Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro announced that 4.5 million militiamen will be deployed to defend the country’s sovereignty in response to US threats.
In a state broadcast, he rejected the US accusations of drug trafficking, saying the US was resorting to “extravagant, bizarre and outlandish threats and defamation.”
President Maduro urged his political base to expand worker and peasant militias and promised to arm them with “rifles and missiles.
This comes after the US doubled its reward to US$50 million for his arrest and deployed militia in the southern Caribbean Sea to contain the threat from drug trafficking groups in the country.
In response to this, Venezuela’s Interior Minister the country’s forces were also active in national waters.
Venezuela’s militia, established under former President Hugo Chavez, is officially said to be around five million while country’s total population is estimated to be around 30 million.
