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[reppin_jamaica]

Arms Buying by Venezuela Worries U.S





By JUAN FORERO
Brian Ellsworth contributed
reporting from Caracas for this article.



BOGOT�, Colombia, Feb. 14 - President Hugo Ch�vez's government is moving toward purchasing combat planes from Brazil, the latest step in what the Bush administration has cast as a worrisome arms buildup by the left-leaning government in an already tumultuous region.

Meeting in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, on Monday, Mr. Ch�vez and his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz In�cio Lula da Silva, signed agreements establishing a strategic, economic and military alliance between the nations.

Though the deal is not yet sealed, Venezuela is negotiating to buy as many as 24 Super Tucano multipurpose combat aircraft from the giant Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Empresa Brasileira de Aeron�utica, known as Embraer. The deal would be worth $170 million, according to the Brazilian newspaper O Globo

The two countries also signed energy and mining accords that permit Brazil's oil and gas company, Petrobras, to develop offshore natural gas projects and oil fields in Venezuela's lucrative Orinoco heavy oil belt. Trade between the governments doubled to $1.6 billion in 2004 from the year before and could reach $3 billion this year, a development that Mr. Ch�vez celebrated as a sign of Latin American integration at the expense of the United States.

"We are totally and absolutely convinced in Venezuela that the solution to our problems is not in the north, but here between us," Mr. Ch�vez told reporters on Monday.

But it is Venezuela's procurement of high-tech military hardware that has raised eyebrows among American policy makers and officials here in Colombia, which shares a porous and violent 1,400-mile border with Venezuela.

Mr. Ch�vez's government has been shopping to modernize its poorly armed 100,000-member military. The Venezuelans have agreed to buy at least 10 military helicopters from Russia and 100,000 assault rifles. Venezuela is also considering updating its air force with Russian MIG's.

The Bush administration, which has been in an increasingly tense war of words since tacitly supporting a brief coup against Mr. Ch�vez in 2002, has warned that the arms purchases could benefit "irregular groups," meaning Marxist rebels in neighboring Colombia.

"We have serious concerns about how Venezuela will secure these armaments and the thousands of rifles they will replace," Adam Ereli, a State Department spokesman, said Thursday.

Mr. Ch�vez has reacted angrily to the criticism, saying that Venezuela has the right to purchase arms from any suitable seller and that the United States lacks the moral heft to question the arms sales.

"They sold weapons to Saddam Hussein, and they armed Al Qaeda, but the serpent turned against them," Mr. Ch�vez said. The president has also accused the United States of delaying supplies of spare parts for Venezuela's aging fleet of F-16 fighters.

The comments signal increasingly tense relations between the countries, which are bound economically because of Venezuela's role as one of the four top providers of oil to the United States.

In recent weeks, Bush administration officials as senior as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have criticized Mr. Ch�vez's governing style.

Mr. Ch�vez, recently warning of the possibility of an American invasion, has responded by announcing plans to expand so-called popular defense units, a sort of citizen militia, as well as the country's military reserves.

"Popular defense units should be born, units of different sizes - 10 people, 100 people, 500 people," Mr. Ch�vez said in a speech.

His costly military plans - they would be worth hundreds of millions of dollars if fully pursued - raise questions about Venezuela's ability to continue with a significant expansion of social spending aimed at lifting people out of poverty.

"There is a case to be made that the Venezuelan military needed to be upgraded, but the timing of this is what concerns the Colombians and raises questions about his commitment to his social agenda," said Miguel D�az, a senior analyst who tracks Venezuela at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Military analysts who study the region, however, say Venezuela's desire to buy Brazilian fighters may make sense, since both Venezuela and Brazil are increasingly interested in cooperating to patrol the Amazon. Drug traffickers move cocaine throughout that jungle zone and Colombian armed groups hide in the region's borders.

Luis Bittencourt, a Brazilian analyst, said the Super Tucano, a turbo-prop plane, would be an ideal aircraft for patrolling Venezuela's jungle regions.

"They fly well at low altitude, at low speed, and have wonderful maneuverability and they have good range, without using much fuel," said Mr. Bittencourt, director of the Brazil project at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. "They allow you to identify the enemy, or whatever it is you might be looking for, that are using the forest as cover."

So here are a few questions:
1)Chevez is attempting to help Venezuela as a whole. Already, trade in Brazil has doubled. Is this good?

2) What are the three of America's concerns with Chavez's recent actions? Which is the most legitimate?

3) Despite Chavez's left leaning government, military analysts say his wepons spending makes sense. Why?