Word: militiaization
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General Michel Aoun, the renegade Christian strongman who considers himself Lebanon's rightful leader, was spoiling for a fight. Irritated because his fellow Christians in the Phalangist militia were tacitly supporting a peace agreement giving authority to President Elias Hrawi, Aoun last week ordered his troops to attack Phalangist barracks. When the Phalangists struck back, the result was a civil war within a civil war that turned the Christian enclave of East Beirut into a free-fire zone. By week's end more than 140 civilians were dead...
Rumor swirled. Everyone had heard about one place or another where Ceausescu followers had suddenly appeared: "Last night we heard that paratroopers loyal to that murderer ((Ceausescu)) had been dropped outside the town," said Asofei Jorim, 21, a student who had survived the Timisoara massacre and joined the militia guarding the city. "We have even heard that Palestinian students who were being trained as terrorists here are also supporting the old regime...
...that is picking the leaders of the new Public Forces. And though the Americans are screening former P.D.F. members against "black, gray and white" lists (black representing the deepest degree of involvement with Noriega), they have nonetheless named a former Noriega henchman to command the new militia. He is Roberto Armijo, who helped Noriega squelch a coup last October and participated in the fight against the U.S. invasion...
Endara might have an easier time if he were starting from scratch. His biggest challenge is to obtain the loyalty of the 12,000-strong Panama Defense Forces, a militia created and nurtured by Noriega and bent on its own survival. As the nation's police force, the P.D.F. will be essential to maintaining order. But given the army's continuing loyalty to Noriega and the rampant corruption within the officer corps, it is a breeding ground for future plots against any civilian government...
...truth to it. On weekends rifle ranges around the country resound with the din of thousands of Swiss practicing their marksmanship. At the same time, Northrop F-5E Tiger fighter jets skim along mountain faces and blue-gray-uniformed figures clamber down couloirs and across alpine meadows. With a militia of 625,000 men, Switzerland, as the well-worn saying goes, does not have an army, it is an army...