Published at: 26/06/2024 09:00 PM

(LA EXTRA, June 6-27, 1964)

60 years ago, the following abuses and murders at the hands of agents of the General Directorate of Police (Digepol) and government paramilitaries were published in the newspaper La Extra; whose editor and director, Orlando Araujo, became a moral and intellectual reference for his accuracy in the complaints. The following State crimes were thus recorded for the historical memory of Venezuela:

• On June 6, 1964, “POLICE MURDERED AN 18-YEAR-OLD BOY THIS MORNING IN SAN AGUSTÍN.” Elías Federico Rodríguez, 18, was shot down on the floor after a police hunt, in a sector of San Agustín del Sur.
• On June 19, 1964: “A member of The Black Cobra and a member of Democratic Action, carrying a card issued and signed by the then Minister of Internal Relations (MRI), Gonzalo Barrios, by the name of Inovaldo Fuentes, killed Miguel Ángel González, father of several children, with a bullet in the forehead... The MRI agent and activist of Democratic Action stood at the door of Bar Los Pinos, on El Estadio de Alta Vista street, and he shouted: “Someone threw me down my beak tonight.” To the bad luck of the father of the family who was passing by at the time.
• In its edition of June 24, 1964, La Extra published: “After a bullet in the abdominal region, which keeps him in serious condition at the Western Peripheral Hospital, citizen Oscar Linares was injured by a Digepol agent, who shot him because he was taking too long to show him the ID card, when it was required.”
• June 27: “Of seven bullets, six of which were fatal, a Digepol, by the name of Enrique Paredes Leconi, killed last night with incredible cruelty the student Antonio José Aponte Losada, a 22-year-old from Caracas, a student at the Industrial Technical School and resident at 10 Street No. 30 in Los Jardines de El Valle”.
  • The student was walking back home when two Digepoles were leaving a bar drunk, they bumped into the young man and an agent went wild in expletives and discharged his regulation weapon.
• On June 23, 1964: “The version given by the press of an armed encounter in El Tocuyo, Lara State, was totally uncertain. In reality, a real robbery of drunk people took place in Santa Rosa, on the occasion of the marriage between the peasant Cheo Rodríguez and Dolores Pérez.”
• The “guerrilla encounter” in El Tocuyo turned out to be a brutal attack against a peaceful wedding that left a significant number of people seriously injured and eight arbitrarily arrested.
• The tendentious scoop was later clarified by El Nacional with the following headline: “RESPONSIBLE POLICE OFFICERS ARRESTED... FOR HAVING ENDED A WEDDING WITH GUNSHOTS”.
• The Black Cobra was a fearsome and bloodthirsty armed para-police gang dedicated to the persecution of “suspects”, and those described as adversaries to the government of Raúl Leoni, formed by cheerful triggers from AD and Copei.

Mazo News Team