However, this claim is utter nonsense. The LOFAN is mainly based on the Cuban military model.
The LOFAN legally enshrines three core missions for the armed forces of Venezuela (FAN). First, protect the president, his family and his closest associates at all times. Second, maintain internal order against internal threats to the president. Third, defend the president against external threats. Although Chavez routinely rants about the need to strengthen the country’s FAN to resist a military invasion by the United States , the new LOFAN explicitly defines the FAN’s primary mission as defending the stability of the Chavez regime against internal threats and disruptions. It is a law that essentially empowers the Venezuelan military to legally kill Venezuelan civilians that Chavez considers a threat.
However, Article 3 of the LOFAN also explicitly empowers the Bolivarian FAN to “resist the occupation of the country by invading military forces (by all means) including actions of prevention against hostile forces that show that intention.” In effect, the LOFAN explicitly empowers the Bolivarian FAN to launch pre-emptive military invasions of other countries to prevent those countries from invading Venezuela . Under the new national security doctrine copied from Cuba by the Chavez government, the United States is Venezuela ’s biggest external enemy, followed by Colombia . It’s doubtful that Chavez will airdrop paratroopers over downtown Miami or Washington, D.C., but a conventional conflict scenario involving Colombia is not unthinkable – particularly as Chavez builds a Bolivarian military force that could easily top three million persons within the next five years.
The new LOFAN also empowers the FAN to engage in joint actions with the armed forces of other countries – most obviously, Cuba – to defend the integrationist vision of Simon Bolivar. Clearly, this joint defense could entail Cuban military deployments on Venezuelan territory to defend Chavez, or Venezuelan military deployments to Cuba to defend the Castro government against a U.S. invasion.
