Alias ​​Uriel, leader of the Eln recruits young people through networks – Investigative Unit

Near one of the broadest branches of the Sipí River, in the jungles of Chocó, is the camp of alias Uriel, a 42-year-old guerrilla, born in Antioquia, who a few days ago admitted the intervention of the Eln militias in the Vandalism attacks in Bogotá and other cities during the days of protests on September 9 and 10.

“The uprisings and riots have not been motivated by different groups opposed to the Government. Our urban militancy participates in them as one more (…). Let’s end the torture and death centers called CAI ”, he is heard in an audio that he sent through networks.

(We invite you to read: The Eln’s new strategy to shake Bogotá and other capitals)

Although his camp is located more than 280 kilometers from the capital, the guerrilla – third in the command line of the so-called Western war front – moves more through the cloud (web) than in the jungle, where his group is disputes social control and drug trafficking with the ‘Clan del Golfo’.

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“For two years, Uriel has been in charge of recruiting young people by technological means. For that they have a clandestine structure called ‘Revolutionary Virtual Study and Work Collectives’, ”says an intelligence report.

And he adds that, with the revenues from the coca and the kidnappings that he carries out – such as that of 6 civilians and that of a former congressman -, he financially supports the higher education of young militants, in exchange for them fulfilling a work plan within the movement social and student eleno.

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Several of its ‘scholarship holders’ make up the urban militias of the Eln in the main capitals and irrigate the revolutionary messages that it sends periodically from their accounts on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp.

The breeding ground could not be better. In Bogotá alone, 34.6 percent of the unemployed are young, double from last year. And access and permanence in networks are also increasing in the wake of the pandemic.

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However, this new strategy of massive social penetration has been used by the ELN long before the health emergency (at least two years ago), and they project alias Uriel as the spearhead for the insurrection in cities. But the brain is their boss, Ogli Ángel Padilla Romero, alias Fabián, right hand of ‘Pablito’, the so-called ‘ELN killer’.

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The medical record

For the militia fishing among young people, ‘Uriel’ is sold as part of the bourgeois and intellectual minority that has come to renew the leadership of the Eln. In this regard, members of intelligence agencies told EL TIEMPO reporters that electronic engineering studies appear in a public study center in Medellin.

(You may be interested: ‘Behind the destruction of CAI there is an Eln plan and FARC dissidents’)

In addition, they range from harassment of police stations to the use of long-range weapons against Black Hawk helicopters, in Nóvita, Chocó.

It also has murders and burning of electoral material, in 2014, and the kidnapping of 6 people, in 2018.

In fact, he has a process against him for rebellion and another for rebellion and aggravated kidnapping. In those files, he is identified as Andrés Felipe Vanegas Londoño.

Part of the record against him is kept by a specialized prosecutor’s office, as well as the Police Gaula.

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According to investigators, deserters from the ELN assure that ‘Uriel’ also carries out ideological and political work in indigenous and Afro-descendant communities in the San Juan and Sipí area, Chocó.

“Paradoxically, in his speech he promotes popular uprising against massacres and violence, but his front is the one that generates more deaths and crimes in Chocó and other areas of influence,” explains an intelligence official.

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And he adds that he engages university students with the argument of supplying and renewing the militancy of the Eln, trying to develop cadres (leaders) with comprehensive capabilities far beyond the armed structures that are in force today.
But the purpose is to achieve protagonism of the revolutionary process in the masses (social networks) and in the media.

“Although it is true the ELN has brought advanced mass work for several years, these new forms of incorporation and engagement seek to diversify the forms and methods to develop organizational political work,” says an analyst.

(See here all the articles of the Investigative Unit of EL TIEMPO)

‘Uriel’ began as a militiaman, in 2000, in the Martha Elena Barón urban network; In 2005 he joined the Cacique Calarcá front as a guerrilla, and in 2019 he was already as an alleged ideologist of the Western war front, which opposed the dialogues with the Government, in 2017, through the table in Quito, contrary to the leadership that remains in Cuba and that, for now, has not disavowed it.

INVESTIGATIVE UNIT
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