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Potential Blackwater business development opportunity - Spanish fluency required.
 Venezuela will need to buy more weapons to equip its reservists. Venezuela has increased the number of reservists in its military to a total of two million men and women. Army high command spokesman Col Herrera Jimenez said that around one-and-a-half million Venezuelans had recently signed up to become reservists.
He said the kind of war Venezuela wanted to fight was a people's war like in Iraq, "where an entire population is rising up against a foreign aggressor".
The news may alarm the US and countries neighbouring Venezuela.
| We're certainly not threatened, but neighboring countries have to be worried. It becomes easier for Hugo to threaten them, and some of the new rifles could end up in the hands of 'rebels'. |
Since last November, Venezuela's armed forces have been carrying out a massive recruitment drive for new reservists. Col Jimenez, who is in charge of the military's recruitment programme, said that the country's two million reservists would serve in the territorial guard and the reserve of the army, air force and navy. "We fully expect these reservists be armed and to be able to fight in the front line if and when required," he said. He said the four months of basic training would start in the first week of March.
| What they are really doing, as a first step, is solidifying their control over the countryside by arming their supporters. Much more difficult for the opposition to act if there are a million rifles out there. The second step is to force the opposition to surrender to them or be killed. These 'milita' types wouldn't last 15 minutes against trained soldiers, but in a 'Rwanda' type situation, it's like handing all your supporters a machete. |
Venezuela's military high command and indeed President Hugo Chavez himself say they want to boost the country's defences to repel any potential threat or attempt to invade the country. His decision to increase the reservists from 500,000 last year to two million means that around one in five Venezuelan adults could be called up for military service in the event of war.
President Chavez has repeatedly accused the US of aggressive behaviour towards Venezuela. The US has a military reserve roughly half the size of the one being assembled in Venezuela.
However Venezuela only has enough rifles to equip its professional army of around 80,000 soldiers. But last year President Chavez announced the military was purchasing a further 100,000 Russian assault rifles. The government is also studying the possibility of manufacturing many more of these Kalashnikov rifles in Venezuelan factories.
| As I recall, the rifles being purchased were an older variant of the AK-47: not used by professional soldiers these days, but good enough to kill your opposition. |
Posted by: Besoeker 2006-02-16 |
