The participants of the people’s militia will be included in the Venezuelan armed forces, President Nicolas Maduro said on Saturday.
“I ordered to include the militiamen in our National Bolivarian Armed Forces as officers and soldiers,” he tweeted.
“If we want peace, we should be ready to protect it,” he added.
Maduro declared earlier the establishment of more than 50,000 people’s militia units in Venezuela in the coming months. There will be 2 million militiamen in the country by May, Maduro said.