Three weeks after Venezuela was struck by twin earthquakes on June 24, the scale of the devastation is still growing. The death toll is approaching 5,000 people, with 18,000 homeless and 21,000 more in shelters.
The worst-hit state is La Guaira on the Caribbean coast – an area that had already been the site of one of Venezuela’s worst natural disasters. In December 1999, the state, then called Vargas, saw several days of torrential rain which flushed mud and rock down the slopes of the Ávila mountains.
Hillside houses were swept away, entire neighbourhoods were buried under landslides, and buildings collapsed near the shore. Tens of thousands of people were thought to have perished, though the precise number is still unknown.
As I recounted in my 2003 book, Venezuela: The Crossroads of Hugo Chávez, the armed forces were central to that disaster response. As part of Plan Bolívar 2000, a programme that deployed around 70,000 troops across Venezuela for civic tasks such as infrastructure and road building, the military was sent to Vargas in large numbers. Soldiers pulled many survivors from the mud and rubble in the first days.
But as the relief effort dragged on, it soured into a dispute over who was in charge. In one incident, the then-governor of Vargas, Alfredo Laya, ordered a unit of paratroopers to deliver food and water to stranded families. The officers replied that they had no such orders and, following an argument, Laya was arrested.
In other incidents, military and civilian leaders disagreed over where to evacuate affected families and whether to house them in military or civilian facilities. Pablo Medina, an ally of Venezuela’s president at the time, Hugo Chávez, accused the army of acting “as if an atomic bomb had been dropped”, instead of responding to a natural disaster.
That episode was an early indication of how embedded in Venezuelan public life the military would become in the following years.
First under Chávez and later his successor Nicolás Maduro, who was removed from power by a January 2026 US military operation, the Venezuelan armed forces expanded well beyond the barracks. Military figures took senior posts across government ministries and state companies, gaining a direct stake in the running of the country.
Miguel Gutierrez / EPA
Twenty-seven years on, after the same coast was struck by earthquakes, the military’s role in the disaster response has again been surrounded by controversy.
As in 1999, the armed forces are deeply involved in the operation. Visiting La Guaira in late June 2026, human rights NGO Provea reported that the government appeared to be prioritising military and police control of the territory over basic relief.
Provea criticised the “excessive military presence” near camps for affected people, and flagged the presence of intelligence and counter-espionage bodies with no legal role in disaster management. It warned that saturating the zone with armed agents was slowing aid delivery and could constitute a mechanism of social control.
The Venezuelan government has told a different story. It claims the militarisation of the disaster zone is necessary to allow relief to move in and reach the affected families.
Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez – who spent much of the first two weeks after the earthquakes battling criticism that the state’s response had been too slow – said her government wanted to stop what she called media “labs” from spinning negative narratives.
As the relief effort turned into reconstruction, Rodríguez launched a rebuilding plan called Venezuela Renace (Venezuela Reborn). The government says that, under this plan, nearly 5,000 buildings across La Guaira and the capital, Caracas, have been inspected. The plan has also provided economic support to help the worst-affected families.
The rebuilding is being run through a mix of civilian and military bodies. On the coast, however, the works are coordinated by a single military figure, Major General Juan Ernesto Sulbarán Quintero, with army engineers taking on the rebuilding in several La Guaira neighbourhoods. More than 30,000 security personnel are still deployed in the worst-affected states.
The next phase
The military’s prominence in the recovery effort raises questions about what comes next. It also offers a glimpse into the future of civil-military relations in post-Maduro Venezuela.
Before the earthquakes, there were signs that Rodríguez was keen to reduce the visibility of the Venezuelan armed forces in politics, while bringing them more tightly under her control.
She replaced the long-serving defence minister, General Padrino López, with a more discreet and loyal insider called Gustavo González López.
Rodríguez also appointed a new general staff, regional commanders and heads for each of the five individual branches of the armed forces – the army, navy, air force, national guard and Bolivarian Militia.
At the same time, she has returned several government ministries from military to civilian hands, while relaunching welfare programmes aimed at troops. These changes suggested a move towards a less overt political role for the Venezuelan armed forces.
But despite this rebalancing, the military remains influential in Venezuela. The Rodríguez government still leans heavily on it for political support, as well as to contain the opposition and help secure oil and mining areas for private investors – a strategic US interest in Venezuela.
In some contexts, humanitarian response and civic action can provide a legitimate internal mission for a professional military – provided it is bound by clear prerogatives away from governance.
Given the military’s history in Venezuela, however, the recent disaster is more likely to reinforce its broad role in decision-making and influence over how the country is run.
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