The View From Above
For the past few weeks the US has been clearly tightening the screws on Delcy’s local management. Surprisingly, it was easier to get the Venezuelan military to launch an attack on former allies and “business partners” in the Mining Arc, than getting actual oil contracts signed. Or maybe it’s not that surprising. Our sources today confirm something we had been hearing through the vines: that there’s a certain degree of expectation and excitement from the Venezuelan armed forces to collaborate with the US military.
However, given their lack of experience and equipment, these pro-intervention officers may not be as ready and able to launch and sustain military operations. Venezuela remains a difficult theatre for counterinsurgency, given the size and complexities of the territory. That said, with the right intelligence and an effective cooperation with US forces, this new FANB directed by Gustavo Gonzalez Lopez and bossed-around by the Southern Command should be able to remove or push back criminal actors from areas of interest for foreign investors. Mines, mining towns and logistical chains for the mining sector can be cleaned up, and this work seems to have started this week in Las Claritas, in Bolívar state. The mafias will leave those places if its former ally, the Venezuela State, turns against them. This has happened before when the government launched an operation to take control of the Tocorón prison –the birthplace and headquarters of the Tren de Aragua HQ– and other prisons under control of pranes. While it’s possible to clear the areas where the first wave of investment will arrive in a few weeks or months, restoring the rule of law in the entire country will likely take years.
It must be noted, as we’ve mentioned in previous reports, that control over mining areas has been historically divided between the Venezuelan military, mega gangs such as Tren de Aragua, and different guerilla groups. Back in the day, the regime came to certain agreements in which these actors would provide security and ensure that informal miners would deliver the product to government production centers in exchange for a cut and allowing them to operate freely in the area. Las Claritas, the closest town to the prominent Las Cristinas mine, is Tren de Aragua territory.
While the military deployment in Bolivar state was moving forward—looking to displace the gang bosses that have controlled the mines near Las Claritas for years, or at least to make it look like they’re trying—, the US Treasury Department revised some of the key General Licenses. The changes seek to harmonize their application with the local legislation and the participation contract draft that has been circulating informally, which should be the end of the excuses by the Delcy administration for their delay in signing actual contracts, instead of MOUs they have signed so far, which are designed to make headlines but have no firm commitments. Such headlines, this week, featured Shell and Schlumberger, two companies that have remained connected and dealing with Venezuela throughout these years, albeit with minimal or no personnel in the country. As we have written before, one of the biggest threats to Delcy’s relative peace with the Americans is the clear talent and technical limitations in her team, which has failed to materialize the legal frameworks required for serious investors to make the jump into Venezuela.
In this context, colectivos in Western Caracas have reasons to worry. Western companies are looking more seriously at bringing their people to the country, and it is obviously expected that most executives will be based in the capital. A couple of weeks ago, we learned from a source that Schlumberger approached an international school in Caracas to enquire about availability for incoming expat families. Delcy can’t have urban armed groups running around, risking kidnappings and extortion –the bread and butter of urban gangs in Caracas– of incoming expats.
Government sources believe the military pressure will fall first on more dangerous and sophisticated actors, such as the Colombian ELN and dissident FARC factions in Venezuelan soil. Today, it’s easy to imagine operations against these groups with the cooperation of the US and Colombia, especially if Abelardo de la Espriella wins the Colombian elections. The end of Colombian guerrilla presence in Venezuelan territory would be a historical development that would require a separate analysis, but in short, their expulsion would benefit everyone in the Venezuelan political spectrum: it would bolster Delcy’s case before Trump that she can maintain order in the country while giving carte blanche to US companies; but it would also ease the transition to democracy in the hands of an opposition government, as it would remove a key issue from the list of dangers for the stability of a new, non-chavista government.
The tide turns in the Mining Arc