Published at: 04/12/2024 10:00 PM

(TORCH, November 26, 1963)

• During the repressive wave that Rómulo Betancourt deployed at the end of his government, some cities in the interior of the republic, such as Cantaura, were the scene of selective massacres against political strongholds in each region.
• In Cantaura, on November 26**, ** Municipal Police officers shot at the crowd that accompanied the coffin of leader Joel Rodríguez, causing the death of two people and injuring five:
• While funerals were being held in honor of the youth leader of the Democratic Republican Union (URD), Joel Rodríguez, and the crowd sang “Glory to the Brave People” in honor of the murdered student, police officers broke into the church doors shooting at those present. Francisco Natera, 45, and José Elías López Itanare, 50, were killed.
• The night before, Joel Rodríguez, 19, a 3rd year high school student at Liceo Dr. Felipe Guevara Rojas, was killed when, without a word, a drunk police officer shot him twice inside a nightclub.
• All those killed by Municipal Police officers were veiled in a burning chapel at the headquarters of the URD party.
• That same week, in Porlamar, edo. Nueva Esparta, during a URD rally, was killed by armed gangs of AD, the 19-year-old leader from Margarita Roraima Marín.
• URD had a strong militancy throughout Venezuela and the east of the country was the impregnable stronghold of its founder, Jóvito Villalba. At that time it was the third most important political force in the nation and for Rómulo Betancourt a headache whose final solution was to destroy it.
• To this end, Betancourt had hired thugs, armed gangs, secret police, whistleblowers and State security forces that spared no bullets to kill those they considered “unruly”, “suspects”, “subversive links”, “guerrilla collaborators” or young people suffering from what he called “student measles”.
• Outstanding URD figures were: Fabricio Ojeda, José Vicente Rangel, José Herrera Oropeza, Orlando Araujo and Amílcar Gómez, among many others, who dedicated their lives to the cause of social justice and the fight against Yankee imperialism.

Mazo News Team