Venezuelan troops choose desertion
Attacked and powerless, 40 soldiers abandon posts and run for their lives
CUCUTA (Colombia): The simple house on a street ridden with potholes in this town on Colombia’s restive border with Venezuela has become a refuge for the newly homeless – 40 Venezuelan soldiers who abandoned their posts and ran for their lives.
The young National Guard troops sleep on thin mats on the floor. In one room, several flak jackets rest along a wall. On a balcony, boots that got wet crossing the muddy Tachira River are set out to dry.
“I was tired of people seeing me as just one more of them,” Sgt Jorge Torres said, referring to President Nicolas Maduro’s socialist government. “I’m not.”
A high-stakes plan by the Venezuelan opposition to bring humanitarian aid into the country floundered on Saturday when troops loyal to Maduro refused to let the trucks carrying food and medical supplies cross, but it did set off a wave of military defections unlike any seen yet amid the country’s mounting crisis. Over 270 mostly low-ranking soldiers fled in a span of three days, Colombian immigration officials said on Monday.
Nine National Guard soldiers described the day they were ordered by commanders to stop the humanitarian aid from entering Venezuela. Fearful of being jailed, many complied with orders and admitted to launching tear gas at protesters. Two said they were part of a failed plot to get the aid in. All fled after making unplanned, split-second decisions with only the uniform on their backs.
The defections come as the Venezuelan opposition puts pressure on the military to recognise congress leader Juan Guaido as the nation’s rightful president.
Venezuela’s military has served as the traditional arbiter of political disputes, forcing out dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez in 1958. But the top military brass has stood fast with Maduro, who has shown no sign he intends to relinquish power.
While Guaido has proposed amnesty to officers who back him, the low-ranking soldiers who have defected say breaking ranks with Maduro is all but impossible.
Anyone who shows the slightest hint of disapproval risks arrest, they said, and jail has become increasingly synonymous with tor- ture. Even those like Sgt Jose Gomez, who wanted to see the aid brought in, followed orders to repress citizens. As Saturday grew increasingly tense, protesters threw rocks and gasoline bombs at him. He said he responded by throwing tear gas at them to protect himself.
Others at the home also had evidence of the resistance they faced that day: Torres still had blood caked beneath the skin on his nose from protesters kicking him on the ground after he surrendered to Colombian authorities. A young woman had a scratch across her cheek that she said came from a rock thrown by protesters.
During the clashes, armed pro-Maduro groups known as “colectivos” fired indiscriminately, and several of the soldiers said they feared being shot themselves. National Guard troops are equipped with crowd-control devices like rubber bullets and tear gas but do not carry any regular firearms.
Like the rest of the population struggling against hyper-inflation expected to reach an eye-boggling 10 million per cent this year, the soldiers also knew the indignities of life in Venezuela, where severe shortage of food and medicine have led to more than three million people leaving the country in recent years.
“You know that in your own home you don’t even have a kilo of rice,” said the female soldier, who requested anonymity, fearing for the safety of her children back home.
Two months ago, Gomez watched as his newborn son died within 15 minutes because the hospital where his wife delivered did not have oxygen to pump into his failing lungs.
Torres said an aunt died of cancer and an uncle succumbed to a curable stomach infection.
“That’s what pushed me to make this decision,” Torres said.
When Guaido first announced the aid push, Torres said that he and three soldiers in his barracks huddled and quietly discussed their options. As National Guard drivers, they had access to armoured trucks.
They hatched a plan to drive the vehicles across the Simon Bolivar International Bridge, breaking down the barricades that stood in the way and allowing opposition trucks to carry the aid in.
On Saturday morning, Torres climbed into one of the trucks and charged it across the bridge.
Though he broke through barricades, he also hit a woman trying to enter Colombia. She escaped serious injury, but he was forced to stop. Getting out with his rifle in hand, Torres raised his arms in surrender and helped the woman toward an ambulance.
As one of the first deserters, he was quickly taken in and presented to Guaido, who had sneaked across the border into Colombia to oversee the aid launch.