Published at: 13/03/2024 09:00 PM

• Under the government of Rafael Caldera, many expectations had been created around the offer of a pacification policy, which became effective for the elites of the obsequent left who benefited from privileges granted from Miraflores.
• The list of beneficiaries includes Teodoro Petkof, Américo Martin, Pompeyo Márquez and Gumersindo Rodríguez. But for those who did not give up, “pacification” became the peace of cemeteries.
• The repressive spiral increased considerably in that last year of social-Christian rule.
• Donkey Island was so crowded with political prisoners that it became known as the Rafael Caldera Concentration Camp. To date, 41 victims of police forces have been identified, among whom the following revolutionaries were subject to repression:
• Honorio Navarro, or Comandante Colina, was assassinated by the government of Rafael Caldera on March 14, 1973 during an ambush carried out by SIFA agents, Carlos Núñez Tenorio and Ramón Vargas, at kilometer 27 of the Pan-American highway sector Los Teques—Tejerías. Commander Colina joined the FALN in the 1960s and was a prominent fighter in the José Leonardo Chirinos Guerrilla Front.
• Argelio José Reina: On February 25, 1973, he was allegedly found dead in a traffic accident, near Maturín, Monagas state. His relatives received his body without eyes, without nails and with traces of torture. His mother demanded the services of a forensic doctor in Maracay, but faced with the police's refusal, they transferred the body to Caracas, where it was determined that he had been tortured before dying.
• Herberto Alí Reyes Quiñones: On Tuesday, February 6, 1973, he was machine-gunned and disappeared. He studied chemistry and was an employee of the IVIC.
• Ramón Antonio Colón: He was a PTJ official assassinated on March 20, 1973 by a group of army hunters belonging to the Cocollar Theater of Operations (TO), in Aragua, Barcelona.
• Aureliano Trocelt Calma: On April 20, 1973, he was arrested by three DISIP agents in the town of Oonto — Anzoátegui State. From that town, he was taken to the Montañita Hato, where he was hung from a beam, head down, feet and hands tied, and subjected to rifle butts and beatings to death. To cover up the crime, the then governor Arreaza declared that this humble peasant, in his sixties, had escaped from an anti-guerrilla camp and that he did not know his whereabouts.
• Rafael Antonio Parra: On May 1, 1973, he was shot down while participating in the Workers' Day demonstrations, at the Cerro del Observatorio on January 23.
• Álvaro José Vitoria Gutiérrez: On May 9, 1973, this 16-year-old high school student was machine-gunned in the city of Valera, Trujillo state, when he was demonstrating in favor of his fellow imprisoned students.
• Margarita Oviedo: She was a young university student who was imprisoned in the Los Teques Prison for her participation in political activities. She had recently been released from prison when she was kidnapped and disappeared on April 24, 1973 by SIFA troops. On this same date, UCV Sociology student Geber Fermín Fernández was arrested and tortured.
• Esladia Vásquez: She was 17 years old, when in the early morning of July 28, 1973, several police officers from different security forces raided her house, which she lived with other comrades in San Carlos, Cojedes State, who machine-gunned her at gunpoint. His revolutionary trajectory was short but momentous. Among his executioners were two whistleblowers, traitors to the revolutionary movement, who took the police to the residence of the young student.

Mazo News Team