Untitled Document
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Citizen-soldiers are being trained
for battle in a parking lot in Caracas |
Rafael Cabrices does not know whether the attack will come by sea, by land, or
even from within Venezuela.
But he is sure that US President George W Bush is plotting to oust leftist
President Hugo Chavez - and Mr Cabrices is preparing his people to fight.
"That crazy man wants the petroleum," Mr Cabrices, 60, says in his
office decorated with posters of Che Guevara, Simon Bolivar and President Chavez.
In the empty parking lot outside, civilian "corporals" bark commands
at groups of adults and teenagers in white shirts and black caps and pants.
They are marching around, training for battle.
Over recent months, the populist president has warned that the US may invade
Venezuela or try to assassinate him. He has called for Venezuelans to join a
new civil reserve defence force, which, it is claimed, numbers two million members.
During a recent commemoration of a revolutionary war battle, Mr Chavez called
for preparation for an "asymmetric war" against the world's most powerful
nation.
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President Chavez has called
for preparation for an "asymmetric war" |
Militaristic
"If somebody meddles with Venezuela, they'll repent for 100 centuries,"
the President declared. "If we have to fight a war to defend this country,
we'll make the blood flow."
The training of citizen-soldiers is part of an increasingly militaristic emphasis
in the six-year-old 'Revolution for the Poor' headed by Mr Chavez, a former army
paratrooper who led a failed military coup attempt in 1992.
During recent months, Venezuela has been buying 100,000 AK-47 rifles and military
helicopters from Russia, as well as ships and planes from Brazil and Spain.
The arms-buying spree worries Colombian leaders, while US officials have asked
why Venezuela bought more rifles than it has soldiers. Those officials have
suggested that excess rifles might be smuggled to illegal armed groups in Colombia.
"What in the world [is the threat] that Venezuela sees that makes them
want to have all those weapons?" US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
told the Miami Herald recently.
Mr Chavez's warnings that the US, which buys most of Venezuela's oil, might
invade, have resonated with his supporters. They have been suspicious ever since
Washington rushed to endorse the April 2002 coup which briefly unseated the
president.
Venezuelan officials assert that the arms and the citizen reserve are for purely
defensive purposes and that Washington resents the fact that Venezuela did not
buy US-made weapons.
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Cabrices heads
a 140-member-strong Popular Defence Unit |
'Fatherland or death'
Mr Cabrices' 140-member-strong Popular Defence Unit trains weekends and weekday
evenings in an empty parking lot in a middle-class Caracas neighbourhood called
"The Paradise".
The quiet street leading to the site is lined by homes, pre-schools and a hospital.
On a warm evening, a group of about a dozen men and women in their 20s and 30s
march stiffly to their corporal's commands of "Left, right, left".
Nearby, teenage boys and girls seated on the ground listen to their commander
explain how 'imperialism' undermined Bolivar's revolution.
"The president is talking about" the threat of an invasion, "and
the president doesn't talk foolishness," says Olimpia Hung, a cheery 44-year-old
clothing merchant and impassioned Chavez supporter. "Fatherland or death."
The reserve unit has no weapons, Mr Cabrices says, but he wants some. He interrupted
an interview to ask a reporter if he know anyone who could bring them arms.
"For defence one needs arms," he says. "It's logical."
'Revolution'
Paunchy, grey-haired and wearing a red shirt with the slogan "Combatant
of the Revolution", Rafael Cabrices is a polarising figure here.
During the April 2002 coup, he was among a group of Chavez supporters filmed
firing guns from a downtown Caracas bridge. Many Chavez opponents accuse the
bridge gunmen of shooting some of the 17 people killed and more than 100 wounded
that day.
But Cabrices says he fired only at anti-Chavez police and hit nobody.
After the president's supporters swept him back to power, Mr Cabrices and others
were jailed for a year and then cleared. To Chavez opponents, he represents the
violence and lawlessness they say the president's "revolution" promotes.
"If Cabrices is a leader, then he can lead other prisoners in jail,"
says Mohamad Merhi, whose son Jesus was shot and killed while participating
in an anti-Chavez demonstration during the coup.
After leaving jail, Mr Cabrices established this government-sponsored "endogenous
nucleus", an initiative to promote self-help among the poor.
The nucleus has a small hydroponic vegetable garden, as well as Cuban doctors
who provide basic medical care.
Within two years, he says, the nucleus's members will build housing, stores
and factories on the parking lot.
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Oil is Venezuela's main source of foreign cash
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Internal dissent
But it is the group's military training which has attracted attention. Critics
say Venezuela's new military reserves are intended more to intimidate domestic
opponents than to repel foreign invaders.
"We could come to a point where this militia could take over Venezuela,"
says Daniel, a neighbour and university student who would not give his last
name. "You and I couldn't be here talking in the street."
But retired General Alberto Muller, a military analyst who is close to Chavez
government officials, says Venezuela's new reserve is similar to the US's own
Army Reserve and civilian forces in many nations.
"The ideal would be like Switzerland, where every citizen has his weapon
in his home," Mr Muller says.
Many observers dismiss the idea that the US would, or even could, invade Venezuela,
a democratic nation and crucial oil supplier, particularly with the US military
already overstretched in Iraq.
US officials have frequently criticised Mr Chavez's domestic and foreign policies,
but dismiss suggestions that Washington is planning military action against
the supplier of 14% of its petroleum imports.
Colombian military analyst Alfredo Rangel, who heads the Security and Democracy
Foundation in Bogota, says the reserve forces' real purpose is to repress internal
dissent, and suggested that they will be given some of Venezuela's new Russian
rifles.
Rangel says nobody will invade Venezuela, but that if the civil reserves were
to confront a trained military force "they wouldn't stand a chance,"
he says.
Not everybody sees the civilian forces as so threatening. Ana Maria, a slim,
soft-voiced 17-year-old member of Cabrices' unit, said the experience is teaching
her discipline, values and self-defence skills.
"I'm learning to defend my Fatherland and myself," she says. "It
has nothing to do with weapons."