Word: militiaization
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Arafat enjoyed one advantage: if fighting spreads, the powerful militia of the Islamic Unification Movement, which controls parts of the city, has vowed to come to his aid. Both sides, however, gave their word to spare Tripoli. Arafat apparently promised not to shell rebel positions from within the city, thus risking return fire, while Abu Mousa pledged not to invade. Nonetheless, rumors floated through the city all week that Arafat was about to flee. On Thursday, Italian Defense Minister Giovanni Spadolini announced that the missile launcher Orsa and the destroyer Intrepido stood ready off the Lebanese coast to evacuate Arafat...
They descended to a "heroes' welcome" that was everything public ceremonies in Cuba usually are not: brief, somber and quiet. An artillery corps band belted out a few revolutionary hymns, and women militia members goose-stepped across the tarmac of Jose Marti Airport. But President Fidel Castro, attired in tailored green fatigues, his beard noticeably gray, said not a word in public. He simply shook hands with the wounded, who apparently had been told to say nothing; several seemed too dazed to speak in any case, and one barely conscious man on a stretcher failed to recognize the Cuban...
...number of Cuban troops (usually called "military advisers") stationed in Nicaragua, Angola, Ethiopia and South Yemen range from 33,000 to 61,000; almost 7,000 Cuban civilians are believed to be in those countries too. At home, Castro plans to double the size of the territorial militia from the 1981 count of 500,000 to a million by next year, or more than 10% of Cuba's total population of 9.9 million. Some 70% of the new recruits will be women. The Pioneers, a Soviet-inspired youth organization, is encouraged to play war games. Cuban TV admiringly shows...
Typical of the young reservists is Miguel Sarria, 24, a truck mechanic from the southern city of Chichigalpa, who recently served in the border militia near the center of Ocotal. Sarria has lost two close friends to contra fire. "Nothing will stop this revolution," he says defiantly...
...Somoza's National Guard, he feared reprisals after the Sandinistas took over. Maria Cristina Cuadra, 17, first ran into trouble after she was caught pulling down pictures of Revolutionary Heroes Augusto César Sandino and Carlos Fonseca. Afraid she might be forced to serve in the Sandinista militia, she too decided to join the insurgents...