People's Liberation Army of Venezuela

Introduction
The People's Liberation Army of Venezuela (abbreviated as P.L.A.V., PLAV, or just informally known as "Guerillas") are a group of left-wing radicals fighting a guerilla war against Ramon Solano's Venezuelan Government. They are stationed in the Amazonas region of Venezuela, and are constantly at war with the Venezuelan Army.

Their leader is Marcela Acosta, who resides at their main base inside a large, treaded crane on top of a small mountain. Throughout their bases are many broken-down buses used for shelter and makeshift steel buildings serve as houses along with a broken down commercial plane. Numerous tents are found scattered around their HQ and other places where they have set up their operations.

Characteristics
The PLAV are Marxist radicals modeled after such real-life groups as the 26th of July Movement and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia. Their goals are to remove Ramon Solano and his government as well as the Universal Petroleum Corporation and restore the former government. They are a stereotypical guerrilla organization, using outdated, heavily modified equipment and prone to expressing their political views wherever they go. They are sponsored by China, and have access to some Chinese equipment. They are located to the South West of the map, in Merida, near Guanare and the surrounding jungles of the Amazonas. Their uniform consists of mainly a white and light green shirt with the sleeves usually rolled up and matching pants. Some wear red berets which are worn by many revolutionary forces but some wear no headwear at all. They are also known to carry bullet belts. The males are mostly rugged in appearance and un shaven, some have sunglasses on and others have wrapped a red bandanna around their mouth. The RPG troops carry a large backpack to hold their rockets in. Female soldiers also wear the same clothes as the males. The PLAV also have elite troops. All of these troops are located nearby HVTs that need to be captured, they sometimes wear a green helmet or a red beret. They are also wearing a ghillie suit which is made up of leaves on their back and torso to camoflague themselves and matching green, jungle paint on their skin. They are tougher and use better weaponary than the normal troops.

The PLAV bases usually contain things such as broken buses and other vehicles that have been converted into small buildings and fortifications. They are protected by multi-coloured sandbags, usually accompanied by barbed wire and machine gun nests. Their buildings are marked as theirs by orange and green graffiti and barbed wire. They have built many large "treehouses" throughout the roads that lead through the Amazonas, which serve as lookouts and sniper spots, they are built around hard, tall trees that are difficult to destroy.

In the main PLAV camp, the large crane Acosta herself resides in is a MAN Takraf RB293, naturally tagged with PLAV banners, and fitted with shanty houses with civilians and PLAV guerillas alike standing on top of one of them. A female orator can be seen in the camp speaking to three seated guerillas (and presumably the rest of the camp's inhabitants), preaching communist dogma as follows:

"The struggle with the proletarians of the bourgeoisie is, at first, a national struggle. We, the proletarians of Venezuela must first attempt to settle matters with our OWN bourgeoisie. Our government striped the halo from every honored occupation. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the free, the voice, man of science, into its paid wage laborers. The government attacks the family itself; tearing away the sentimental veil, reducing the family relations, to a mere money relations! We do not take up arms for ourselves. But in response to the angry protests of people against their oppressors! We fight in order to change the social system that keeps all our unarmed brothers and sisters in poverty, AND misery! We MUST carry the war into EVERY corner the enemy occupies. To his home, to his centers of entertainment, a TOTAL war!"

- Repeated in a loop

Weapons and Vehicles
As stated above, their weapons and vehicles are outdated by modern standards. Most of their equipment appears to be Vietnam-era American Equipment, such as the M551 Sheridan Tank and the UH-1 Iroquois, while the rest seems to be stolen from the Venezuelan Army. Though outdated, these vehicles are heavily modified. These modifications range from the addition of such objects as cow-catchers and barbed wire to extra weapons and armor. All of their vehicles have some form of graffiti on them, as a further expression of their political views and to make their vehicles look overall more fearsome. Some of their vehicles are named after Latin American revolutionary leaders, such as Simon Bolivar as the name of their armoured trucks and Fidel Castro for the name of their main helicopter.

Their weapons, however, seem to be largely Soviet in origin. AKM assault rifles, SVD Dragunov sniper rifles, RPK Machine Guns and RPG-7's are their primary weapons. They have a few non-Soviet and more modern weapons, such as the SiG P226 pistol, M1014 Shotgun and Type-88 Sniper Rifle.

Market
While hardly as high-tech as the equipment of the other factions, they are none-the-less powerful, effective and inexpensive. These range from RPG drops, to the rapid-firing Bolivar Quad-50 to the heavily-armed Castro-Series helicopter gunships.

The PLAV's "shop" holds many weapons, vehicles, airstrikes and supply drops. There is a shop at each PLAV base or outpost. These outposts are located in the Amazonas wilderness. They consist of huts and sheds made from old buses and other scrap.

Diplomacy

 * Allies: China
 * Enemies: Allied Nations, Universal Petroleum, Rastafarian Pirates, Venezuela

Trivia

 * Along with the Pirates, they are the only faction in Mercenaries 2: World in Flames that contain female soldiers.
 * One of the P.L.A.V missions involve taking a prototype boat to a Chinese officer, this is the only place where PLA soldiers can be found before they actually appear, the merc can kill them if they wish and take the Bullpup Rifles that they carry.
 * Whether by glitch or other reason, Guerilla soldiers will never attack Allied soldiers, although Allied soldiers will attack the PLAV if they encounter each other. Also, friendly PLAV soldiers near hostile AN soldiers will attack you.
 * The background music used for both Acosta, and the outer base shop keepers, consists of four variations of samba tunes commonly heard in Latin America.
 * While the PLAV are hostile towards Universal Petroleum forces, the two groups rarely engage each other directly in combat. Usually UP Mercenaries and PLAV Guerillas stationed in the Amazonas region will ocassionally stumble upon each other while patrolling an area under their control. While the two groups despise one another, the PLAV usually leaves the harassment UP assets to the Venezuelan army.
 * While referred to as Marxist the communist ideology of the PLAV is far more in line with Maoism