Published at: 29/04/2026 08:44 PM

(The Social and Armed Struggle in Venezuela, author Elia Oliveros Espinoza and The Impulse, April 27, 1965)

• On April 26, 1965, Antonio José Díaz Terán, a member of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) known as “Gavilancito” or “Commander Mauro”, was shot dead during a military siege carried out while he was gathered in a house located near the town of Arenales, near the river El Jabón, from the edo. Lara.
• This occurred during the Long and Final Extermination Operation. The army, after establishing strategic positions in that town, began to dynamite the area and then fire with closed fire at the house, shooting it down on the site.
• The order issued by the government of Raúl Leoni and its foreign advisors was to exterminate all “suspected” peasants and leaders linked to the guerrillas in that area.

CONTEXT:

As a result of this State policy directed from Miraflores during the month of April 1965, victims of the government fell victim to:

• On April 1, 1965, Miguel Ángel Guerra Leidenz, a 26-year-old journalist, a graduate of the Central University of Venezuela (UCV) and a fourth-year law student at that same university, was murdered by agents of the Municipal Police of the Federal District in the vicinity of the Plaza Miranda, when I was covering the news related to the student protest against Leoni's repressive policies.
• José Anastasio Alvarado was shot by the army in the hamlet of El Olivo del Edo. Lara.
• On April 5, Dionisio Pérez was shot in the El Rincón hamlet in Lara state.
• Ramón Morán was shot on April 8 near the hamlet of El Potrero, in Lara state.
• Franklin Hidalgo, shot in Pueblo Nuevo in the Portuguese state, on April 8 of that same year.
• The student Tomás Moro was killed on April 10 by a company of Army hunters in Las Chamizas edo. Lara.
• The peasant José Luis Herrera was shot in the secrecy of Angostura, in the Edo. Portuguese.
• The landowner Jesús María Vásquez, of the Democratic Republican Union (URD), was arrested in “El Coco” and was killed in Chabasquén, Portuguese state by orders of Lt. “Poison” Isidro Piña Martínez.
• The student Román González was arrested and shot in El Guache, edo. Portuguese.
• The peasant Simón Rodríguez was imprisoned in his house in El Salvaje, a town in the then called Cubiro District, today the Jiménez del Edo municipality. Lara; they destroyed it by force of blows and shots. They did the same in that same guerrilla district with Bonifacio Escalona and Domingo González Pérez, who were guarded by the testicles.
• On April 13, 1965, Roseliano Colmenares was shot in El Chamizal, Lara state. He was first subjected to a brutal beating, then assassinated.
• On April 15, 1965, Pablo and Domingo Márquez, along with 5 other peasants, whose identity could not be established, were shot in the hamlet of El Coco, Guárico municipality, in the state of Lara.
• On April 17, 1965, Francisco Fernández, known as Panchito, was tortured and then shot in that same town.

Mazo News Team