RESEARCH PAPER
FARC-Hezbollah: The success of Venezuela-Iran proxy groups and their convergence in the Americas
| 1 | Alumni, George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, Germany |
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Jeferson Guarin P.
Alumni, George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, Gernackerstrasse 2, 82467, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany
Alumni, George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, Gernackerstrasse 2, 82467, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany
Submission date: 2020-09-14
Final revision date: 2020-11-02
Acceptance date: 2020-11-27
Online publication date: 2020-12-29
Publication date: 2020-12-30
Security and Defence Quarterly 2020;31(4):117–134
KEYWORDS
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
Persistence and adaptation are the main characteristics that have allowed FARC and Hezbollah to become perhaps the most successful proxy groups in recent years. Both Iran and Venezuela have sponsored the military, political and criminal actions of these alleged insurgent organisations. The main objective of this research was to identify and conceptualise the mitotic evolution of FARC and Hezbollah from purely armed organisms into consolidated political organisations in Colombia and Lebanon, and how this evolution has presented a criminal convergence in Venezuela based on drug trafficking and money laundering. This article is based on a comparative case-study of published research papers, documents, and official statements of FARC and Hezbollah, by applying a rational perspective that allows their performance to be deduced. The research results showed a constant mutation of these hybrid threats. Thus, not only was the political and military success of these organisations established but also the strategic support of a criminal dimension which converged in Venezuela, where the FARC drug trafficking and Hezbollah money laundering were amalgamated. Consequently, the investigation exposes the possible consequences of the FARC-Hezbollah criminal convergence in the Americas and its destabilising effects in the next decade.
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