Published at: 06/12/2023 09:00 PM

Four days after the Democratic Coordinator and her spokesperson Carlos Ortega called for an indefinite strike, at 7:15pm on December 6, 2002, an armed attack took place in the Plaza Francia in Altamira.

A gunman of Portuguese origin, Joao de Gouveia, discharged three combs from a Glock Punto 40 pistol, killing 3 people and injuring 21 others.

The fatalities were identified as Josefina Inciarte, 70, and Keila Guerra, 17.

The body of Professor Jaime Giraud Rodríguez, who was hit by an accurate shot in the head, was left lying on the sidewalk, after being fatally shot while trying to disarm the gunman. He gave his life preventing more people from being murdered.

President Chávez issued instructions to “make quick and rigorous inquiries and considered it prudent to wait for the outcome of the investigations. He called for consideration.

Amid the confusion, there were more shots fired from handguns by other shooters who were later also arrested along with the Portuguese shooter.

According to investigations, Joao de Gouveia arrived at Maiquetía airport at 4:15 in the afternoon of Thursday, from Portugal, where he stayed for 15 days.

The next day, after having slept in a hotel in the center of the city, “he was looking for a gun that days before he had buried in Cerro Ávila. Then, he went to the Tejar building in Parque Central and, at the Armaros armory, he bought two boxes of Hollowpoint bullets.”

Then, he dyed his hair red, including his eyebrows, he went to the movies and when he arrived at Plaza Altamira he stopped at a corner, to start shooting from the southern part of the place.

It fired a first burst horizontally. Then a cascade of screams flooded the square and people started throwing themselves to the ground, but the shooter aimed his gun at the floor and kept shooting without saying anything at all.

He loads a second comb into the gun and empties it at the rate of four shots per second. Other handguns are fired in the midst of confusion, but no one identifies where those other shots come from.

Joao unloads the gun for the second time and even has time to put in a third load of bullets. He shoots a few more times when a man arrives behind him who manages to strip him of the gun, striking him in the hand with a tube that served as a pole for a small national flag.

In the videos from that night, you can clearly see General González González, Colonel Rodríguez Salas, Lt. Varela and other soldiers, walking in the midst of people very calmly, while everyone else was on the floor protecting themselves. “In the videos you see them carrying weapons, you see a lot of weapons.”

When the Cicpc analyzed the trajectories of the shots, it can be seen that there are descending trajectories, which match the shots fired by Joao, but there are ascending shots, fired by people shooting from the ground. There are injured people who were not victims of Joao, and those responsible are still at large. There were cartridges there that were not dot .40, which were the ones used by Joao, but there were 380 cartridges.

Once the investigations were over, the Government of Hugo Chávez concluded that Joao De Gouveia was hired by enemies of the revolution to create chaos, provoke conflict and promote its overthrow.

Context:

Plaza Altamira was an open-air conspiracy. Sometimes it looked like a raised barracks and, at other times, a temple or a toilet. Next door, the uniformed Thomists were in charge of a five-star hotel, the Four Seasons, which served as headquarters.

Wikipedia would deal with the fact and would note that “such events were widely covered by Venezuelan private media, which had permanent correspondents who transmitted all the statements of the rebellious soldiers.”

The most modern communication technology platforms were installed on site. That looked like a TV marathon, only with dead people. A madman named Joao de Gouveia arrived there shooting left and right. He said a television channel drove him crazy. The government let the bloody reality show wear out on its own.

One day, the media moved from Plaza Altamira to the CTV and PDVSA, to cover for two months the oil strike and sabotage, with its afternoons of war, day after day (source: Earle Herrera).

Mazo News Team