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

(EL NACIONAL and LATEST NEWS, March 25, 1967)

• On Maundy Thursday, March 23, 1967, José Manuel “Chema” Saher Eljuri was shot by military personnel in the mountains of El Bachiller, edo. Miranda, where the Ezequiel Zamora Guerrilla Front (FGEZ) operated. In that same event, the doctor who accompanied him, José Alberto “Chino” Ovalles, was also put to arms.
• The 24-year-old “Chema” Saher was captured because of a whistleblower who guided government agents to El Bachiller, where the young guerrilla fighter was wounded waiting for medical attention.
• Despite waving a white flag, as a sign of surrender, a squad under the command of Lieutenant Trías executed them. Not before asking Caracas for authorization on the procedure to be followed, since one of the detainees would have identified himself as the son of Dr. Pablo Saher, governor of Falcón State.
• The authorities consulted were not lenient with the detainees. Both the Minister of Defense, Florencio Gómez, and the Minister of Internal Relations, Gonzalo Barrios, gave instructions to kill them as soon as possible, cut off their hands and disappear.
• However, Chema's father managed to rescue the bodies and the severed hands and then transferred his son to the city of Coro.
• That same day, during the operation in the mountains of El Bachiller, Jeremías Barrios “Manduley” was also shot when he was trying to break the military siege to enter the mountain.
• The next day, in the midst of riots, and accompanied by a massive demonstration of more than 20,000 people, “Chema” Saher toured the streets of the city of Coro flooded by the pain of those who came to say a final goodbye to him.

Biographical summary of a young revolutionary:

• José Manuel “Chema” Saher Eljuri was born on June 28, 1942, in Coro, Falcón state. His parents were Pablo Saher and Rosa Eljuri Abraham. From a very young age, he was linked to political activity, since his father was a senior leader of AD, who participated in the fight against the dictatorship of General Marcos Pérez Jiménez.
• Chema graduated from high school in 1960 from the Liceo Cecilio Acosta de Coro, Diógenes Barreto Promotion. In April 1960, when AD split, he participated in the founding and organization of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), in Falcón state, with Raúl Lugo Rojas and Pastor Peña Vadell.
• He entered the Central University of Venezuela (UCV), where he began his studies at the Faculty of Economics. Later, he returned to Falcón to join the José Leonardo Chirino Guerrilla Front (FGJLC).
• He was arrested on May 4, 1962, in an encounter with the police, under the command of Corporal Pablo Romero Nava, at the site called Los Evangelios, 40 km from Pueblo Nuevo, Falcón state. His colleagues Rafael Antonio García Lovera and Rómulo Valero (a medical student at the UCV) were also arrested there.
• His father moved to Pueblo Nuevo when he heard the news. Due to his poor health, Chema was taken to the Antonio Smith Hospital, under heavy military custody, and then to Digepol's headquarters in Caracas. On August 1, 1962, he was taken to the SIFA cells and then to the San Carlos Barracks.
• On September 3, 1962, the Permanent War Council sentenced him to 18 years in prison for military rebellion, to be served at the San Carlos Barracks.
• However, his father, as governor of the state of Falcón, obtained the pardon of President Betancourt, which became effective on March 10, 1964, one day before handing over the Presidency to Raúl Leoni.
• Thus, El Chema left the San Carlos Barracks on April 29, 1964, traveled with his parents to the United States and then to England. There he studied English to continue his career in Economics. In 1965, his parents went to visit him in the city of Brighton and took him on a trip to Lebanon, where they had family members.
• In 1966, El Chema secretly left England and traveled to Cuba, to attend, as a delegate of the Youth of the MIR, the Tricontinental of Revolutionaries in Havana and the IV Congress of Latin American Students.
• Later, he smuggled into Venezuela through the border with Colombia. After several stops in different regions, he joined the Ezequiel Zamora Guerrilla Front (FGEZ) led by Fernando Soto Rojas “Ramírez”, Félix Leonet Canales and Hugo Daniel Castillo “Bejuma”, the latter killed in combat on December 10, 1966.

Mazo News Team