Published at: 10/01/2024 09:00 PM

• The murder and disappearance of Miriam Barreto Merchán (19 years old) occurred on January 3, 1974, when a commission from the Military Intelligence Directorate (DIM) moved to the Bejucales hamlet, near Jusepín, edo. Monagas, in order to stop it.
• From there, she was transferred to the Theater of Operations No. 4 (TO-4) located in the Potrerito Operations Command, Caicara municipality, Cedeño District of Monagas state, where she was raped, harassed and tortured. 
•  Already dead, the military removed the body from the anti-guerrilla camp and left it on a road near the hamlet where it was arrested, to simulate a landslide.
• When neighbors and acquaintances rescued her to give her a wake, TO-4 agents kidnapped the dead body and handed it over to a PTJ commission, which proceeded to draw up a report stating that the 19-year-old girl died of a “heart attack” while being questioned. Her body was buried in an unknown location in the Jusepín cemetery and to this day she remains missing.
• The torture to which Miriam was subjected occurred at the end of the Social Christian government of Rafael Caldera, in the midst of an environment of generalized repression in all spheres of trade union, student and peasant life. All this within the framework of the suspension of constitutional guarantees that protected the right to life, to freedom of association, the right to the inviolability of the home, to be tried by natural judges and to demonstrate peacefully in the streets.
• Two other women, Rosa Alvarado (16-04-65) and Aura Rosa Ramos (28-02-66), disappeared during the five-year term of the adeco Raúl Leoni (1964-1969), and their cases remain on hold because all the information about them was literally erased by the State's repressive bodies.
• In most cases, the families of the victims were subject to intimidating warnings to refrain from reporting to the press and to prevent them from going to the judiciary.
• Recently, the Juan Chacón Lanza Foundation, paying tribute to the young peasant Miriam Barreto, made unsuccessful efforts to locate her remains.
• On November 3, 2015, the Attorney General's Office brought before the Supreme Court of Justice a constitutional review of the case for the purpose of exhuming the alleged remains of the victim in Jusepín, which proved unsuccessful. He left two orphaned children.

Mazo News Team