Published at: 17/01/2024 09:00 PM

• Raúl Leoni ordered the National Guard: “You are responsible for the mission of permanently liquidating communist subversion in the country”
• On January 16, 1965, during the government of Raúl Leoni, the El Hato hamlet was robbed by military personnel. More than 100 peasants were taken to the Úrica concentration camp in El Tocuyo, edo. Lara.
• On the spot, they were shot by SIFA, in front of their families, the farmers Rufino Terán and Omar José Mendoza.
• The governor of the state of Lara, Miguel Romero Antoni (1964-1967), was personally responsible for directing paramilitary actions to assassinate peasants in Los Humocaros.
• The parliamentarian José Herrera Oropeza, for the Nationalist Popular Vanguard (VPN), surrounded the adeco government with so many complaints about summary executions committed against rural people, that the spokespersons of the most reactionary sector of AD appealed to slander, scandals and the falsification of information to distract public opinion.
• In a letter addressed to Arturo Uslar Pietri, the victims and their families reported that a contingent of 5,000 military personnel committed all kinds of abuses and outrages against the defenceless population, torturing 600 peasants, raping 50 women and looting rural property.
• Later, Benjamín Montilla, José Anastasio Alvarado, Jesús León Vásquez, Ramón Morán, Roseliano Colmenares, Isidro Escalona, Dionisio Rodríguez and Matías Colmenares were shot.
• The National, in its edition of June 8, 1965, confirmed the death of three peasants who had been arrested by the army. The victims were identified as: Timoteo Colina (43 years old), José de los Santos (42 years old) and Teodosio Arcaya (17 years old). All of them peaceful, hardworking people, well known in Curimagua, without ties or political backgrounds.
• The 62-year-old farmer José Rafael Cortez suffered serious injuries as a result of beatings inflicted on him by army agents in the anti-guerrilla camp of Potreritos, near Humo Caro Bajo, in Lara state.

Mazo News Team