Chavez's 'citizen militias' on the march By Mike Ceaser In Caracas, Venezuela
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 defense 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.
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.
'Fatherland or death'
Mr. Cabrices' 140-member-strong Popular Defense Unit trains weekends and weekday evenings in an empty parking lot in a middle-class Caracas neighborhood 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 defense one needs arms," he says. "It's logical."
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