Caracas, Venezuela – During the World Anti-Imperialist Congress, members of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) delegation talked with women in the Bolivarian Militia. The Bolivarian Militia was created in 2005 in response to U.S. intervention. As of December 2019, President Maduro said he is moving toward making the Militia into “combat units” within the Armed Forces. In 2019, with multiple U.S.-backed coup attempts to install Juan Guaidó in place of democratically elected President Maduro, the Bolivarian Militia nearly doubled to 3.3 million members in a country of around 30 million people. Their role and responsibilities have increased in that time as Maduro assigned them to the food distribution program in May 2019.

When asked about the role of the Militia in resisting the recent attacks by U.S. imperialism, First Lieutenant Marisol Lira said it was “basically, the perfection of the civic-military union for the defense of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. And for women, of course, they can incorporate themselves into the Militia and become a member. It is important for us to integrate ourselves into this civic-military union because of the imperialist attacks. We know they are criminals. We give our lives here and they want to choke us. They want to control us, to dominant us. But us women, we are involved because we are defenders of peace.”

Second Lieutenant Carolina Ugas added, “We know they’re trying to mess with us psychologically. So it is important to fight against that by becoming involved in the fight against imperialism, to defend our country.”

Most members of the Bolivarian Militia are women. When asked what it was about the Militia that made women what to join, Second Lieutenant Ugas said, “The army and the police have age restrictions. In the Militia, you can join at age 18 until you can’t participate anymore. You can use whatever capacity you have. For example, our older comrade here, she’s not going to carry a weapon. But she has the capacity to help us in other ways to defend ourselves against imperialism. Yes, we carry weapons. But with love and care, we are here to defend our country and our people.”

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