Américo Silva: The most restrained guerrilla fighter in the fight against the Fourth Republic (+seeding)

Published at: 31/03/2024 09:52 AM

On March 31, 1972, the security forces of the government of Rafael Caldera assassinated Américo Silva, an icon of the struggle for social justice among the humble classes of Venezuela between the 1950s and the 1970s.

A guerrilla fighter who faced the dictatorship of Marcos Pérez Jiménez and governments of the Fourth Republic was born on March 16, 1933 in Maturín, Monagas state.

At age 12, he had to give up school to work and help support his family, after the death of his father, Alberto Tirado.

Working in a school canteen and as a salesman at the gates of foreign oil companies in Caripito and Jusepín taught him the harshness of social inequality and foreign domination over Venezuelan resources and society, which gave rise to a strong desire to change this situation within him.
Already at the age of 15, he was discussing these issues with revolutionary fighters and thinkers, such as Simón Sáez Mérida, Joaquín Blanco and Trino Barrios, and in 1953, at only 20 years old, he joined the clandestine resistance against the dictatorship of General Marcos Pérez Jiménez (1952-1958), in which he acted consecutively between San Félix, Ciudad Piar and Aragua de Maturín.

Three years later, he settled in San Félix, Bolívar, along with other workers, began a fight to rescue the iron union from employers' domination, and went on to defend the peasant families of Cerro Bolívar (formerly Cerro La Parida), who were violently evicted by security agencies and the Orinoco Mining Company to exploit iron deposits in the area.

After the dictatorship was defeated, Silva went on to work at the National Agrarian Institute in Monagas, where he dedicated himself to promoting the distribution of land among small peasants, organizing agrarian unions and beginning the fight for the right to land against landowners and landlords.

In 1960, he decided to actively switch to armed struggle and joined the new Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), occupying the position of political-military instructor at the MIR Youth Camp, in Culantrillar.

In 1961, he took command of urban guerrillas in the East. At 30, he was already responsible for the rear guard and logistics of the Ezequiel Zamora Guerrilla Front in the states of Miranda and Guárico.

He then assumed the position of first Commander of the Antonio José de Sucre Front in the eastern region of the country.

His revolutionary formation was reinforced in Cuba, and on May 8, 1967, he participated in the landing of Machurucuto, when a dozen revolutionaries from the Caribbean island arrived in the country on the Varguense beach, to join the defense of the proletariat.

Silva will always be remembered for his position in the face of defeats and the ups and downs of combat, which is reflected in his words: “The struggle of the oppressed, for socialism, against capitalism and its highest imperial expression is diverse, risky and ends neither with the betrayal of an outclassed person nor with the death of a warrior”.

Mazo News Team