Published at: 07/05/2025 09:00 PM

(EL NACIONAL, May 2, 1973)

• On May 1, 1973, while participating in the Workers' Day demonstrations, 22-year-old labor leader Rafael Antonio Parra was shot three times in the back.
• After the march, Parra traveled, in a caravan, to El Guarataro, El Observatorio and on January 23, where he was followed to be executed by agents of the Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention Services (DISIP).
• The crime scene was El Estanque Street, Barrio Libertad de El Observatorio, behind block 44 of Sierra Maestra, on January 23.
• The press, once again, misreported the truth of what happened, publishing as news the police report given by the State's political police.
• However, the facts proved quite the contrary, backed up by forensic expertise and eyewitness reports.
• The truth is that every May 1st, for 40 years, police forces left a trail of dead and injured demonstrators in the streets.
• Among them is Rafael Antonio Parra, who was shot three times in the back by a DISIP commission in broad daylight.
• In implementing the “pacification policy” of President Rafael Caldera (1969-1974), many people who died without a preventive detention or trial in the 1970s joined the long list of missing persons in the 1960s.
• Some of those killed by the “pacification” of the Copeyan government include:
  1. Ramón A. Colon, 27 years old, was murdered in his hometown, Aragua de Barcelona, by a commission from the hunting corps that patrolled in a jeep.
  2. Aurelio Trocett Calma, 60, was arrested by the Armed Forces Intelligence Service (SIFA) at his brother's house in Onota, Anzoátegui state. When he was identified as a collaborator of the guerrillas by Miguel Antonio Portillo, he was taken to his Algarróbenos herd and tortured in the presence of his family and neighbors. After being executed, the government reported that it “managed to flee from a TO”. Date of his death: 22-03-73.
  3. José Viloria Gutiérrez was killed by police in Valera, edo. Trujillo, when he was demonstrating calling for the release of the imprisoned students.
  4. Ángel María Castillo, alias Pancho Alegría, a native of Barinas, a peasant leader, was captured by the DISIP in Caracas, after being betrayed by the traitor Álvaro Jiménez Silva. He was tortured and killed on June 18, 1973.
  5. Esladia Margarita Vásquez Rojas: on June 28, 1973, she was machine-gunned inside her house by DISIP agents, including whistleblowers Homero Sánchez Araujo (Horacio) and Cesar Debona Noguera (Vladimir). Esladia died with a son in her womb.
  6. Noel Rodríguez was arrested in Caracas on 29-06-73 by a DISIP commission, in which Manuel Antonio Tirado participated. He was transferred to the TO3 of Cocollar, edo. Sucre, where he died on 06-08-74, as a result of the brutal torture inflicted.
  7. Miriam Barreto Merchán, 18, was arrested by the army in Bejucal de Jusepín, edo. Monagas, and transferred to Potrerito, where she was tortured and killed on 05-01-74.

Mazo News Team