Published at: 11/09/2024 10:00 PM

PUNTO FINAL MAGAZINE, August 1963

• Every September 12 marks the anniversary of the murder of the Venezuelan student, Enrique Antonio Maza Carvajal, alias Pellizco, 22, a victim of the violence unleashed by Augusto Pinochet 51 years ago, against the constitutional government of President Salvador Allende.
• Maza Carvajal was born in Aragua de Maturín, Monagas state, on December 14, 1950. He studied primary education at the Escuela Cacique Taguay, where he ended up as the best student on the campus. He then went on to study secondary education at the Liceo Miguel José Sanz de Maturín, where he stood out as the first in his class. He had to travel an hour and a half a day to get to high school, which reinforced his perseverance and perseverance.
• He graduated as a bachelor's degree at the end of 1967.
• In 1968, he enrolled in the Faculty of Engineering of the Central University of Venezuela (UCV) and joined the ranks of the then Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR).
• He began to train politically as a teenager in his native Aragua de Maturín, from where his uncle Américo Silva, Simón Sáez Mérida, and other relatives with outstanding political and military careers in the ranks of the revolutionary left came out.
• He intended to travel to Cuba and changed his destination to Chile because of Salvador Allende's attractive appeal to young people.
• Enrique came to live in Santiago in the neighborhood of Matucana, in the house of three of his companions: Alfredo, Juancho and Marcel Roo. They moved many times, but remained in the capital until the day of the civic-military coup d'etat of September 11, 1973.
• He was accepted in the 7th semester of Electrical Engineering at the University of Chile, which he entered in the second term of 1971. At the same time that he began his studies, he incorporated himself into political work.
• Two organizations attracted Enrique's interest: the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) and the Unitary Popular Action Movement (MAPU). He actively joined the foundations of both organizations. He accepted the workers' proposal and came to show solidarity in their struggle at the head of the Industrial Cordones. Pastor Martínez, Marcel Roo, Juancho, Diego Uzcategui, and others also traveled this path.
• When the sanction of those expelled from the UCV was lifted and an amnesty was issued for those who were politically persecuted, Enrique was given the possibility of returning to Venezuela. However, he decided to stay in Chile and announced his return in 1974.
• Enrique was doing his professional practice at LAN Chile and Geka Laboratories, and was a member of the Chilean Revolution.
• On the day of the coup, he went to university and, unable to find companions for resistance, decided to meet with the workers, despite being invited by another Venezuelan to take refuge in the embassy.
• They arrested and tortured the workers in the middle of the street.
• Enrique was rebuked by a police officer who shouted: “You, Cuban, run.” ****He would have answered that he was Venezuelan and that he would not run, understanding that the “law of flight” would apply to him. However, they forced him out of line and was placed against a wall, where 17 machine gun shots were fired at him. His body was thrown in front of the Lucchetti Pastas factory, from where he was transferred to the Legal Medical Institute, located in the commune of Independencia.
• Enrique's body was transported to Caracas on September 29, from where it would be transferred to Cumaná, under extreme security measures.
• The instruction given to her sister, María Isabel, in the Ministry by officials was that the body could not be veiled but should be buried immediately.
• Upon arrival in Cumaná, the plane was awaited by hundreds of students and shaken people from the community.
• On September 30, he was buried in the General Cemetery of Cumaná.
• On April 11, 2018, at the facilities of the Andrés Bello Central House of the University of Chile, the rector of the institution, Ennio Vivaldi, posthumously awarded bachelor's degrees to 100 students executed by the dictatorship, including Enrique Maza Carvajal, who graduated 45 years later as an Electrical Engineer. The event was attended by friends, colleagues and a niece of Pellizco.

CONTEXT:

• At the end of 1968 and the beginning of 71, the University Renewal proposal and student autonomy put the university system in crisis. The then president Rafael Caldera closed the highest school of studies with the intention of creating chaos and blackmailing society with this type of reactionary practices that would abort the movement.
• Many of the students were expelled, several of whom ended up being persecuted by security agencies, besieged and threatened, until they were removed from the national political scene.
• After the protests led by engineering students at the UCV, in 1970, university authorities, in agreement with the Government, issued a decree to expel a considerable number of young people, including Diego Uzcátegui, Enrique Maza, Wanda and Raúl Colmenares, Pastor Martínez, Elena Amaro, Marcel Roo, Juancho Lacorte, Toño Ferrer and Alfredo Rodríguez.
• Some of those expelled decided to go to Chile to study, following the call of Salvador Allende, including former minister and former ambassador María de Lourdes Urbaneja. There they had the opportunity to continue their studies.
• The Popular Unity (UP) process, led by Allende, was attractive to young Latin Americans.

Mazo News Team