Thursday 24 October 2013

Venezuelan President wants all ministers to join state militia

Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro Moros said on 23 October that he wanted the regime's civilian militia to have 500,000 members by 2015 and one million by 2019, and "all our ministers...must join...as militiamen and women," the broadcaster Globovisión and agencies reported. He told a meeting of armed forces officers at the Historical Military Museum in Caracas that the National Bolivarian Militia, formed in 2005 and performing a range of public-service or civic tasks, should defend Venezuela's "sovereignty and right to peace." Militia members were recently sent into supermarkets to attend to the public and control prices, Argentina's La Nación reported on 24 October, citing news agencies. The militia includes a "territorial militia" consisting of the "people," and "fighting" units including public-sector employees, the daily reported, observing that opponents have qualified it as the regime's "praetorian guard." Mr Maduro said not for the first time, that the country was the target of an economic war waged by enemies. The country's Oil Minister Rafael Ramírez said the same day that Venezuela envisaged "massive" imports of foodstuffs in the following two months to combat shortages and inflation, without elaborating, Europa Press reported. He was addressing a conference on the Isla Margarita off Venezuela's Caribbean coast. The country was to hold municipal elections on 8 December, a date Mr Maduro declared would become the day of "love and loyalty" to the "legacy" of the late President Hugo Chávez, the official AVN agency reported on 23 October.

No comments:

Post a Comment