How Criminal Groups Helped Fill Venezuela's Post-Chávez Void
Venezuela's Presidents Chávez and Maduro, to secure long-term power, ensured the country's criminal groups would answer to them.
President Maduro has proven highly resilient, weathering sanctions abroad and an economic crisis at home. His hybrid state creation helped him to do so.
The FBL were a useful criminal ally to Maduro's regime in Venezuela. They were granted favors, political power, and impunity, before seeing a precipitous downfall.
Pro-government guerrillas in Venezuela have begun training civilians in armed combat, showing the symbiotic relationship between embattled President Nicolás…
Members of a "collective" killed by police were buried in a public funeral in Caracas, amid concerns that these armed civilian groups -- many originally supplied and trained by…
In Venezuela the drug traffickers wear camouflage. On the Colombian border, Colombian and Venezuelan guerrillas and the army fight for control of the drug trade. Senior military officers have also…
If the Venezuelan opposition wins October's elections, pro-government armed groups could become a major threat to stability in the country, potentially evolving into a full-fledged insurgency.