MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chavez steps up rhetoric against 'external enemy'

Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's president, has stepped up his nationalist rhetoric and urged supporters to defend his radical government against destabilisation efforts from abroad.

The two-year political crisis entered a new phase last week following the capture in Caracas of what the government claims were 100 Colombian paramilitaries.

At a rally of pro-government supporters in Caracas on Sunday, Mr Chávez urged his followers to take to the streets and to be ready to participate in a military-civilian alliance "in defence of the nation".

"We have discovered one lot [of paramilitaries], but it is very probable that they have been spread across the country waiting for future opportunities," Mr Chávez said. "We must not forget the gravity of what has happened."

Opponents say the affair is part of efforts to let Mr Chávez clamp down on the opposition ahead of new efforts to secure a recall referendum on his rule.

Most of the Colombians being interrogated by military prosecutors come from Cúcuta, a border town, and the government itself has said many were peasants who appeared to have believed they were being offered work.

However, though it is not clear who contracted the supposed paramilitaries, it appears to have been sufficient for Mr Chávez to step up his allegations that an "external enemy" is bent on unseating him.

Diplomats said Mr Chávez, who sees his "Bolivarian Revolution" as a project with political goals beyond Venezuela, was using the idea of an external enemy to ensure the military close ranks behind him, and to smoke out dissidents.

"We are edging towards a situation that could justify a state of emergency," said a European diplomat, adding that it could not be ruled out that the government could "create" an incident on the border with Colombia.

A state of emergency, even if declared only in some regions rather than at a nationwide level, would include the suspension of certain civil liberties, and almost certainly scupper the holding of a referendum.

Colombia's six consulates in Venezuelan border towns at the weekend received bomb threats, a senior Colombian source said. "Diplomatic relations with Venezuela hang by a thread," the official said.

Analysts said relations with Colombia - whose counter-insurgency and counter-narcotics policies are strongly supported by the US - are likely to become increasingly tense in the days and weeks ahead.

"Chávez's project is global and revolutionary, and therefore it pretends to subvert prevailing international order," said Vilma Petrash, international relations professor at the Central University of Venezuela.

"The natural enemy is the US, and the US's main ally in the region is Colombia," Mrs Petrash said.