“Every organism in the territory. Every cell there is. They want to control it absolutely.”
That is how a human rights investigator described life in the Colombian department of Arauca, along the border with Venezuela, one of the historical bastions of the guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional – ELN).
In some areas of Arauca, the ELN imposes curfews, while in others, it keeps the population confined, allowing them to leave only to buy food or attend medical appointments with prior permission from the guerrillas.
*This article is the third in a five-part investigation, “Peace Never Had a Chance: Colombia’s ELN in Venezuela,” analyzing the growth of the ELN in Venezuela and how this has allowed the rebel group to project itself into Colombia. Read the full investigation here.
Those traveling between territories under rebel dominance must carry a permit or arrange in advance for passes to cross ELN checkpoints, according to local residents and humanitarian workers who spoke with InSight Crime.
Moreover, the ELN acts as the main judicial authority in the region. Through “revolutionary trials,” commanders impose punishments and sanctions on those who break rules or commit common crimes. Penalties can range from fines and forced labor to expulsion from communities or even execution of the accused.
The group’s influence also extends to the formal political sphere. Several elected governors and mayors in Arauca have been prosecuted and imprisoned for links to the guerrillas. The ELN even reportedly collects a 5% commission on most public contracts and also intervenes in bidding processes with front companies or trusted intermediaries.
This level of control allows the ELN to operate virtually unimpeded in this geographically strategic border region. The group earns significant profits from the cross-border drug trade, and it can use Arauca as a safe base from which to send reinforcements when they are needed elsewhere.
It took decades for the ELN to achieve this level of hegemony in Arauca. But more recently, it has solidified a similar level of social control on the other side of the border, in the Venezuelan state of Apure, where it operates with the complicity of not just local, but national state elements.
Deep Roots in Arauca
The armed wing of the ELN responsible for Arauca is known as the Eastern War Front (Frente de Guerra Oriental). It is the most important military and financial structure of the ELN, and its wealth and influence have expanded significantly in recent years.
The origins of the Eastern War Front date back to the 1970s, when a group of ELN fighters settled in Arauca after surviving a state offensive known as “Operation Anorí,” which left the guerrillas on the brink of extinction.
The group received a significant capital injection through extorting oil companies operating in the region. An emblematic case was that of the German multinational Mannesmann, which in the 1980s paid over $2 million in ransom after the kidnapping of several of its employees, allowing the guerrilla group to build a solid financial base to consolidate its insurgent project in Arauca.
Once it had accumulated significant economic resources, the Domingo Laín Sáenz Front, the main substructure of the Eastern War Front, expanded its capacity for action and social influence. Through the co-option of community leaders, infiltration into social and political organizations, and recruitment of young people, the ELN took root in the territory.
But the attractiveness of Arauca as a base for guerrilla operations sparked violent competition for control of the border region against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – FARC).
Between 2005 and 2011, the ELN and the FARC were responsible for hundreds of murders, forced displacements, and a widespread climate of terror. However, after a truce in 2011, the social rules and drug trafficking dynamics in the area changed.
The ELN, in consultation with local farmers, decided to replace coca cultivation with other crops.
“The ELN has such control that allowing drug trafficking in Arauca risks other armed actors wanting to occupy the territory,” said a social leader from Arauca in conversation with InSight Crime.
The growing social and economic control of the ELN reached another level after the demobilization of the FARC following a peace deal with the Colombian government in 2016. In addition to occupying spaces left by the rival guerrillas, the ELN also ventured into territories where the FARC had historically operated, such as the departments of Vichada and Guainía in Colombia and the state of Amazonas in Venezuela.
This expansion process was led by Gustavo Aníbal Giraldo, alias “Pablito,” a member of the ELN’s ruling body, the Central Command, or COCE. He became the architect of the expansion of the Eastern War Front on both sides of the Venezuelan border. Under his command, the front consolidated strategic positions in Arauca and began to project its power into other territories.
With the support of commanders like William Ernesto Cruz, alias “El Profe,” and Moisés Bautista Núñez, alias “Jorge” or “Heliodoro,” the Eastern War Front expanded its involvement in lucrative criminal economies, particularly drug trafficking, and extended its influence into new border areas where it had never operated before. Over time, the Eastern War Front became the most powerful structure of the ELN nationally, with nearly 2,000 fighters.
However, this expansion and territorial occupation was not just military; it was built upon intense social control over many of the local communities.
A Mirror Across the Border
In the Venezuelan state of Apure, across the border from Arauca, the Eastern War Front exported the model of social control that has proven effective in Colombia. The main difference is that, in Venezuela, the ELN manages illicit economies and regulates the social order with the complicity of state elements. On the Colombian side, the ELN are insurgents. On the Venezuelan side, they are pro-regime paramilitaries.
The ELN first entered Apure in the 1980s as it attempted to evade Colombian security forces. Initially, however, they were not well received in Venezuela, mainly thanks to their strikes against the military, such as the 1996 attack on the Carabobo naval base and the 1997 ambush in Cotufi, located in the municipality of Paéz in Apure.
But when Hugo Chávez came to power in the late 1990s, the Eastern War Front gained an important ideological ally, and the rebel presence was initially tolerated and then encouraged
Under Chávez’s successor, Nicolás Maduro, the ideological affinity with the ELN evolved into a strategic alliance for the regime. The ELN acts as a backstop in areas where the state is weak, providing political muscle, protecting the border, and pursuing rival criminal groups.
As it did in Arauca, the ELN has made deep inroads into local politics in Apure, providing campaign cash and political intimidation services to the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela – PSUV).
At times, the ELN has overplayed its hand. For example, in the July 2025 municipal elections, an ELN leader named José Bladimir Bigott Portela, alias “El Mecha,” ran for councilor on the PSUV ticket. Described by multiple sources as a “dangerous” man involved in extortion and murders, he had gained community support by financing sports events and social works in rural and indigenous areas. However, the media attention that his candidacy garnered appeared to cause the PSUV to pull its support.
“I think they had to separate him to avoid a bigger issue, a bigger scandal,” said a social leader from Apure who spoke under anonymity for safety reasons.
The local communities’ perception of the ELN is ambiguous. While some residents view it as a legitimate authority providing security and order in the absence of the state, others see it as an oppressive force that imposes its will through violence and intimidation. Those who challenge the ELN’s authority in Apure face severe consequences.
“If you don’t follow the rules, they take you, take your motorbike or canoe, and detain you at their camps or farms,” a local cattle rancher told InSight Crime.
Maduro’s Paramilitary Force
The Eastern War Front offers the Maduro regime more than political support. It has proven to be an essential paramilitary force that can exert territorial control in the contentious border region.
A demonstration of the ELN’s effectiveness came in 2020, when Venezuelan security forces mounted a failed offensive against another guerrilla group, which left several military personnel dead, several captured, and damaged the Venezuelan army’s image. In response, Maduro and the military leadership turned to the ELN to carry out the mission the army could not complete.
In a matter of weeks, the ELN defeated the dissident guerrillas calling themselves the 10th Front of the demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia — FARC). The ELN solidified its control over Apure, expelling the rival dissident FARC units and establishing itself as the primary criminal actor in the region.
After the victory in Apure, the Eastern War Front kept a territorial division agreement with the Second Marquetalia, a separate FARC dissident group led by Luciano Marín Arango, alias “Iván Márquez,” a guerrilla commander with direct access to Caracas. In addition to coexisting in Apure, both guerrillas shared business interests in the nearby state of Amazonas, particularly in gold and coltan mines and drug trafficking.
However, the relationship was shattered in early August 2025, when the Second Marquetalia accused the ELN of assassinating its second-in-command, José Manuel Sierra Sabogal, alias “Zarco Aldinever,” in Amazonas. Venezuelan authorities mounted an operation ostensibly aimed at quelling violence between the two groups, but most of the destroyed guerrilla camps, seized weapons, and confiscated clothing were linked to the Second Marquetalia. The ELN was left intact.
The developments echoed the ELN’s offensive in early 2025 that targeted yet another FARC dissident group, the 33rd Front in Colombia’s Catatumbo region, likely with the assistance of the Venezuelan military. With control of Apure and the Amazonas border, the Eastern War Front would gain access to almost half of the Colombia-Venezuela border, tracing a sphere of influence along the frontier that the ELN wants to consolidate all the way up to the Caribbean.
Maduro has an incentive to support the ELN’s bid for complete control of the frontier. Centralizing criminal power in the region would allow his government to maintain a relationship with a single actor rather than a fragmented collection of criminal allies. And the ELN’s successful model of social control means that relationship will likely provide the stability the Maduro regime currently cannot.
But ELN was not finished. The latest manifestation of this expansion and consolidation along the border can be seen in Táchira, a Venezuelan border state that once served as a stronghold for right-wing Colombian paramilitaries and the Venezuelan opposition. Now it is set to become the jewel in the ELN crown in its strategy to secure hegemony over the 2,219-kilometer border and become the strategic partner and pillar that props up the Maduro regime.
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