Published at: 23/04/2025 08:00 PM

MINISTER PÉREZ SAID:

“I ACT WITH THE POLICE, YOU GUYS SETTLE WITH THE COURTS”

(Clarín, El Nacional and Latest News, April 22, 1963)

• 61 years ago, at the end of Romulo Betancourt's term of office, the 22-year-old young worker and leader of the Communist Youth of Venezuela, Luis Alfredo Martínez, was shot down by Digepol.
• The events occurred when agents of the General Directorate of Police (Digepol), who were stationed on the roof of Radio Continente, fired shots at block 8 of Lomas de Propatria.
• Several young people, upon hearing machine guns clapping, threw themselves to the ground. They were: Samuel Ángel Fuenmayor (21 years old), Pedro Ebilio Muñoz (17 years old), José Ramón Muñoz (19 years old) and Luis Alfredo Martínez (22 years old).
• When the group searched for Martinez, they found that he was lying on the pavement bleeding profusely. The death was so quick that no moan was heard.
• Seeing it this way, they tried to help him, but he had already died. There, on the pavement, the body was left, until an hour later the Technical Police arrived at 2 am.
• Luis Alfredo Martínez was hit by a flurry of bullets while walking unnoticed with other friends back home. They were all coming from a meeting in the Plaza de Propatria.
• The young communist was shot several times that punctured his head, back and abdomen.
• When questioned in the Chamber of Deputies of the National Congress about this bloody act and other Digepol crimes, the head of the office of the Ministry of Internal Relations, Carlos Andrés Pérez, answered categorically: “I act with the police, you settle with the courts.”
• In that month of April 1963, as a result of the police repression directed from that office, they were murdered by Digepol and the armed Adeco-Copeyan gangs:
• Francisco José García
• Pedro Antonio Alcalá
• Roque Lucena
• Ali José Paredes Yéspica
• Manuel Darío Rodríguez Parra
• Albertina Pino de Travieso
• Amadeo Giffoni
• Antero Mendoza Angarita
• José Gregorio Pinto
• Julián Moya
• The three sisters of Ali José Paredes Yéspica (Carmen, Elba and Doris Paredes Yéspica), eyewitnesses to the crime, were locked up in Digepol cells for several weeks.

CONTEXT:

• Regarding these methods of police terror applied by the Minister of Internal Relations, Corvette Captain Víctor Hugo Morales recounted: “... We were summoned by Rear Admiral Armando López Conde, commander of the Marine Corps, to inform us about the situation in Caracas, where violent blood clashes were taking place, so it would be necessary to use marine infantry in repression procedures. I took the floor to express our concern about what was happening... and my position as unit commander was that I was not willing to use weapons against the people; I also referred to him the news that on several occasions they told me that there were groups of civilians shooting at the troops and then they saw them come down from the buildings to identify themselves as members of the armed gangs of AD, a fact that demonstrated without a doubt the government's involvement in causing a situation of permanent violence and so doing to see that the protests were part of a conspiracy against democratic institutions... (The Armed Insurrection in Venezuela, author: Pedro Pablo Linares, p. 88)”.

Mazo News Team