It’s not the first time Maduro has unleashed the motorcycle shock troops. On Wednesday, as Maduro asked for “nerves of steel” to head off Guaido’s uprising, the colectivos once more heeded the call. Initially used as community organizers around social programs, they really came to prominence after 2002, when a coup attempt against Chavez failed. Venezuela disbanded its metropolitan police in 2011, InSight Crime reports, and certain neighbourhoods in Caracas were ceded to the colectivos altogether. “We will be in the streets.”Yet so too, it seems, will Maduro’s motorcycle shock troops.

Source: National Post May 02, 2019 17:08 UTC