Argentine gendarme detained in Venezuela: another chapter in the height of tension between Caracas and Buenos Aires

The case of the Argentine gendarme detained in Venezuela for conspiracy comes to put another twist to the growing tension between the governments of Nicolás Maduro and Javier Milei, just days before the Venezuelan president takes office for a new presidential term. What can happen? Are there possible ways of negotiation?

Marcos Salgado

Chavismo’s number two and Venezuelan Minister of the Interior, Diosdado Cabello, spoke on Monday during the usual press conference of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), about the situation of Nahuel Gallo, the non-commissioned officer of the Argentine National Gendarmerie arrested in Venezuela last week.
Until now, it was only known what was reported in Buenos Aires, that Gallo was arrested on December 8 in Venezuelan territory, after having entered by land through the bridge linking Cúcuta, in Colombia, with Ureña, in the state of Táchira, in the Venezuelan Andes.

Now, Diosdado Cabello confirmed the arrest and assured that the gendarme arrived in Venezuela to “fulfill a mission” and remarked that he is at the disposal of the Venezuelan justice. He thus put an end to four days of press versions, many of them self-serving, and of intemperate statements by Argentine officials, especially the Minister of Security and direct head of the Gendarmerie, Patricia Bullrich.

“With respect to what the Argentine Foreign Ministry says, how that hurt them. A person was detained, you go to his Instagram and it goes around the world, but his salary is 500 dollars, how do they manage it? What was he coming to Venezuela to do? What was his task here in Venezuela? They don’t say that but we will probably say it at some point,” Cabello said.

The way and the reasons for the entry of the gendarme to Venezuela leave doubts. In the first hours after the fact was known, Argentine media assured that the non-commissioned officer was on official duty in Colombia (some speak of some kind of training) and that he traveled to Venezuela to visit his wife and son.

Then this version changed, neither the Gendarmerie nor the Milei government talked about this alleged secondment, and focused on the fact that Gallo had only traveled on a family visit. This change of version did not go unnoticed in Caracas.

The entry by land and through Táchira, is a sort of “green road” as it is called in Venezuela to the informal routes of smuggling, but also of paramilitarism and other armed businesses. Cabello said that with the arrest of the gendarme a plan was partially disarmed. “It hurt them, because he was coming to fulfill a mission, and it is not that the mission has been aborted, but we have given him a hard blow”, he said.

He also rejected the version of the family visit insisted on by Buenos Aires. “Everyone puts up a front, who has his girlfriend, his boyfriend. If you want to get married, come to Venezuela. Everyone makes that excuse,” he ironized.

The permanent conspiracy

Cabello has been denouncing in the last weeks several operations against the Venezuelan institutionality, ahead of a key date, January 10, when Nicolás Maduro will be sworn in for a new presidential term. In the last months, in several operations, Venezuelan intelligence and security forces seized large quantities of weapons of war and arrested two dozen people. Some of them were foreigners, among them Spaniards and an American who had served in the Marine Corps.

In Caracas they insist that these plans are permanent and grew especially in the second term of President Nicolás Maduro, on par with U.S. attempts to implant the parallel government of Juan Guaidó. Earlier, in 2018, a drone loaded with explosives exploded very close to a tribune where Maduro was giving a speech, in the middle of downtown Caracas and in 2020 a landing of mercenaries was thwarted in several points of Venezuela’s Caribbean coast.

The arrest of the Argentine gendarme took place within this framework of ongoing conspiracy. But also, necessarily, the fact comes to complicate even more the pressure cooker of the conflict between Argentina and Venezuela. The two countries have had their relations severed and their embassies closed since last August, when Argentina rejected the result of the presidential election.

Added to this is the situation of the residence of the Argentine embassy in Caracas, where six members of Vente Venezuela, the group of María Corina Machado, who are waiting for a safe-conduct from the Venezuelan government to leave for Buenos Aires, remain in asylum. In the last weeks, this issue was in the news due to the repeated denunciations of siege on the embassy, which were denied by Diosdado Cabello himself, who described them as a “show”.

What’s next?

As things stand, the tension between Argentina and Venezuela will continue to grow. Cabello said on Monday that “in Venezuela there is justice, authorities, sovereignty and independence and the Argentine Foreign Ministry will see what it does. They decided not to have relations with us. It is a little difficult. Those who come to conspire should assume their responsibility”.

Although this phrase leaves open the possibility of some kind of negotiation, it is not expected to be simple. Former Foreign Minister Diana Mondino had a direct line to her Venezuelan counterpart, Yván Gil. After Mondino’s departure and Milei’s raid on the Foreign Ministry, these bridges were cut. It is then speculated that any negotiation would be with Brazil (which keeps custody of the Argentine diplomatic premises in Venezuela) or even Colombia.

In Buenos Aires some voices are already asking Milei to establish a direct line with Lula’s government to advance in the case of the detained gendarme. A direct participation of the Argentinean in the moves that the Venezuelan opposition intends to put together for January 10 (former candidate Edmundo Gonzalez assures that he will be sworn in as president somehow and somewhere) would only complicate things even more.