Published at: 04/11/2026 09:00 PM

OPERATION KANGAROO: Search of the UCV and closure of the Industrial Technical Schools

(El Nacional, 01 and 02 November 1969)

• On October 31, 1969, the government of Rafael Caldera, regressing to old troglodyte policies of the tyranny of Juan Vicente Gómez, ordered the military takeover of the Central University of Venezuela (UCV), which caused the death of 10 students, hundreds of detainees, the closure of that historic school for two years and the definitive closure of the Industrial Technical Schools (ETI).
• Three thousand military and police personnel from the Armed Cooperation Forces (FAC), the Army Hunters Corps, the General Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention (DISIP) and the Metropolitan Police (PM), broke into the university faculty with 12 war tanks, 33 trucks and armored vehicles, resulting in the closure of the university for two years and the elimination of residences students.
• This was an illegal and unconstitutional search carried out based on policies of repression and persecution to the death against students in general and organized left-wing militancy in particular.
• The raid began at 5 in the afternoon. An M-8 tank was stationed in the Plaza del Rectorado and another in the old School of Journalism. The spaces of the Botanical Garden, the Indoor Gymnasium, the University Clinical Hospital and the facilities of the Industrial Technical School of Los Chaguaramos, were occupied by military and police personnel, becoming strategic sites for intercepting members of the “University Renewal” movement, ten of whom died and hundreds were injured.
• Simultaneously, the Faculty of Agronomic Engineering of the UCV in Maracay, the Faculties of Engineering and Medicine of the University of Los Andes (ULA) and the rectorate of the University of Zulia (LUZ) were taken over by battalions of the Army Hunters Corps and the police, with 20 injured and 70 arrested, who were sent to the Puerto Cabello checkpoint.
• This arbitrary seizure, by force of shrapnel and clubs, continued for more than two years, until February 1971, causing the siege of the students and until the disappearance of university leaders, as was the case of Luis Alberto Hernández, of whom, until today, there is no news or trace of his whereabouts.

Mazo News Team