COLOMBIAN REBEL RAIDS PROMPT VENEZUELAN RANCHERS TO FORM MILITIA

CARACAS, Venezuela When Colombian rebels occupied Otto Ramirez's land,
demanded protection money and killed his foreman, the Venezuelan rancher
fled into hiding. Now, he's taking action.

Ramirez and dozens of his fellow ranchers have organized and armed a
militia. Already, he says, the militiamen are patrolling parts of remote
Tachira state, near the Colombian border.

For the ranchers, it's a matter of defending their lives and land, a role
they say the state is not taking.

For the government, it raises worries that the spillover of Colombia's
conflict could lead to the rise of right-wing paramilitaries--like ones in
Colombia that are blamed for atrocities.

"Nobody here can be organizing a private army or arming 20 men with
rifles," President Hugo Chavez said last week, warning farmers that his
government would prosecute those creating militias.

"Here, the armed forces are our defense, and nobody else," he said.

The problem, according to the Venezuelan Ranchers Association, is that
there is virtually no government presence along remote border regions,
leaving ranchers there vulnerable to incursions by Colombia's leftist
guerrillas.

The rebels kidnap and bribe ranchers and even impose themselves as "judges"
in disputes involving Venezuelan landowners and peasant squatters, whom the
rebels support.

"The Venezuelan state is weak, and [the guerrillas] are enslaving us," said
association president Jose Luis Betancourt, who opposes the formation of
paramilitary groups. "We can't allow the vacuum of a government presence to
be filled by groups outside the state."

The Colombian newspaper El Tiempo reported last week that the right-wing
United Self Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, is training more than 100
Venezuelan farmers in the western Venezuelan state of Tachira. Venezuelan
officials deny knowledge of any paramilitary presence.

Colombia's paramilitaries emerged from groups organized by ranchers to
defend themselves from leftist rebels. The paramilitaries have since become
a formidable force accused of human-rights atrocities, including massacres
of villagers suspected of supporting rebels.

"This is the story of Colombia's paramilitaries. Almost always, these
apparent remedies are worse than the disease," said Defense Minister Jose
Vicente Rangel.

The rancher militias are the latest sign of how Colombia's 37-year-old
conflict--involving two leftist guerrilla groups, right-wing paramilitaries
and the army--is affecting Venezuela.

Colombian coca growers have moved some crops to Venezuelan soil, Venezuela
says. Hundreds, if not thousands, of Colombian peasants have fled
right-wing paramilitary violence into northwestern Venezuela. Venezuela is
investigating reports that Colombia's largest rebel group, the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, is using radio broadcasts to urge
Colombian workers on Venezuelan farms to rise up against their employers
and join the revolution.