Published at: 13/08/2025 09:00 PM

(EL NACIONAL, August 13, 1983)

• During the administration of Luis Herrera Campins, on August 8, 1983, Professor Oswaldo Arenas “Alejandro” and eleven detainees were massacred by officials of the General Sectorial Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention (DISIP), inside the General Penitentiary of the East, known as the Pica Prison, located in Maturín, that's it. Monagas.
• Regarding this police massacre, the newspaper EL NACIONAL, dated August 13, revealed that a military court in Maturín was appointed to investigate the events that occurred in that prison, where Oswaldo Arenas and 11 political prisoners were shot down by a command of the DISIP, the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DIM) and officials of the National Guard (GN).
• Professor Arenas Palencia “Alejandro” in that assault received a bullet that destroyed his abdomen, causing his death hours later, after suffering painful agony. The death certificate confirmed that his death occurred under these circumstances: “Death caused by the shooting of a high-powered weapon.”
• That day, in the early hours of the morning, the entrance to a seven-meter-long tunnel that was under construction was discovered, in Annex A of the checkpoint.
• In retaliation, the DISIP organized a plan to discredit the political leaders arrested in La Pica, through an assault carried out by the DISIP, the DIM and the G.N.
• The result of this joint operation was a bloodbath, in which the teacher and teacher trade unionist Oswaldo Arenas was murdered and shot: Italo Figueroa, Gabriel Moreno, Marino Alvarado, Levis Rodríguez, Efraín Salazar, Orlando Hernández and Franklin Gómez.
• Some of the victims, due to the seriousness of their injuries, were transferred to the Manuel Núñez Tovar Hospital in Maturín.
• In solidarity with those massacred in La Pica, 22 political prisoners from the San Carlos Barracks began a hunger strike on August 11.
• The hunger strike at the San Carlos Barracks ended thanks to the intermediation of singer-songwriter Ali Primera, after obtaining medical care for the isolated prisoners in La Pica, the restoration of procedural guarantees, access to family visits and the legal assistance of their lawyers.
• At that time, 80 political prisoners were imprisoned in La Pica, the vast majority of them university professionals, union leaders, peasant leaders and social fighters.
• Oswaldo Arenas “Alejandro” was born in Caracas, where he worked as a school teacher while studying computer science at the UCV. He was one of the 12 children of Juan Arenas and Celia de Arenas. He was imprisoned because of his outstanding participation in supporting the escape from La Pica Prison, where 13 members of the Red Flag escaped from that prison hell on August 14, 1977.
• He was also a prominent writer of press articles published in the main Edo newspapers. Bolívar, in turn, led the United Union of Teachers (SUMA) in Ciudad Guayana and was a member of the Red Flag, which he joined in the early 1970s.

Mazo News Team