Published at: 27/03/2024 09:00 PM

• On Maundy Thursday, March 23, 1967, José Manuel “Chema” Saher Eljuri was shot in the mountains of El Bachiller, edo. Miranda, where the Ezequiel Zamora Guerrilla Front (FGEZ) operated. In that same act, the doctor who accompanied him, José Alberto “Chino” Ovalles, was also executed.
• The 24-year-old “Chema” Saher was captured because of a whistleblower who guided Digepol and SIFA 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. The executioner previously asked 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 head of Internal Relations, Gonzalo Barrios, gave the instructions to kill them, cut off their hands and disappear them.
• However, the father of Commander “Chema” managed to rescue the bodies and the severed hands, then took 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 turbulent disturbances, 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 profile 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 resistance against the dictatorship of Marcos Pérez Jiménez.
• Chema graduated from high school in 1960 at the Liceo Cecilio Acosta de Coro, Diógenes Barreto Promotion. In April 1960, when AD split up, he participated in the founding and organization of the MIR in Falcón state, with Raúl Lugo Rojas and Pastor Peña Vadell.
• He was a student leader, first in high school and then at the UCV, where he began his studies at the Faculty of Economics. He returned to Falcón and joined the fledgling guerrilla movement in the mountains, the José Leonardo Chirino 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 classmates Rafael Antonio García Lovera and Rómulo Valero (a medical student at the UCV) were also caught there.
• Immediately, his father moved to Pueblo Nuevo when he heard the news. Due to his poor health, El 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.
• His father, Pablo Saher, as governor of the state of Falcón, obtained a pardon with the outgoing president, Betancourt, which became effective on March 10, 1964, one day before handing over the Presidency to Raúl Leoni.
• 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 studies in Economics. In 1965, his parents went to visit him in the city of Brighton and the three of them went on a trip to Lebanon, where his father had relatives.
• In 1966, El Chema secretly left England and traveled to the Republic of Cuba to attend, as a MIR Youth Delegate, the Tricontinental Meeting 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” (killed in combat on December 10, 1966).

Mazo News Team