Published at: 28/01/2026 09:00 PM

(El Nacional, Latest News and 2001, January 25, 1980)

• On Wednesday, January 23, 1980, when the 22nd anniversary of the end of the dictatorship was commemorated, Marisol Valera Villegas, 19, and Jesús Enrique Pacheco Carreño, 24, were assassinated by agents of the Metropolitan Police (PM) during a peaceful demonstration in front of Blocks 29 and 30 on January 23. Ten other people attending the event were also hit by bullets.
• The metropolitan agents, armed with submachine guns and pistols, unexpectedly got out of a car and stormed the march organized by leaders of the Socialist League (LS), shooting at the demonstrators. Some of the ammunition used were so-called “dum-dum bullets”, whose use was prohibited.
• Both victims were participating in the commemoration protesting against the high cost of living and the lack of public services, when the group of heavily armed saboteurs ended their lives. Marisol Valera was struck dead when she was shot in the chest and Jesús E. Pacheco was equally lucky to receive a fatal shot in the forehead.
• Inexplicably, the media kept a complicit silence, hiding the news of the death of both political activists. Finally, on Friday, January 25, after 48 hours, when questioned at a press conference about the details of this crime, the commander of the Metropolitan Police, General Landys Ferreira Zambrano, answered: “I don't know the facts.”
• Marisol del Valle Valera Villegas was an activist of the political group RUPTURA, daughter of textile worker Jesús Valera, a prominent student who was studying the second semester at the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences of the Central University of Venezuela (UCV). His remains were veiled in the Aula Magna, receiving the homage of his fighting companions. He was fatally shot in the chest. She graduated from the Luis Razetti High School and lived, together with her parents and seven siblings, on Calle Real de Carapita, La Gruta sector No. 12.
• Pacheco Carreño was a member of the Revolutionary Workers' Movement (MRT), under the leadership of Julio Escalona. He had recently been dismissed, in April 1979, after serving two and a half years in prison at the San Carlos Barracks for military rebellion. He owned a small sale of acetate discs in the central area of January 23 and was domiciled on the 6th floor of Block 26.

Mazo News Team