The report does not link Chávez personally to the training in explosives, weapons and urban guerrilla tactics. But it notes that part of the training took place in two Caracas military bases, one used by the army reserves and another that houses the Defense Ministry.
And in a concluding section, it says that backers of the Venezuelan president, ``with covert support from the government of Hugo Chávez . . . have strengthened incipient subversive movements.''
The Herald repeatedly sought the reaction of Venezuelan Vice President José Vicente Rangel, who most often speaks for the government, and Gen. Julio Quintero Viloria, commander of the reserves. Neither responded.
However, after the Ecuadorean newspaper El Comercio broke the story earlier this month, the Venezuelan Embassy here issued a statement denying the story and saying Chávez ''is against all groups or organizations that support the use of violence.'' The president himself later dismissed the newspaper's story as part of a U.S. government propaganda campaign against him.
If the allegations are proved to be true, however, they would bolster a rash of recent U.S. complaints that Chávez's self-proclaimed socialist and revolutionary government has become a destabilizing factor around Latin America. .......................***
The populist government is reorganizing the country's colossal oil industry, taking a bigger share from private multinationals. Planners are reorganizing the banking system, placing stringent restrictions on lending while creating state banks. Venezuela is also developing a state-to-state barter system to trade items as varied as cattle, oil and cement as far away as Argentina and as near as Cuba, its closest ally.
"It's impossible for capitalism to achieve our goals, nor is it possible to search for an intermediate way," Mr. Chávez said a few months ago, laying out his plans. "I invite all Venezuelans to march together on the path of socialism of the new century."
According to many mainstream economists, the change is simply a mix of plans taken from the protectionist policies of the 1960's and others adopted from Cuba and countries of the former Soviet bloc. It may not be communism - as detractors contend it is - but it mixes socialism with capitalism and what some call improvisation.
Many of the president's grandest plans are put into practice at the year-old Ministry for the Popular Economy. Planners there have already created 6,840 cooperatives that employ 210,000 people nationwide, many producing for the state………….***