Published at: 26/03/2025 08:00 PM

(The Extra, September 6, 1964)

• On March 23, 1967, in the Government of Raúl Leoni, Lieutenant Nicolás Hurtado Barrios was arrested, tortured, shot and disappeared.
• His executioners cut off his arms and then threw them on the table in the rural house of some peasants, where he spent the night before being executed. All this as a death warning to the inhabitants of that area.
• Three years earlier, his wife Yolanda Virriel de Hurtado, full of satisfaction with her dignity, declared that six long years in prison had passed without being charged or having any knowledge of the reasons for which he was arrested.
• Shortly before he was shot and disappeared, on 23-3-67, Lt. Hurtado wrote this short letter to her children: “Yolandita, Nicolás Alejandro and Valentina: My dear quartet! I love you very much, I love you and I remember you every moment... I am worried for all of you, but I have firm confidence in your mother; she will know how to take good care of you, while I am working in agriculture, everything is going well and I hope for a good harvest. I remembered a lot of Valentina on [November 8] and Nico on the 16th of last month. They counted the “Happy Birthday”. How are they doing in the studies? Soon I'll give him a longer cover letter. Don't stop following mom's instructions. Tell her that I love her very much, as much as you do. For all a thousand kisses from dad.”
• Lieutenant Ej. Nicolás Hurtado Barrios was born on November 6, 1934 in Calabozo, Guárico state.
• Along with Moncada Vidal, he was part of the so-called “White Palace Revolution” (27-9-58). As a result, he was taken prisoner and imprisoned on Donkey Island, where he wrote the book “Why do we fight?” An excerpt of it says: “We cannot continue to be indifferent to the tragedy that Venezuela is experiencing... What we can be sure of is that our country has never been as intervened as it is now by foreign capital, which without a doubt where it obtains the greatest dividends is in Venezuela, because of the ruined and shameless way in which this puppet government is delivered... Venezuelan society, with its very different classes, bears all the weight of monopoly oppression that from outside takes away our raw materials and the market ; this oppression, exercised by Yankee imperialism, is initially reflected in the national upper bourgeoisie, which in order to survive oppresses, in turn, the petty bourgeoisie composed of mediocre businessmen and ranchers, who in turn end the cycle of oppression among the workers and peasants”.
• Upon his release, he took courses in high military command in Vietnam and China, after his exile he entered Venezuela clandestinely, to join the José Leonardo Chirinos Guerrilla Front.
• José Vicente Rangel, in honor of the late Lieutenant Hurtado, wrote an article entitled “The memory that never ceases”, in which he states: “... it's not easy to get away from memory when you pierce the most sensitive part of the human being. When there is a vague notion of the final destination that a loved one will face. When there are thousands of questions without answers. When time permeates images and words; when someone clings to the impossible search and to fleeting legends and truthful information...”

Mazo News Team