Guns, drugs, jobs. In these Venezuelan towns, Colombian rebels call the shots

FILE PHOTO: A rebel of Colombia's Marxist National Liberation Army (ELN) shows his armband while posing for a photograph, in the northwestern jungles, Colombia August 31, 2017. REUTERS/Federico Rios/File Photo

CARACAS (Reuters) - Soon after rebels from neighboring Colombia arrived in this Venezuelan village, they started choosing students from the local high school to harvest coca, the plant used to make cocaine, the school's principal told Reuters.

Four years later, these foreigners from the National Liberation Army, or ELN, function as both a local government and a major employer in this town in the northwestern state of Zulia, according to the educator and 14 other residents. All spoke on condition of anonymity and asked that their community not be named because they feared retaliation.