Venezuela Challenges US with 2M Voluntary Soldiers
http://www.zaman.com/?bl=internation...60305&hn=30502
By Foreign News Desk
Published: Sunday, March 05, 2006
Venezuela, frequently coming to the agenda with its anti-US policies, aims to have the largest “voluntary reserve army” in the American continent by training two million civilians in the upcoming year.
In this frame, About 500,000 voluntary civilians began the four-month military training program on Saturday. Venezuela will have the largest reserve army, double the size of US armed services reserves, in the American continent by the summer of 2007. Being a part of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s “public army” plan, this army will directly intervene in possible civilian unrests and conflicts.
In a statement to the British daily Guardian, General Alberto Muller Rojas who implemented the new military strategy, told: “If the US army occupies our country one day as many people think, the only way out for us is to make a guerilla war”. Indicating that they have 80,000 professional soldiers, General Rojas said they need civilians like the ones in Iraq who fight against the US army.
Senior military officials emphasize that a very deterrent power will be formed against the possible attacks towards Venezuela with the training of one out of five adults with this program. The daily stressed the fact that public companies in Venezuela, the world’s fifth biggest oil exporter, established their own security units increased the demands for joining the “public army”. The Venezuelan Parliament is working on a law draft, which will render it “compulsory” for adults to join the “public army”.
Those over the age of 18 have to serve a 2,5-year military service in the country, which has a population of 25 million. The number of potential soldiers between the ages of 18 and 49 is more than six million in the country where more than 250 thousand youths are registered as soldiers every year. The annual military expense of the country is around $2 billion
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