EL ASERRIO (AFP) – Colombia called on neighbouring Venezuela to help tackle guerrillas blamed for a week of bloody violence that has displaced 40,000 people in the lawless border region.
“I’ve been in contact with the current Venezuelan government,” Colombian President Gustavo Petro said, floating a “joint plan to eradicate armed gangs on the border”.
Colombia is struggling to contain violence in the mountainous northeastern Catatumbo region, where a 5,800-strong leftist militia has targeted rival armed groups and their alleged sympathisers.
The National Liberation Army, or ELN, is trying to assert control over a swath of the border region that is home to plantations and trafficking routes which provide much of the world’s cocaine.
The offensive has killed at least 80 people, while dozens more have been kidnapped and tens of thousands have been displaced, according to government and United Nations (UN) estimates.
The bodies of a baby and two young teens were among the bodies recovered from the region, according to Colombia’s chief forensic officer Jorge Arturo Jimenez.
The violence has plunged Colombia into one of its worst security crises in years while shattering government hopes of peacefully disarming one of the country’s most powerful militias.
AFP journalists travelling in rebel-controled areas on Thursday saw armed ELN members openly guarding checkpoints.
Still, Petro’s Venezuela gambit is fraught with potential pitfalls.
Colombia’s intelligence agencies allege the ELN has long received backing and protection from Venezuela, with some of the group’s leaders believed to live across the border.
And Petro’s decision to engage with President Nicolas Maduro’s government so soon after it was accused of stealing another election from the democratic opposition is likely to provoke anger.
