[Marxism] Chávez's military strategy unnerves some officers

["Fred Fuentes" <fred.fuentes@xxxxxxxxx>]

VENEZUELA
Chávez's military strategy unnerves some officers
The outgoing defense minister has criticized President Hugo Chávez's
military strategy, a type of dissent not seen before.
BY PHIL GUNSON AND STEVEN DUDLEY
sdudley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.miamiherald.com/583/story/182531.html

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, left, with Gen. Gustavo Rangel,
center, and outgoing Defense Minister Gen. Isaias Baduel.
Complete coverage of Venezuela

CARACAS -- Venezuela's annual round of military promotions this month
has been accompanied by signs of tension within the armed forces,
including a speech by the outgoing defense minister critical of some
of President Hugo Chávez's policies.

The main rift appears to be between senior officers who favor a
professional army trained for conventional war and those who favor a
large civilian militia trained for guerrilla resistance to an
occupying force -- like U.S. troops.

In a clear sign that Chávez -- who persistently raises the specter of
U.S. military threats despite just as persistent U.S. denials --
favors the second option, the president last week replaced Defense
Minister Gen. Raúl Isaías Baduel with Gen. Gustavo Rangel Briceño,
commander of the reserves.

''The people and the soldiers are as one,'' Chávez said during the
hand-over ceremony.

Baduel, one of the key officers who helped Chávez return from a
military coup in 2002, went into retirement after a 30-year-career --
but not without an apparent dig at the president's efforts to create
``21st century socialism.''

''We should invent socialism of the 21st century . . . but not in a
chaotic or disorderly fashion,'' Baduel said at the ceremony. ``Before
we redistribute wealth, we have to create it. We can't redistribute
what we don't have.''

Taking a jab at Chávez's control of all government branches, he added:
``It should be clear that a socialist production system is not
incompatible with a profoundly democratic political system, with
checks and balances and separation of powers.''

Baduel wound up his speech without uttering the new Cuban-inspired
salute that Chávez has recently imposed on the armed forces --
``Fatherland, socialism or death.''

Chávez, a former army lieutenant colonel who led a failed military
coup in 1992 before being elected president in 1998, has stepped up
his socialist ''revolution'' since winning reelection in December.

While opposition groups have increased their protests, the military
has appeared largely loyal to Chávez since the 2002 coup, in which
senior armed forces officers detained Chávez and announced he had
resigned. With help from Baduel and other officers, he returned to
power 48 hours later.

The president has since forced suspect officers to resign or stay at
home, and promoted loyalists to key positions while increasing some
benefits.

GROWING TENSION

Until last week's ceremony, Baduel appeared to be firmly in the Chávez
camp and had kept any criticisms of Chávez to himself. But his parting
comments, analysts said, reflected the tensions between officers who
favor preparing for conventional and guerrilla wars.

'They talk of `asymmetrical warfare,' but their weapons acquisitions
correspond to a symmetrical [conventional] war,'' said retired Army
Gen. Raúl Salazar, who served as Chávez's first defense minister.

Chávez has purchased Russian Sukhoi fighter-bombers and helicopter
gunships and hinted that Russian submarines may be next on the
shopping list -- all weapons that would be used in a conventional war.

Yet at the same time, he has purchased 100,000 AK assault rifles --
the preferred weapon of insurgencies across the globe -- and shifted
the military's stated mission from conventional warfare to fighting an
''asymmetrical'' war of the type currently being waged by insurgent
forces in Iraq.

The reserves that Gen. Rangel Briceño commanded until last week would
be a key force in any guerrilla war. In a recent interview before he
was appointed defense minister, Rangel Briceño said the reserves were
training 110,000 men and women and hoped to have 15 million some day.

''Everyone who's not in the military will be in the reserves,'' he
said. ``We have no age restrictions. We have no physical restrictions.
We don't exclude anyone. We are hoping for everyone's participation.''

Chávez agrees with this emphasis, said retired Army Gen. Alberto
Muller Rojas, who was head of the presidential general staff until
earlier this month despite having been appointed by Chávez to help
build his new political party, the United Socialist Party of
Venezuela.

''The reserves will dedicate themselves to the defense of Venezuelan
territory through a war of resistance,'' Muller told The Miami Herald.
He confirmed that Baduel and others wanted to maintain a more
traditional fighting force.

SOME CONCERNS

But the existence of such a large reserve force, at the command of a
president with such clear ideological intentions, has raised concerns
among some Venezuelans.

''If in every town there's a reserve unit with a political agenda,
that's a serious threat to democracy and for the Venezuelan people,''
Salazar said. ``Because they're going to look for a military solution
to every problem.''

Muller sees no problem with the armed forces being a political force.

''The armed forces are a reflection of the political system to which
they belong,'' he said. ``All armies are politicized. We don't come
from a void. We have to pay taxes. We have problems at home. This idea
that the armed forces are neutral is a farce.''

Chávez clearly sees the military as a political force.

At the end of the change over ceremony last week, an officer barked
out the salute, ``Fatherland, socialism or death!''

To which Chávez responded with the rest of the Cuban
slogan:``Venceremos -- We will triumph.''

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