Venezuelan army reservists are training civilians, apparently to defend their country against a presumed U.S. invasion. But critics say President Hugo Chávez is building a private army.
"Since his election in 1998, Chávez and his allies have won control of congress and the justice and electoral systems. Awash in oil money, he has also extended health and literacy programs to scores of poor neighborhoods, and recently declared himself a ``socialist.''
A former army lieutenant colonel who led a failed coup attempt in 1992, Chávez also has placed his closest confidants in key military positions.
And now, partly through the militias, he is seeking to revise the country's military doctrine and prepare it for ''asymmetrical war'' -- a fight between superior and inferior foes.''The only way we have to defend ourselves is with guerrilla war,'' said Rafael Cabrices, the middle-aged leader of the new militia unit that was training under Sgt. Nahmens last month.
''Venezuela is made for guerrilla war,'' Cabrices added, observing the closely packed apartment buildings that rise up along the mountains that surround Caracas, a city of six million people. ``They'd have to take it house by house.''The ''they'' Cabrices is referring to is the United States.
In the past few months, tensions between the U.S. and Chávez governments ratcheted up even as they maintained economic relations vital to both nations -- especially Venezuela's sale of about 1.5 million barrels of oil a day to the United States."
No comments:
Post a Comment