Maduro orders militia to expand by 1-million

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has ordered an expansion of civilian militia by nearly 1-million members as opposition leader Juan Guaido tours western Zulia state, which has been hard hit by blackouts.

Guaido, the leader of the opposition-controlled National Assembly who in January invoked Venezuela’s constitution to assume an interim presidency, has called on the military to abandon Maduro amid a hyperinflationary economic collapse made worse by several nationwide blackouts in the past month.

The civilian militia, created in 2008 by the late former president and Maduro mentor Hugo Chavez, reports directly to the presidency and is intended to complement the armed forces.

Maduro, who calls Guaido a US puppet, said he aimed to raise the number of militia members to 3-million by yearend from what he said was more than 2-million now.

Maduro has encouraged them to become involved in agricultural production.

Shortages of food and medicine have prompted more than 3-million Venezuelans to emigrate in recent years.

“With your rifles on your shoulders, be ready to defend the fatherland and dig the furrow to plant the seeds to produce food for the community, for the people,” Maduro told thousands of militia members gathered in the capital, Caracas.

So far, the military top brass has remained loyal to Maduro despite Guaido’s offer of amnesty to military members who switch sides. Hundreds of soldiers have sought asylum in neighbouring Colombia.

While electricity has largely been restored in Caracas, Maduro’s administration is rationing power to the rest of Venezuela.

Guaido is travelling in the interior to drum up support. In Zulia state, the site of the Opec member’s first oil well and home to Venezuela’s secondlargest city, Maracaibo, he said: “We are here to check on the situation, your suffering. But Zulia will rise up.”

Separately on Saturday, two employees of Venezuela’s central bank who were arrested after meeting Guaido last week were freed, rights group Penal Forum said. Rights groups say Venezuelan authorities have arrested 1,000 people after antigovernment demonstrations in 2019. Guaido’s chief of staff was arrested in March.

Meanwhile, Germany’s statefunded public broadcaster Deutsche Welle has accused Venezuela’s broadcast authority of having blocked its Spanishlanguage channel from cable networks in the country.

GM Peter Limbourg urged broadcast authority Donatel to “urgently resume distributing the signal”.