Published at: 23/10/2024 10:00 PM

(WHAT's going on in Venezuela? , October 29, 1966 — No. 119)

• On October 18, 1965, the university professor and Secretary General of the Communist Party of Venezuela, Alberto Lovera, a native of Juan Griego, Nueva Esparta state, was intercepted in his vehicle in the Plaza de Las Tres Graces by non-uniformed Digepol officials and taken to the basements of that police agency, in Los Chaguaramos.
• There he was seen by other political prisoners who claimed to have witnessed the leader being taken to that police headquarters and to have heard the appalling torture to which he was subjected. They also testified to seeing the vehicle, owned by Lovera, parked in the Digepol garage (a blue Mercedes Benz 180).
• It was thanks to the diligent actions of his widow, María del Mar Álvarez de Lovera and José Vicente Rangel, and despite governmental obstructionism, that the entire national press echoed the kidnapping committed by agents of that repressive body of the adeco government.
• Later, on October 29, when the body of Professor Lovera appeared dragged in the nets of a fisherman in Lecherías, Anzoátegui state, all the complaints of his widow and Rangel were confirmed.
• Thanks to them, all the forensic expertise that succeeded in determining the identity and type of torture to which this martyr of the Fourth Republic was subjected was practiced. Despite the beating he received, Professor Lovera did not report any of his classmates.

BACKGROUND:

• Long before, since the coup d'etat of October 18, 1945, Romulo Betancourt had unleashed, as de facto president, an unlimited repression to destroy the unions of the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) and, in particular, he had his eyes set on a trade union leader based in Cabimas: Alberto Lovera.
• In Cabimas, a few meters from Plaza Bolívar, “El Cojo” Lovera founded a popular news program, from which he broadcast news with a speaker system installed in the “La Conquista” building.
• Every afternoon, from the top floor, Alfredo Lovera, as the first announcer, was responsible for distributing the official bulletins of the PCV and the news of the day.
• Since hundreds of people gathered every day around the La Conquista Building to listen to the political news prepared and profiled by Alfredo Lovera, the de facto government of Betancourt decided to raid the headquarters of the PCV, seizing microphones, cabling and cornets used to broadcast the programs.
• The entire Regional Directorate of the PCV of Cabimas was put behind bars. This was the first time that the adecos imprisoned Alberto Lovera.
• In 1962, Betancourt twice ordered the arbitrary arrest of Professor Lovera by the State's political police, Digepol.
• Finally, after spending three years in hiding, on October 18, 1965, they hunted him down to put an end to his days, but not to his eternal memory as an indefatigable social fighter and martyr of representative democracy.
• During the three-year period of that de facto Adeco government (1945-48), in the La Concepción Oil Field, he was also assassinated by the gangs of AD lobbyists, Rafael Troconis.
• The mainstream press described the events of the kidnapping and murder in the following terms:
• El Nacional reported: “TWO TEACHERS ARRESTED DIGEPOL”: Professor Belén San Juan was arrested by Digepol and released after her house in Sabana Grande was searched... Digepol reports that she arrested Professor Alberto Lovera in front of the Plaza de Las Tres Gracias, in Los Chaguaramos.
• The next day, “El Universal” reported: “Internal Relations Denies the Arrest of Alberto Lovera”: Faced with the denial of the Ministry of Internal Relations, María del Mar Álvarez de Lovera, stated that “... my husband was arrested by agents of a non-uniformed police force and that it has been impossible for me to obtain information about him... The Director of Min Interior, Luis Vera Gómez, denied that he had been arrested...”
• Latest News in its 04-11-65 edition, reported: “They fear for the life of the National Political Leader who disappeared on the 19th and was arrested by Digepol”.
• Latest News from 09-11-65: “SIFA AND DIGEPOL DENY THE SEVENTH JUDGE TO HOLD PROFESSOR LOVERA IN CUSTODY”
• The constant of the Government of Raúl Leoni was to deny that the corpse that appeared in Decherías, chained and with a beak stuck in the chest, was that of Professor Lovera. The autopsy proved quite the opposite.

Mazo News Team