Published at: 26/06/2024 09:00 PM

(ELITE, June 27, 1964)

Three years after El Barcelonazo, which occurred on June 26, 1961, when none of the rebellious officers had received a sentence, the magazine ÉLITE exclusively revealed a shocking photo cover of seven civilians shot during that civic-military uprising.

• Eighteen unarmed civilians who had joined the uprising were massacred inside the Pedro María Freítes Barracks. These were:
  • Tony Paez.
  • Leonardo Chacín Beltran.
  • Ramon Celestino Zapata.
  • Michael Clavier.
  • Pedro Rafael Trias.
  • Angel Custodio Martinez.
  • Adolfo Martinez.
  • Narciso Rivas Mata.
  • Marcos Urbina.
  • Fernando Gino.
  • Jose Rafael Alvarez.
  • Jose Gregorio Sosa.
  • Dionisio Olivo.
  • Rosendo Rada Antonini.
  • Jesus Zapata.
  • Jose R. Reyes.
  • Abelardo Djhami.
  • Jose German Lander.
• They were members of the 26th of July Movement, who came out that day to demonstrate against the government of Rómulo Betancourt, in front of the Pedro María Freítes Barracks.
• All were taken to the barracks, tortured and shot. Their bodies had bayonet and bullet wounds, as well as organs and viscera that were backfired.
• The instructions to go through weapons to surrendered and unarmed people were given directly by Rómulo Betancourt and his police minister Carlos Andrés Pérez to the Secretary of Government of the Anzoátegui State, Carlos Canache Mata.
• The National and Latest News, one day after the uprising, highlighted in big headlines the textual statements of the regional president: “With blood and fire, the Freites Barracks were recaptured”. Canache Mata continued: “The situation tends to normalize due to the vigorous and effective behavior of both the armed forces and the people.” Understand the armed gangs of AD.
• The governor of that state entity, Rafael Solorzano Bruce, reaffirmed that “the recapture of the Freites Barracks was an act brought to blood and fire, in an action directed by the subway. Carrasquel, as well as by a contingent commanded by Major Sánchez of the National Guard...” All of them under the command of his office.
• The procedural delay of the judges in the case, in ruling out the sentence, was the fact that none of the defendants committed murder and that all the evidence contained in the files pointed to the regional government authorities and their supporters as the intellectual and material authors of the massacre.
• THE CONTEXT:
• Political and social tensions began to cool after the first massacre committed by Betancourt in Plaza La Concordia, Caracas (August 4, 1959), where four demonstrators protesting against the recently enacted hunger and unemployment measures were killed.
• This climate of indignation was also a consequence of the arbitrary arrests, the suspension of constitutional guarantees, the daily persecution and searches carried out by Digepol and the armed gangs (cabilleros) of AD, against university students, peasants, union leaders and members of the Venezuelan Agricultural Chamber, all disaffected by the government and its arbitrariness.
• Because of this and many bloody acts perpetrated by the government, in the early morning of June 26, the first major concentrated insubordination against the Romulo Betancourt government took place in Barcelona, Anzoátegui State.
• This action was echoed throughout the country and left 18 patriotic officers and soldiers shot in disproportionate retaliation from the government, since it had managed to control the situation. There were coordinated uprisings in Ciudad Bolivar and La Guaira.
• The Civic-Military Brotherhood was led by Major Luis Alberto Vivas Ramírez, Captain Rubén Massó Perdomo and Tesalio Murillo who managed to raise the José María Freítes Barracks and the Mariño Rifle Battalion.

Mazo News Team