Published at: 14/05/2025 09:00 PM

(THE CENTURY, May 15, 1965)

• Three peasants were shot by the Anti-Guarrillero Command in the El Coco hamlet, after being arrested in the El Llorón hamlet, jurisdiction of the Guárico municipality of Lara state, accused of being “links to armed groups”, according to a complaint filed by several farmers from that region, who arrived in the city of Barquisimeto fleeing the terror unleashed by the forces government officials, who claim to be encircling the so-called Simon Bolivar Front.
• The farmers reported that on the 4th, a platoon of soldiers raided the aforementioned hamlet where the brothers Pablo and Domingo Márquez were arrested, who were later transferred to El Coco, under the command of Lieutenant González Díaz.
• After being subjected to intense physical torture and interrogation to confess to being “guerrilla liaisons”, they were shot in the presence of other detainees in that same camp.
• Days before, the farmer Jesús Elías Velásquez was also shot, arrested during the army's “raids” in Lara state.
• It was also reported that on May 14, the peasant José Anastasio Alvarado, who had been arrested by military personnel from the Urica Anti-Guerrilla Command, was found dead.
• In all cases, forensic doctors at the morgue of the Egidio Montesinos Hospital diagnosed “death from unspeakable mistreatment”.
• In that government of Raúl Leoni, thousands of homes were raided without a court order, at any hour of the night, imprisoning citizens without any valid or concrete accusation. To be later disappeared.
• This modus operandi, in the countryside, was extended to thousands of defenceless peasants, who were run over and subjected to incredible harassment, whose families were later destroyed, their conucos destroyed and expelled to other regions of the country.

Mazo News Team