between the Segunda Marquetalia and the ILM affecting in Colombia, specifically Guainia and indigenous communities, and in Venezuela Amazonas, but also part of Bolivar State.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_02: This is an ongoing conflict, and barely anybody is reporting on what is going on.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_02: Only two or three weeks ago, we had armed clashes between the ILN and Seguna Marquetalia in Bolivar State in Venezuela, in the most western municipality of Cedeño, where we've had hundreds of families displaced, and the use of landmines as well, which is a novelty in the state of Bolivar and Venezuela.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, what is going on with um the so-called kinetic attacks on Tranagua leadership, and of course, the unfortunate massive earthquake uh at the Caribbean coast.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_02: There's barely anybody talking about the ongoing clashes in Amazonas and Bolivar State in Venezuela.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_02: What is also really important to mention is that these frictions are not only um occurring because of contested drug trafficking corridors, what we see is that there's a huge interest in something which is called critical minerals.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um, for those who don't know what critical minerals are, which included myself up till basically a year ago, is that critical minerals are a mix of, for example, um what we detected in Venezuela, 10, tantalum, tantalum is the 10 of coltang, uh, tungsten, but also rare earth elements.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, these are the minerals and elements that we need for modern technology, but also for the defense industry.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_02: And with massive defense spending as of lately, we know that the increase increased demand for critical minerals also means that the Those who control mining will wield more power.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_02: And this goes for these non-state armed groups on both sides of the Colombian-Venezuelan border.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_02: So, all these pictures that you see in the slide are pictures that we took during our field work, both from Venezuela and in Colombia, to understand what is present in the subsoil.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_02: We tried to make a map of occurrence of some of these critical minerals and rare earth elements.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_02: You can see their presence in the Amazon area where we mapped the presence of a whole list of things that you can see.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_02: But when we showed this map to a Venezuelan geologist and asked him, What do you think of what we could identify?
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_02: He laughed out loud and he said, This map is okay, but it's geofantasy.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_02: This is what we know what is present.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_02: But most deposits are not mapped yet.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_02: So this is uncharted terrain.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_02: But what we know is that sometimes lawmakers decide that if they want to conserve Amazon rainforests, there's this attitude that it's best not to know what's there so we can protect it.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_02: But this is a foolish attitude because meanwhile, in Bogota, the State Geological Service has basically no idea about the presence of critical minerals in Orinochi and Amazonia.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_02: We know that guerrilla groups, illicit extractors, and even communities involved in illegal mining do know very well what they are extracting.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um we went to the Amazon and we collected samples.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um let me stop sharing the slide to maybe show in front of the camera uh what basically looks as a sort of black sands.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_02: These are the critical minerals that are being mined now in the Amazon and not in Nokia.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes it's even unknown what exactly it is.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_02: So we see communities involved in acid extraction selling these minerals sometimes for the price of a potato, or they're selling something really valuable.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so something that we could identify is that a mix, what they call black sands, is being exported and trafficked through various routes.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_02: In Colombia, we see that these black sands, often marketed as tin concentrates, are taken to port cities like Buenaventura and Cartagena, then it's exported as tin.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_02: But we also know that in Venezuela, these minerals are sold by irregular route, including Colombia Guerrilla organizations, to Venezuelan state companies who then exported through Maracaibo and La Guayra.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_02: Most of this goes to China when we look in hindsight.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_02: Some of it also went to Europe, which is still a market, a transit market for critical minerals.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_02: But all of this is going to change.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_02: And what I'm going to say now, I think, is really important.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_02: For the last few years, we've been trying to track conflict dynamics, illicit extraction, funding violence, and its international buyers.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, we know that the cocaine mainly goes to Europe and the US, the critical minerals mainly go to China.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_02: What we see is that the Trump administration escalated its tensions over the continent.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there's a whole narrative coming from Washington that there's a need to counter terrorist groups and drug trafficking cartels.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_02: So, what we have seen is the bombing of alleged boats, which didn't change the quantity but professionalized organized crime and changed the roads.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_02: We've seen how they've been bullying governments in Latin America, such as in Venezuela, uh, but also in Ecuador, and we also know the pressures from Washington onto Colombia to present results.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_02: The real objective that is argued in Washington is to tackle these criminal organizations.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_02: But what we actually have seen is that the kinetic strikes, the heavy-handed approach, didn't really address the root drivers of organized crime.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_02: So when we engage with different stakeholders, which includes law enforcement agencies also from the US, we always try to explain organized crime better than anybody understands that communities are just another commodity.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_02: And if you want to win a conflict, specifically in these very difficult terrains like the Amazon rainforest, you instrumentalize communities to your benefit.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's a human shield.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_02: You can get extortion payments from them if illicit economies are not delivering what you hoped for.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_02: But also by an undercoercion, you can use communities as a force of political legitimization.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_02: If you have the communities on your side, for better or worse, it's much easier because these organized crime groups, you cannot simply bomb them.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_02: Organized crime groups nowadays are maybe the owner of a bakery, of a fuel station, they are the local mayor, they might even be the local police forces.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_02: They're so infiltrated in daily life that there's no way with as an only military approach to tackle these organizations.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_02: And by bombing these territories, you actually hit civilian structures and therewith push them even more in the ends of organized crime.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_02: The current approach by Washington, but also what Abelardo de Lespreya is proposing, very much, very likely will embolden non-serv groups and organized crime in these territories and provoke a dirty war.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_02: What we therefore want to see is addressing the root causes of these problems, which has to do on the one hand with providing alternative economic opportunities.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_02: We know that many communities in these areas don't want to be miners, they don't want to be involved in drug trafficking.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_02: But as long as there's no alternative, it's obvious that you will do whatever is necessary to make ends meet the future children.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_02: So sometimes we hear the argument how can we compete with economic opportunities with the profit of drug trafficking or illegal mining?
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_02: And the answer is pretty simple.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_02: You can't.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_02: But if you have an alternative, many people will prefer a sane environment, a sustainable plan for their future, and will take a little bit less money.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_02: Right now, other options are not on the table.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_02: And we need to better understand supply chains as well.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_02: Who is financing violence by buying these dirty, dirty minerals?
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_02: But then there's a very difficult answer to that.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_02: Because me and my team, we've been running around in these areas for many years to understand how these markets work.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_02: Who are the buyers of these illicit minerals of the cocaine and how do these supply chains work?
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_02: But I think in the future the answer will be pretty simple.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_02: These minerals will go to the US.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_02: What we've seen in Venezuela after Maduro was whisked away from Caracas by US Special Forces, we've seen tremendous pressure from Washington on Venezuela to rewrite the hydrocarbon law and the mining legislation.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_02: What we see now is that Venezuela basically opened its sector for investments from the United States.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_02: But the situation in the silver mining districts hasn't changed.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_02: We still have Colombicaria organizations, Venezuelan organized crime, both working in cahoots with Venezuelan state forces to extract illicit resources.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_02: Right now, we know that Washington wants these resources because they grant whoever can buy them with a strategic advantage.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_02: This is why Washington doesn't want China to continue to access Venezuela's strategic resources.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_02: We know that Trump invested billions in the US private sector to refine rare earth elements, but they still need the raw resources.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_02: And we think they're going to get them in Venezuela.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_02: And as things stand now, we see that there is little caution with human rights, environmental protection, the rights of indigenous populations all living in these mining districts.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_02: And there's a huge risk for the US private sector as well.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_02: Because as things stand, groups, including groups that are declared as foreign terrorist organizations, are involved in this extraction.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_02: If these minerals go to the US, US corporations will be financing non-centered armed groups that are on sanctions list and they will expose themselves to judicial action.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_02: So we think that in these conflict-prone and conflict-affected areas, there needs to be a strategy of conflict mitigation, of alternative economic opportunities, of working alongside local communities and changing the realities of these territories, which at the end also implies that if you work on this, there will be less cocaine going to Europe and to the US, and these illicit minerals will stop to finance non-set armed groups.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_02: But right now, what I think is that everything points to the wrong solutions.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_02: So we need to rethink strategies if we want to curb crime and non-set armed groups.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_02: Because what's on the table now in terms of solutions, and I very much concur with everything Angela has said, will only trigger more violence in the areas and will all only permit illicit markets to flourish.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_02: Time-wise, I try to rush through this presentation.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_02: There's much more to say, but maybe you have a few minutes left for questions as well.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Brian, for your insights on the southern part of the border.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_00: And this one is specifically for Tiziano.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_00: We've seen a recent shift in the way Venezuela uh is handling uh security in especially in Bolivar with recent operations.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and with the recent earthquake, uh, the focus from the government has gone elsewhere.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_00: So, how do you think the uh the recent earthquake uh will impact the stability in Venezuela and also security?
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks, Lara, and thanks uh for the questions.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_03: I'll try to be telegraphic um and just drop a couple of thoughts about that.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so when it comes to uh security, uh I would say there could be two or three main possibilities in terms of impact.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_03: The first is of course that this um this crisis, this this tragedy is uh diverting attention, uh something that also Bram was alluding to, you know, that um the the tragedy, the the magnitude of the problem, of course, has attracted a lot of not only mediatic interest, but also uh I mean is is driving the government to to divert military resources towards coordinating the attention to to to the crisis and the response um and preventing probably the eruption of of disorder, because we've seen also many criticism much criticism about the lack of actual participation of the military in in rescue operations, um and rather sort of alocated attention towards maintaining public order.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_03: So on one hand, the military is being diverted, no, that the operations are um probably not so such a priority as they were just a few weeks ago in the mining area of uh um during local mining arc, and probably will this will sort of lower military pressure.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_03: On the other hand, um the uh the state is also proving to be unable actually to attend to the crisis in an effective way, you know and um this is the perfect situation we were discussing this with Ankara before the the call uh for um sort of organizations that have revenues from illicit economies as well as other sorts of uh revenues to try and wean the hearts and minds of local communities because of the importance that uh that's been set in this conversation they have for their territorial control, for their ability to impose criminal governance.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_03: So the the image of the state is being tainted even more, and sort of uh criminal groups can can uh exploit that to try and present themselves as the real authorities actually helping supporting the people in this rush of the strategy.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_03: And finally, as we mentioned in the questions, um the likelihood uh of uh revamp or restarting the migration flows outside uh like outbounds towards uh the region, in my opinion, is very is very valid, very big because um I don't know how many thousands of thousands of buildings have been destroyed, how many hundreds of thousands of people will have lost uh basically everything.
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um the networks of Venezuelans are already well established now with in many countries in Latin America.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_03: So um I do foresee uh an increase or a renewed increase in migration flows.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_03: And while the situation is different from a few years ago, I mean the border is open and hopefully it will stay so.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_03: Um the the closure of the border helped uh the the strengthening of human smarting networks now um back in 2018-2019.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_03: Um and Venezuelan gangs are certainly less powerful than then, also because of the economic collapse very free to uh I think the affectation could I mean the the trickle-down effect could be felt in destination countries now when other criminal organizations prey on migrants, prey on Venezuelans, and extort them, uh uh put them in sexual exploitation networks, um, and maybe use them for for drug trafficking or small drug trafficking activities.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_03: So I would say these are the three main impacts in the security realm, but of course, with a big question mark at the political level, if this will turn into sort of a no um or would trigger uh such uh you know civic movement or demand for resignation that could eventually lead to the to the fall of the uh of the government in in Venezuela.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_03: This I think uh it's an open question that would also reshuffle things in the security and security realm.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Tiziano.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um I would also like to tie this comment uh here uh from with with another question.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um so uh it seems like maybe there is not going to be a political um obstacle between uh in terms of the cooperation between both countries, uh, since uh the the Venezuelan government is being um kind of influenced by the United States and also backed by other uh right-wing governments in the region.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe Angela, could you expand a bit uh on the technical difficulties uh in the bilateral relation between both countries in in terms of the security uh at the border?
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well I think the technical issue with this is like how what is the state of the institution right now and how they arrive to this cooperation.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_01: From the Venezuelan government, as we know, there is um uh all the civil institutions and the and the and the military forces, they have been undermined during the last uh years, which means that they are not in the same level.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_01: They have they don't have the capacity, they don't have the training, they don't have like a full rethinking about the the the doctrinal uh aspect that it needs to be uh done.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_01: And the the discussion about what kind of group and what what is the like the sense of the of the uh threat that they are facing.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_01: What they are doing now is focusing in this idea of criminal organized crime that basically is focusing on criminal economies, but not to uh focusing in understanding how this group are working up in the border and how this group, as Bram said, use the community, and this could be like a a focus that they have they they need to think properly because otherwise the community is going to be uh like a uh uh a tool, it's going to be thinking as a tool for the groups.
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_01: So, from the Venezuelan perspective, the capacities and the and the the whole doctrinal aspect need to be reviewed and updated um from the Colombian side specifically.
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_01: The way how they had been thinking the threatens, how they had been thinking uh the the board that is is working now is an old uh way to to see it, but also it is focusing in in three strategics or three tools.
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_01: One is the combat, the other ones are the bombing as as as France said, and the other one is the intelligence.
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_01: For the first one, it is a challenge because if you see what kind of uh groups they are working in the border, these groups are not uh fighting against the states, not the Colombians, not the Venezuelan state.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_01: They are fighting between them.
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_01: So there is no point to have a combat between uh with them because it means that you have to, you will have to go and find the combat and put the civil society in a situation that there is no a reason and there is no like an economic uh idea to do uh because of the economical or and the and the humanitarian consequence.
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_01: From the all the strategic to have to bomb in certain points and focus on those points, uh it is a high risk to create a humanitarian crisis that goes is going to move depending on on where is the money to survive.
• 1:02:50
  SPEAKER_01: So it's going to be the Venezuela sites, is the the the the illicit flows are getting better in that area, or it's going to be in the Colombian side, depending on where what what are you asking, what are you looking for?
• 1:03:05
  SPEAKER_01: Probably if you look for attention, you will go to the to the Colombian side, but you don't have all the structure to to support this uh humanitarian uh consequences that could have.
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_01: And also that is an issue that is not in the in the table and is what President uh Electr de las Blaya said that he's going to bombing, use the bombing.
• 1:03:32
  SPEAKER_01: And he haven't said what he's going to do with the minors that in this area with uh where the groups are having a lot of minors in into their files.
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um so that is another issue, and with the intelligent uh strategic that could be like the most quickly and an easy way to get to start the cooperation.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_01: You need to understand that also the the intelligence information, the idea of the intelligence, it is not something that you create in in just one year.
• 1:04:13
  SPEAKER_01: You need to create and to do properly, to do it right, to do it in the framework of the judicial, uh established support for all the military forces and for the police.
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_01: You need to you need to do certain steps, and it's not that easy.
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_01: So probably I will say that in a short time it's not so easy to do it, and it is going to depend on how the institutions it's going to depend more in a political will and in a political way how to do it than in a technical way to do it, because it takes time.
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Angela.
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think we have time for a final question for Brown.
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so with uh the recent addition uh from or announcement by De La Strija to join the Shield of the Americas, how do you see that this organization led by Trump and uh with members of right-wing governments in the region would affect um border uh the border security between Colombia and Venezuela?
• 1:05:25
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, if there's anybody in the audience who can explain to me what the shield of Americas actually is, please raise your hand because we we still think it lacks clarity, orientation, but also funding.
• 1:05:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, who's gonna design at the end um strategies of regional cooperation between certain governments?
• 1:05:47
  SPEAKER_02: And then, of course, hey, okay, Colombia will likely enter, Ecuador is already there.
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_02: Depends on Brazil, what's gonna happen there and like elections in October, and Venezuela, despite under uh tremendous course of power of the US, uh will it play a role in the Shield America?
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_02: Or not.
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_02: If it doesn't play a role, how will that actually work in practice with Venezuela featuring that high up on the geopolitical agenda of the US?
• 1:06:17
  SPEAKER_02: I think when we look at the border, what will be determinating is not only the security strategy in Colombia, but actually who will be in charge of security in Venezuela.
• 1:06:32
  SPEAKER_02: What we see is that we have a national army um undercapacitated, receiving very poor wages, and with a very low morale.
• 1:06:43
  SPEAKER_02: They've been working together with Colombian guerrier organizations in the border states, but also in the mining districts for many, many years.
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_02: So when these strikes, as we saw in Las Claritas on Al Niño Guerrero recently occur, um, we think these are very atypical events and are not symbolic for a shift in the orientation of Venezuela's armed forces.
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um we very much fear how foreign investors who want to operate in extractives in Venezuela will think of security.
• 1:07:22
  SPEAKER_02: Will there be a role for private security companies?
• 1:07:25
  SPEAKER_02: How will foreign investors engage with local organized crime?
• 1:07:29
  SPEAKER_02: And what is the role of the army that is very much interested in keeping uh the rents of illicit economies?
• 1:07:38
  SPEAKER_02: The army institutionally receives kickbacks in gold and from drug trafficking in Venezuela.
• 1:07:44
  SPEAKER_02: That's why it's still attractive to be in the Venezuelan army.
• 1:07:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, foreign investors will definitely meddle with those illicit interests.
• 1:07:54
  SPEAKER_02: So I think a big question is actually if you want the Venezuelan army to combat non-straded groups or to protect foreign investors, they need better payment.
• 1:08:04
  SPEAKER_02: And who's gonna pay for them?
• 1:08:05
  SPEAKER_02: Will this be the private sector?
• 1:08:07
  SPEAKER_02: Will this be the US?
• 1:08:08
  SPEAKER_02: Because Caracas is definitely not gonna do that.
• 1:08:11
  SPEAKER_02: Then the other question is if Abalardo wants to lash out against Colombian non-stad armed groups and they will hide on the Venezuelan side of the border and the Venezuelan army won't confront them, will we be seeing Colombian bombings across the borderline in Venezuela, which I think is definitely something which is an option on the table.
• 1:08:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and what what reactions will that provoke?
• 1:08:36
  SPEAKER_02: What we also fear, coming back to the whole mining debate, is that we've seen measures taken by the Petro administration, by the Lula administration, to curb illicit mineral trafficking.
• 1:08:50
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of ground to cover.
• 1:08:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but what we actually saw in Brazil is that over the last decade, a lot of Venezuelan gold, which due to sanctions by the US government became, let's say, toxic on the international market.
• 1:09:05
  SPEAKER_02: Nobody wanted to buy it.
• 1:09:06
  SPEAKER_02: So Venezuelan gold went to Brazil, and gold, which has no DNA like a diamond, can be laundered into the legal supply chain very easily.
• 1:09:13
  SPEAKER_02: So we saw Venezuelan gold popping up in Colombia, in the Guayanas, in the Caribbean, in Brazil.
• 1:09:18
  SPEAKER_02: But when Lula started to crack down on illicit gold trafficking, suddenly we saw an influx of the routes.
• 1:09:24
  SPEAKER_02: Brazilian gold showing up in Venezuela, Colombian gold showing up with Venezuela.
• 1:09:28
  SPEAKER_02: And now with the new mining law in Venezuela and the US relaxing sanctions on Venezuelan state companies who still source illicit gold.
• 1:09:37
  SPEAKER_02: We actually fear that Venezuela might become the hub for illicit minerals of the whole Amazon basin.
• 1:09:44
  SPEAKER_02: Just bring it to Venezuela, sell it to a state company because they're selling to buyers in Miami right now.
• 1:09:50
  SPEAKER_02: So we actually fear that there's a security strategy on the one hand.
• 1:09:55
  SPEAKER_02: But on the other hand, the economic strategy of Washington keeps enwitching these criminal structures.
• 1:10:01
  SPEAKER_02: So when there's a clash between the economic and the security strategy, we will see these problems perpetuated.
• 1:10:09
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what we are afraid of.
• 1:10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Bram.
• 1:10:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I would like to thank the three of you for your presentations and your inputs on this topic.
• 1:10:20
  SPEAKER_00: And with that, uh we wrap up this session for today.
• 1:10:24
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for attending and hope that you join us in our next webinar.