Petro Threatens Joint Military Action with Venezuela Against ELN

Colombian President Gustavo Petro has threatened military action, alongside Venezuela, against the National Liberation Army (ELN), a leftist group that experts say has become a major cocaine trafficker with a foothold in Venezuela. Mr. Petro wrote on X that “If the ELN does not join the peace process by leaving Venezuela, there will be joint military actions with Venezuela.” Venezuela’s interim government did not respond to a request for comment.

The warning comes amid pressure from the United States, where the Trump administration has demanded that regional governments target groups it has designated as terrorist organizations; the ELN is on a confidential list of 24 groups that The New York Times obtained. The ELN’s top commander, Eliécer Herlinto Chamorro Acosta, told The Times that U.S.

prosecutors “will not find evidence because there is none” and denied the group was present in Venezuela. Experts say the ELN formed as a Catholic-Marxist group in the 1960s and shifted toward cocaine trafficking by the 1990s. Analysts cited in the reporting say the group took refuge in Venezuela after Colombia’s military operations, expanded there, tripled in size to around 6,000 fighters and forged links with corrupt Venezuelan officials.

Colombian authorities have said the armed group served as a useful shield for the Maduro government; Elizabeth Dickinson of the International Crisis Group said recent messaging from Caracas instructed the ELN to lock down the border.

Key Topics

World, Gustavo Petro, Eln, Colombia, Venezuela, Catatumbo