Published at: 08/10/2025 09:00 PM

(El Nacional, October 4, 1963)

• In the early morning of October 3, 1963, students Luis Manuel Rodríguez Díaz and Néstor Quiñones Martínez were arrested inside a Bahareque ranch located near the Jamucuparo Fund, located on the Morón—Píritu highway.
• The search of the humble house was carried out by 13 agents belonging to the General Police Directorate (DIGEPOL), under the command of Antonio Acosta, head of that repressive body in Falcón state.
• From there, they were taken to Hato El Cascabel, where, at 2 am, the 13 Digepol officials shot the two young men in front of the entire Rodríguez family, who owned it.
• The governor of Falcón state himself, Pablo Shaer, arrived at the scene, machine gun in hand, to coordinate with officials of the Armed Forces Intelligence Service (SIFA) the expertise to take the fingerprints of the deceased, and paid 50 bolivars to each of the peasants who helped dig the grave for them.
• An arrest warrant (alive or dead) weighed on Rodríguez Díaz and Quiñones Martínez. Two months ago, the Digepol power plant, in Caracas, had ordered its thugs to make trips all over the Sierra Falconiana in search of the two students to assassinate them

Context:

• Within the framework of the National Security Doctrine of the United States, Rómulo Betancourt authorized and financed the deployment of a military mission in Venezuela comprised of officials from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
• They provided courses to agents of DIGEPOL and the Armed Forces Information Service (SIFA) for the monitoring, surveillance and disappearance of youth and university cadres who had climbed the mountains to form fighting fronts in several mountainous regions of Venezuela.
• These instructors imported from the United States trained the repressive bodies in the application of the slogan “Shoot first and find out later”, which Betancourt converted into a death penalty, applied during his five-year term and in successive governments.

Mazo News Team