By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service

CARACAS, Venezuela, Oct. 26 –– The new head of Venezuela's mammoth state-owned oil company will arrive for his first day of work Friday wearing khaki and
epaulets. So will his deputy. And so will the national budget director.

During 20 months in office, President Hugo Chavez has been filling key government posts traditionally held by civilians with military officers. Civic activists and
academics here say that after four decades of civilian administrations in Venezuela, the Chavez government is beginning to look and feel like a defense department,
with the military emerging as the leading institution in public life.

Chavez has named active duty and retired career officers to head the state industrial holding company, the tax authority, the interior and justice ministry, the
infrastructure ministry, and now the $50 billion state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, and its U.S. refining and retail arm, Citgo. Military men also hold more
than three dozen vice ministerial and department head posts in agencies responsible for social development, public works and finance.

Many analysts and diplomats here say Chavez, a former paratrooper who as an army colonel in 1992 helped lead an unsuccessful coup attempt, is looking for help
from the institution he knows best. Without an established political party behind him, and drawing popular support for his disdain for Venezuela's establishment,
Chavez has few places to turn for qualified supporters to help run his "revolutionary" government.

"Chavez has confidence in the military and little else," said Miguel Manrique, a political science professor at the Central University of Venezuela here in the capital.
"Now he is using their human resources as a substitute political party, and this is converting the armed forces into a political force."

The appointments mark the latest turn in Chavez's complicated relationship with the military. Once an aspiring artist, Chavez went instead to the military academy for
its top-notch education. He rose to lieutenant colonel before he was cashiered for trying to topple the elected, if corrupt, government of Carlos Andres Perez. The
plot landed him in jail, but launched his political career.

Chavez reappeared a few years later, campaigning for president as an independent with the army red beret as his trademark. His election in 1998 crushed the two
traditional political parties and led to a new constitution. Under it, the president has direct authority over the promotion of senior military officers.

"This is part of why he has faith in the military--they will do what he says," said one European diplomat here. "But the more immediate problem is, can these people
run ministries? And is this a stopgap measure? Does Chavez have a plan to get civilians into government over the longer term?"

Chavez's support within the military is not unanimous. Not long after he took office, a group of generals asked him to stop wearing a uniform, a request he has largely
accommodated. More divisive has been Chavez's decision to use soldiers to build housing, sell vegetables at farmers markets and perform other public service. The
work has exasperated many junior officers, according to military attaches, but has also built public support for Chavez.

Political analysts and diplomats view Chavez's military appointments as part of his plan to bring the 70,000-member armed forces, traditionally respected for their
political independence, more squarely into the mainstream. But there is some disagreement over his long-term goals.

Anibal Romero, a political science professor at Simon Bolivar University, is among those who say Chavez is following a model established by such oil-rich nationalist
leaders as Iraq's Saddam Hussein and Libya's Moammar Gaddafi, both fellow OPEC members whom Chavez recently visited.

In those countries, Romero and others say, a charismatic leader uses the military in place of an ideology-based political party and puts soldiers to work on behalf of
the population. This is also the model promoted by Norberto Ceresole, a former Chavez adviser whose self-described expertise is "post-democratic" theory, and
resembles Chavez's own Fifth Republic Movement.

"You have the personalization of political power, concentration of power in the executive branch, and increasing dependence on oil," Romero said. "The military is
occupying so many places of power in the civilian field that it would be fair to expect some of them to fail very seriously. They are being compromised with a political
agenda, and the public will turn against them if they fail."

But diplomats and others say Chavez is only looking for the most competent people available, a pool made relatively small by his alienating campaign rhetoric against
"rotten oligarchs" and corrupt party leaders. They point to the new head of Petroleos de Venezuela as an example of Chavez making a good choice among the
well-educated ranks of senior officers.

Chavez abruptly fired Hector Ciavaldini, the company's civilian president, this month after a five-day strike by petroleum workers forced the government to agree to
modest pay raises. Oil production accounts for more than half of Venezuela's national budget, and the windfall derived from its inflated price on the world market has
spared Chavez from making politically taxing economic choices.

He named Gen. Guaicaipuro Lameda, who had gained a sterling reputation running the national budget office, as Ciavaldini's replacement.

Lameda's successor as budget director will be an active-duty general, as will his deputy at Petroleos de Venezuela. Also this month, Chavez appointed Gen.
Oswaldo Contreras, a nuclear engineer by training, as the first Venezuelan to run Citgo.

Though Contreras has decided not to wear his uniform at the Tulsa-based subsidiary, Lameda intends to keep the brass suns on his collar while running the world's
sixth-largest oil company and one of the biggest suppliers of crude to the United States.

"I want to say I am not an oil-business man. I am a manager," said Lameda, an electrical engineer by training who has a graduate degree in economic planning. "I
have a big concern with people and with numbers. That's what I do--manage organizations."

Lameda has also shown a willingness to stand up to Chavez. In April, Chavez announced he would increase most public-sector salaries. Lameda privately opposed
that and other Chavez budget meddling, though he denied reports that he threatened to resign.

"President Chavez has known me since 1971, and we have worked together for a lot of that time," Lameda said. "He thinks I am a person of commitment and
results. I understand the concern [about military officers in the government]. But what I am asking is give me the time to show I am able to run the business."

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