Published at: 13/05/2026 07:45 PM

(Latest News and El Nacional, May 9, 1986)

• Forty years ago, in The Yumare Massacre, led by Commissioner Henry López Sisco, nine totally unarmed young people were savagely tortured and massacred by agents of the General Sectorial Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention (DISIP).
• Between May 7 and 9, 1986, the members of La Corriente Histórico Social Frente 5 de Julio agreed to meet in the vicinity of the hamlet of La Vaca, in the state of Edo. Yaracuy, in order to discuss the ideological bases of a new political movement inspired by the thinking of the Liberator Simon Bolivar.
• There they were ambushed: Dilia Rojas Petit, Alfredo Caicedo Castillo, Simon José Romero Madriz, Rafael Ramón Quevedo Infante, Nelson Martín Castellanos Díaz, José Rosendo Silva Medina, Luis Rafael Guzmán Green, Ronald José Morao Salgado and Pedro Pablo Jiménez García.
• They were all backstabbed to pieces and then shot to death, topped off with gunshots. Later, the police officers proceeded to dress them in military suits to simulate that it was an armed confrontation.
• The meeting in Yumare had been attended by 15 members of the so-called Social Historical Current, who as combat weapons only carried books, documents and notebooks for deliberation.
• Unaware that they were undercover, they were taken to the slaughterhouse by two Red Flag whistleblowers, the Rabanales brothers, and two undercover DISIP agents, Rafael Antonio Rojas and Bergenis Beraciarte.
• They were the same people who, on 4-10-82, in complicity with Gabriel Puerta Aponte, did the dirty job of reporting in the Cantaura Massacre.
• In Yumare, all those executed were tortured, parts of their bodies severed, raped, shot and disguised in military clothing.
• The uniforms the bodies were dressed in had no bullet holes in them. However, punctures and machete wounds were found on the bodies and clothing originally worn by those executed.
• During the administration of President Hugo Chávez, in September 2006, the investigation was reopened, which led to the accusation of 29 participants in the massacre, including: Jaime Lusinchi, Octavio Lepage and Henry López Sisco, who evaded justice by fleeing the country.
• In statements given by López Sisco (2001 and Diario de Caracas) about his performance in this butcher shop, he said: “They arrived at 6:05am in a picturesque area, and even if they had a macabre side next to them, they looked so beautiful, so beautiful the guerrillas... What if they had to be killed? If 14 armed men come and you tell them Aaaalto! In an ambush you don't survive, you instinctively shoot back...”

“... When the guns stopped singing their death song, there were several dead guerrilla fighters... and that's when I realized that a flurry of FAL (...) had hit me in the side, they had almost split me in half.”

The victims of López Sisco were:

1.- Dilia Antonia Rojas, was born in Coro, edo. Falcón, on 02-08-42, mother of seven children. In 1973, her husband and sister were murdered by the government of Carlos Andrés Pérez. Signs of rape were found on her body, and her breasts and faces were mutilated.

2.- Rafael Ramón Quevedo Infante, a native of Boconó, edo. Trujillo was 26 years old, a poet and outstanding student leader at the Juan Bautista Dalla Lyceum, where he was president of the Caracas Student and Pedagogical Center, where he was a member of the Student Federation. His body was deformed by torture and had multiple bullet punctures.

3.- Pedro Pablo Jiménez García, a native of Edo. Falcón, was 40 years old and had three children. He owned a bookstore specializing in school textbooks. His body had a detached testicle, total loss of teeth, a fractured nose, a burst in the chest and a death blow to the skull.

4.- Simón José Romero Madriz was born in Caraca and was 28 years old, leaving behind a three-year-old son. He was the first voice of the Don Bosco Orfeón and the Cárdenas Spellam choir. He studied music at the Juan José Landaeta School. He taught guitar courses at the Venezuelan Youth Federation Cultural Center. His body had a fractured skull and his hands were severed.

5.- Alfredo Caicedo, 31 years old, studied anthropology at the National University of Mexico. His body showed signs of torture and burning gunshots to the head.

6.- Luis Rafael Guzmán Green, was 40 years old. A social fighter from a very young age, he was a member of the Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN) and later of the Punto Cero Group. He lived in exile in Cuba and Mexico. He left behind several children. His body was rescued by an aunt and taken to Guiana, where he was buried. He had numerous gunshot wounds and an open fracture of the skull.

7.- José Rosendo Silva Medina, a native of Las Mercedes del Llano, edo. Guárico, was 33 years old. He was one of the founders of the Francisco de Miranda Cultural Center and the Neighborhood Association of the Francisco de Miranda Neighborhood. His body had nine bullet holes and disfigured his face as a result of torture.

8.- Nelson Martín Castellanos Díaz, 31, married to Gladys Coromoto Cabrera de Castellanos and father of three children. I study at the Andrés Bello High School. He worked at the INCE and the company “XEROX”. At the time of his death he was a record seller at “Musical El Conde”.

9.- Ronald José Morao Salgado, 31, was a social leader, founder of the Movement for the Recovery of Historical Memory, was tortured and shot in Yumare along with his other colleagues. His family was relentlessly persecuted by the repressive bodies of the State, until 2000 when Hugo Chávez became President of the Republic and put an end to this hunt for the victims' families.

Mazo News Team