Venezuela’s military has to choose alliance: beleaguered dictatorship or new era?

Some have joined drug trafficking rings, and all are tightly watched by Cuban intelligence. But the Venezuelan armed forces members who sustain the Nicolás Maduro regime will have to make the most important decision of their lives in the coming hours.

They will have to choose between abandoning a sinking ship or locking in their support for the beleaguered dictatorship.

In a way, the sudden selection of National Assembly President Juan Guaidó as interim president of Venezuela may be the last chance for many military members to escape the approaching conflict unharmed.

“All the armed forces members know what they have done, but right now they are telling themselves, ‘the Assembly offered immunity, and if Guaidó wins that means that (cooperating with him) is the best hope I am ever going to have of getting away with some money and freedom before it all collapses,’” said Evan Ellis, a professor at the U.S. Army War College.

“Maduro finds himself in a difficult situation. They are closing in on him and there’s no guarantee that he will come of out this,” Ellis added.

That does not mean the military’s decision will be easy, added Ellis, who has studied the difficulties of removing regimes that function more like a crime syndicate than traditional military dictatorships.

Much depends on the armed forces members’ calculation on whether Maduro can really survive the coming storm with a regime that lacks money and legitimacy in its confrontation with a Guaidó government backed by the United States, Canada and several Latin American countries, Ellis said.

Senior military commanders are giving the impression, at least in public, that they believe Maduro’s chances of surviving the crisis are high.

“We will do nothing at all outside the constitution,” Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López said publicly, adding that the legal backing for Guaidó’s presidency is “null” and that it is destined to fail.

Such statements from the military high command do not surprise Martín Rodil, president of the Venezuelan American Leadership Council and an expert on the country’s armed forces.

“The main posts with command or power within the Venezuelan armed forces are in the hands of people who over the past 18 years have been systematically corrupted by the Chavista (ruling party) structures and the Cuban intelligence agents who infiltrated the organization,” Rodil said.

“These are people involved in different types of crime — human trafficking, drug trafficking, illegal weapons sales,” he added.

“To expect that structure, so corrupted by different crimes, will come out in support of re-institutionalizing the country or rescuing constitutional rule just because the people ask for it is illusory at the very least.”

MAFIA OR ARMED FORCES?

That’s because the people who now control the armed forces function more like a mafia than members of a professional military, Rodil said.

“To persuade them will require very hard actions by the international community because, sadly, I don’t believe that inside Venezuela there’s the power to overcome this criminal gang that kidnapped the armed forces,” he said.

“The only way to force these people to hand over power is to confront them with a credible threat, a threat worse than they represent, so that they look for negotiation or some way out.”

But not everything is well within the armed forces. Discontent among mid-ranking officers and soldiers is as high as the rest of the population because of the withering food and medicine shortages unleashed by Chavista economic policies.

National Guard Lt. José Antonio Colina, exiled in Miami, said the mid-ranking officers may wind up joining forces and supporting Guaidó in a struggle against generals who are involved in drug trafficking or support Maduro because of their socialist beliefs.

AN UPRISING ‘FROM BELOW’

Amy Lt. Jhoan Zerpa, who also lives in exile in the United States, agreed that a military revolt could come from the middle and lower ranks of the armed forces.

“The bottom rungs of the armed forces are the ones that might manage to move everything,” Zerpa said. And that would not be because of politics, he added.

“The demands of the National Guard sergeant who rebelled last week in Cotiza were, ‘My daughter died. There’s no medicine. I am hungry. My salary is not enough.’” said Zerpa. “Another complained, ‘My mother has cancer, and I don’t have medicine.’”

Although turning their backs on Maduro would have a higher cost for the generals than for the lower ranks, that possibility should not be totally dismissed.

Aside from offering the possibility of an exit from the crisis, officers must also consider that the regime faces critical economic problems that could turn worse as the United States and the rest of the international community tighten sanctions on the Maduro regime, said Ellis.

“We’re reaching the point where the money has completely run out, and when the money completely runs out, the question that arises among regime officials is how to keep the military happy,” he said.

What’s more, Maduro’s rule may also suffer even if the military decides not to do anything.

“Before, if the military stayed in their barracks and did nothing, that would have favored Maduro because it did not cast any doubts on their continued support,” he added. “But now it’s the reverse, and it’s the opposition that is urging the military not to shoot, to stay in their barracks. Therefore, doing nothing favors Guaidó.”

Ellis used the example of the situation with the U.S. Embassy in Caracas after Maduro initially gave its staff 72 hours to abandon the country. Washington immediately responded that the diplomats would not leave because it does not recognize Maduro’s power to give such orders.

On Thursday, Maduro said U.S. personnel had until Sunday to leave. Later, the State Department ordered non-essential staff to get out, though it appears some will remain in Caracas.

“What is Maduro going to do about the embassy? Will he order the National Guard to occupy the U.S. Embassy in Caracas? The generals will prefer to stay in their barracks, because right now they don’t trust that the men they command will obey their orders,” said Ellis.

“The generals also know what it means to act against U.S. citizens,” he added. “Therefore Maduro could issue an order and run the risk that the military will not obey them, which would spark grave problems of perception among the rest of the military because it would show that he had lost control.”

This story was originally published January 24, 2019 at 8:15 PM.