President Hugo Chavez swapped his military uniform for a neat grey suit yesterday, as he awarded the nation's highest honour, the Order of the Liberator, named after the independence hero, Simon Bolivar, to Peruvian and Brazilian troops who helped in rescue effort following deadly mudslides which left at least 25,000 people dead.
The honour, granted only to Venezuela's allies in times of war, was awarded to the Peruvians and Brazilians in line with President Chavez's belief that his battle to reconstruct the nation is akin to a post-war clean-up.
"We are all guilty for what happened," said President Chavez, who faced opposition criticism that his government failed to react to national civil defence alerts in time.
The mudslides occurred hours after a referendum on a new constitution on December 15th, during which rain kept many voters at home and polling booths stayed open an extra two hours, even as civil defence bulletins recommended the evacuation of endangered villages. The evacuation order was adopted several hours after the votes were counted and villages lay buried under several metres of mud.
"The problem was not the rain but the criminal and corrupt politicians and planners who allowed people build their homes in those areas," said Mr Chavez. "The basic laws of nature were ignored by past governments."
Mr Chavez used the award ceremony to call on Latin American nations to work together to rebuild battered regional economies. "Either we come together in earnest or we are sunk", he said, insisting that economic integration must be accompanied by the formation of a NATO-style military alliance, "not to step on other countries but to fight our common enemy - hunger, misery and under-development".
Civil defence workers announced that a poll taken among flood victims revealed 63 per cent of people in favour of relocation to safer areas outside Caracas, once homes and jobs were assured.
The army rescue teams in Vargas state, the coastal strip worst affected by the torrential rains, have guaranteed the supply of water and food to families who have stayed behind in their destroyed homes.
Vargas citizens also complained of intermittent gunfire at night, as 1,700 army troops operate an undeclared martial law, tackling isolated cases of looting.
"I think they have got the message," said one army captain, who refused to be named, as rumours spread that at least five looters had been shot dead, a version yet to be confirmed.
Mr Chavez also came under pressure yesterday to disown comments by the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces, (FARC), Colombia's most powerful guerrilla army, who described their political platform as "identical to Chavez", angering Colombian government officials.
"I hope this isn't true" said a spokesman for President Andres Pastrana of Colombia, who received a curt reply from Venezuala's Foreign Minister, Mr Jose Vicente Rangel. "So if a group of martians land on earth and declare themselves Chavistas [followers of Chavez] does the government have to come out and deny it?" he asked.
A senior Red Cross official estimated yesterday that between 20,000 and 50,000 people were killed by the mudslides and flash floods that devastated Venezuela's coast two weeks ago.
Mr George Weber, secretary general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said the catastrophe could rank as Latin America's worst natural disaster of the 20th century.