HomeNewsBriefVenezuela President Maduro Deepens Militarization With Cabinet Shake-Up
BRIEF

Venezuela President Maduro Deepens Militarization With Cabinet Shake-Up

SECURITY POLICY / 23 JUN 2017 BY VENEZUELA INVESTIGATIVE UNIT EN

President Nicolás Maduro's latest reshuffling of cabinet and military command deepens the militarization of Venezuela's government, even as security forces have lost much of their legitimacy due to widespread criminal conduct within their ranks.

Six of the nine new cabinet members appointed by Maduro on June 21 are high-ranking military officers, according to the state news service.

In addition to Gen. Carlos Osorio Zambrano, who will take over as the president's chief of staff, Maduro promoted to civilian office former Army Commander Juan de Jesús García Toussaintt; former Navy Commander Admiral Orlando Maneiro; and Gen. Antonio Benavides Torres, the former chief of the Bolivarian National Guard (Guadia Nacional Bolivariana - GNB), who was previously accused of human rights abuses for his involvement in the repression of demonstrations in 2015.

Current Defense Minister Gen. Vladimir Padrino López will also assume the responsibility of vice president for sovereignty (Gobierno para la Soberanía), while Maj. Gen. Luis Motta Domínguez, the current electricity minister, will now additionally serve as vice president for public works.

The outgoing ministers have resigned in order to campaign for seats in Venezuela's upcoming Constituent Assembly, which will be tasked with writing a new constitution.

Earlier this week, Maduro had already reshuffled Venezuela's military command, reportedly placing a more hawkish leadership in charge.

InSight Crime Analysis

The ongoing militarization of the Venezuelan state is worrying, given that the country's security forces have lost much of their legitimacy due to widespread criminal activity within their ranks.

Several new ministers face such suspicion. Gen. Osorio Zabrano, for instance, the newly appointed chief of staff and former food minister, is named in an Associated Press investigation into widespread food trafficking by the military, which was put in charge of food distribution in the country last year. Toussaintt, for his part, may have been involved in a suspected gold and diamond trafficking scheme with stolen government money, according to an ABC investigation.

Meanwhile, Motta is under US investigation for cocaine trafficking, according to the Wall Street Journal. The officer is suspected of belonging to the Cartel of the Suns, a network of corrupt elements within military ranks suspected of controlling Venezuela's sizeable drug trade. Motta also received a vote of no confidence this year from the opposition-controlled National Assembly on suspicion of embezzlement.

SEE ALSO: Venezuela News and Profiles

Additionally, the militarization trend does not bode well for the country's high levels of violence. Reports indicate that the government's policy of involving military elements in the fight against crime has engendered repeated cases of extrajudicial killings, while the army has been blamed for protestors' deaths during both current and previous demonstrations.

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

COLOMBIA / 15 JUL 2022

The death of one of the last-remaining leaders of the ex-FARC mafia may signal the disintegration of the FARC dissidents…

ELITES AND CRIME / 13 OCT 2021

The photos showed five dead bodies laid out in the dirt, each with a gun or grenade close to an…

COLOMBIA / 24 AUG 2023

Colombia's President Petro announced his Total Peace plan 12 months ago. But how has his flagship policy played out?…

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Contributes Expertise Across the Board 

22 SEP 2023

This week InSight Crime investigators Sara García and María Fernanda Ramírez led a discussion of the challenges posed by Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” plan within urban contexts. The…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Cited in New Colombia Drug Policy Plan

15 SEP 2023

InSight Crime’s work on emerging coca cultivation in Honduras, Guatemala, and Venezuela was cited in the Colombian government’s…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Discusses Honduran Women's Prison Investigation

8 SEP 2023

Investigators Victoria Dittmar and María Fernanda Ramírez discussed InSight Crime’s recent investigation of a massacre in Honduras’ only women’s prison in a Twitter Spaces event on…

THE ORGANIZATION

Human Trafficking Investigation Published in Leading Mexican Newspaper

1 SEP 2023

Leading Mexican media outlet El Universal featured our most recent investigation, “The Geography of Human Trafficking on the US-Mexico Border,” on the front page of its August 30…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime's Coverage of Ecuador Leads International Debate

25 AUG 2023

This week, Jeremy McDermott, co-director of InSight Crime, was interviewed by La Sexta, a Spanish television channel, about the situation of extreme violence and insecurity in Ecuador…