.......most of these guys are lower level military who suffer the same as the average Venezuelan with a lack of food and medicines. It's going to take some defections from very near the top to make a difference IMHO.

And if the truth be known, the numbers are probably way higher than what's being reported as many who have walked away haven't crossed the border into Colombia, they've simply gone home without fear of reprisals from above.

I know one kid here who was in the Venezuelan Army for about a year and then suddenly I see him here in town for a week or two. I ask him one day what's going on and he tells me he's working on a local farm. When I asked if he'd been discharged and he told me he'd just left.....walked away because he'd gotten crossways with another soldier and feared the guy would kill him. I asked if he was concerned that the Army would track him down and put him in jail for deserting and he replied, "as far as I know, they don't do that, soldiers are constantly leaving".

Might be that the regime is having such a hard time keeping those troops fed that it's easier to just to let them walk.