Published at: 28/08/2024 09:00 PM

(EL NACIONAL, August 27, 1967)

• On August 26, 1967, a few hours apart, two massacres occurred in Caracas by the body that carried out the repressive policy of the State in the 1960s: the General Directorate of Police (Digepol). Those were the years of Raúl Leoni's terror.
• The Chacao massacre: On the morning of August 25, 1967, an armed Digepol gang massacred Commander Claudio. The incident occurred outside the Perito Building, on Urdaneta Street in Chacao, when he went out to buy the newspaper. Forensic doctors found six bullet punctures in his body.
• His death was the result of the betrayal of the traitor Adolfo Meinhart Lárez, who belonged to his own clandestine unit, of which he was head.
• Meinhart Lárez had been arrested two days earlier and collaborated with Digepol in a joint action to assassinate Commander Claudio, Loco Fabricio and Commander Plutarco.
• The massacre in the El Nazareno neighborhood of Petare : Three hours later, Luis Fernando Vera Betancourt “Commander Plutarco” (25 years old), and Eleazar Fabricio Aristigueta “El Loco Fabricio” (30 years old) were shot down in an armed Digepol robbery led by Mateo Huizi, in house number 111, Bolívar Street in the El Nazareno neighborhood of Petare.
• Reporters from El Nacional were able to observe that the house had more than 1,000 bullet wounds fired from outside against the walls of the house.
• In the Elite and Momento magazines of those days, the photo of the wall where Vera Betancourt wrote with her blood was published: “I'm hurt... I'm surrendered... Don't kill me”.
• Luis Fernando Vera Betancourt “Commander Plutarco” and Eleazar Fabricio Aristigueta “El Loco Fabricio” were massacred despite being unarmed and offering no resistance. In the photos released by the media, the body of Vera Betancourt appears holding a machine gun through the barrel, where it is clear that it was later placed for a photo for propaganda purposes. Thus, a false positive communication was committed in the modern Venezuelan press.
• Commander Plutarco was internationally recognized for his courage related to the kidnapping of the CIA agent, Colonel Michael Smolen. This earned him the respect of the Vietnamese people, whose authorities paid tribute to him at the Teresa Carreño Theater, for the operation he directed to exchange Smolen for the young leader of that country, Nguyen Van Troig. The latter had been condemned to a firing wall by the invading Gringo army in Vietnam.

Mazo News Team