Oil, gold and food, the true power of the military in Venezuela

"Always loyal, traitors never!" Repeats his followers Nicolás Maduro. And these days when the future of the crisis is played fundamentally in the barracks, the ruling party has an extra ingredient to ensure the loyalty of the 140,000 military that the country has. The predominant role that Chavismo assigned to the uniformed in Venezuela's economy would be threatened in a democratic regime such as that proposed by interim president Juan Guaidó.

"The military is no longer interested in the political power of the ministries, as well as in the management of companies, especially in three activities that produce foreign exchange: oil, mining and food," explained La Nación Rocío San Miguel, of the NGO Control Ciudadano, which last year published the report "The framework of companies, foundations and military organs in Venezuela."

The state oil company Pdvsa, which provides more than 95% of the revenues of the national budget, has been directed for a year and a half by an official of the Bolivarian National Guard, Manuel Quevedo, a general without experience in the matter.

The second category is mining, since Venezuela holds one of the reserves of bauxite (from which aluminum is obtained), gold and diamonds are the largest in the world. The mining operation is controlled by the military through Camimpeg (Compañía Anónima Militar de Industrias Mineras, Petrolíferas y de Gas, created in 2016), chaired by Major General Alexander Cornelio Hernández Quintana.

Another specialist, Francine Jacome, executive director of the Venezuelan Institute of Social and Political Studies, Invesp, indicated that today "it is much easier to see in which economic sectors the military does not have direct control, since most of it is under their control" .

The economic areas that escape the military administration are "very limited spaces that remained in private hands: businesses, SMEs, telecommunications and banking," said Jacome. "But even there there is a permanent government supervision and in many cases by entities controlled by active military or retired," he says.

The growing insertion of the military in the economy is coinciding with the deterioration of the general situation in recent years and the need to guarantee the support of the Armed Forces (Bolivarian National Guard, Military Aviation, Army and Navy). If only for his military salary, for example, a major would earn just the equivalent of about $ 15 per month, income that would reach him to support his family for three days.

Thus, the lonely company Cavim (Venezuelan Anonymity of Military Industries), founded in 1975 and dedicated to the manufacture and import of ammunition and armaments, the military now have 20 companies ranging from planting and harvesting of grains to manufacturing of cleaning products, school texts and toys.

The big question then is whether a future democratic government could "disarm" this framework to return control of the economy to private hands. "Until Guaidó offers the Armed Forces a plan for the future, there is no possibility that they will revert their support to Maduro," said San Miguel.

For his part, Jacome added: "In a transition to democracy, always in the medium term, we must promote strategies of mutual trust that allow civil control over the military sector."

The specialist also established a direct relationship between the growing military role in the economy and the increase in insecurity rates in the most violent country in Latin America, which last year reached 81 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. "It is necessary for the military to return to institutionalism and professionalism to exercise the legitimate monopoly of force," he concluded.