WaPo: The colectivos. Maduro's muscle.
Maduro’s muscle: Politically backed motorcycle gangs known as 'colectivos' are the enforcers for Venezuela’s authoritarian leader
By Mary Beth Sheridan and Mariana Zuñiga March 14 at 6:00 AM
CARACAS, Venezuela — The neighbors were fed up. For days, they’d had no electricity or running water because of a massive national blackout. So one morning this week, they piled logs and garbage into a makeshift barricade in their middle-class Caracas neighborhood and started yelling slogans against the government.
Then came the motorcycles.
Translation #Attention Maduro armed groups shoot at buildings # Chacao They
raise barricades set by neighbors protesting # MegaApagon
There were at least 20 of them, their motors buzzing, driven by men with scarves over their faces, according to interviews with 10 witnesses. The demonstrators scattered. But as people in surrounding buildings started hurling bottles at the bikers, the men raised their weapons — pistols and rifles — and opened fire.
No one was injured. But the neighbors were terrified.
“Now we can’t even protest, because they’ll shoot at us,” said Delia Arellano, 72, one of the demonstrators.
The attack on Sunday was a chilling sign of how President Nicolás Maduro is increasingly relying on paramilitary groups as he clings to power. This week, he publicly urged the motorcycle-riding “colectivos” to intensify their efforts, as the country teetered on the edge of economic collapse and a U.S.-backed opposition movement pressed for his ouster.
“I call on the colectivos; the hour of resistance has arrived, active resistance in the community,” Maduro declared in the speech on Monday.
The colectivos aren’t nearly as big as Venezuela’s armed forces — they number perhaps 5,000 to 7,500 members nationwide, most of them in cities, according to Alejandro Velasco, a history professor at New York University who has studied the phenomenon. But they help explain how Maduro has remained in power even as the country’s economy and poorly maintained power grid have broken down. The paramilitary forces are nimble and committed — and they have an extraordinary ability to sow terror.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/maduros-muscle-politically-backed-motorcycle-gangs-known-as-colectivos-are-the-enforcers-for-venezuelas-authoritarian-leader/2019/03/13/2242068c-4452-11e9-94ab-d2dda3c0df52_story.html?utm_term=.e6878c4a26b8
I talked to some friends and relatives in Venezuela two days ago. A week now without reliable power and NO water. (I wonder where Max Blumenthal gets his Caracas water? Meh... he probably drinks his scotch and washes up with his beer!) No water anywhere, except at a few gravity fed spigots. And guess who is guarding these spigots, and extorting El Pueblo? (for the glory of La Patria!)
The colectivos.
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