Published at: 22/01/2025 09:00 PM

Address by Raúl Leoni to the National Guard: “You are responsible for the mission of permanently liquidating communist subversion in the country”

(WHAT's happening in Venezuela, June 12, 1965)

• On January 16, 1965, during the government of Raúl Leoni, the El Hato hamlet was robbed by military personnel. More than 100 peasants were taken to the Úrica concentration camp, in El Tocuyo, edo. Lara.
• On the spot, they were shot, by agents of the Armed Forces Intelligence Service (SIFA), in front of their families, the farmers Rufino Terán and Omar José Mendoza.
• Governor Adeco del Edo. Lara, Miguel Romero Antoni (1964-1967), was personally responsible for directing paramilitary actions to shoot peasants in Humocaro; 63 were taken up by arms.
• The parliamentarian, José Herrera Oropeza, of the Nationalist Popular Vanguard, cornered the adeco government with so many complaints about summary executions committed against rural people, that the spokespersons of the most reactionary sector of AD appealed to slander, scandals and the falsification of information to distract public opinion.
• In a letter addressed to Deputy Herrera, the victims and families of the peasants who were shot, reported that a contingent of 5,000 military personnel committed all kinds of abuses and outrages against the population, by torturing 600 peasants, 50 women were raped, and their rural homes were looted or burned.
• They were later shot:
  • Benjamin Montilla.
  • Pablo Montilla.
  • Juan Venegas.
  • Nicolas Sanchez.
  • Francisco Fernandez.
  • Jose Anastasio Alvarado.
  • Jesus Leon Vasquez.
  • Ramon Moran.
  • Roseliano Colmenares.
  • Isidro Escalona.
  • Dionisio Rodriguez.
  • Matías Colmenares.
• The National, in its edition of June 8, 1965, confirmed the death of three peasants who had been arrested by the army. The victims were identified as:
  • Timoteo Colina (43 years old),
  • José de los Santo (42 years old)
  • Teodosio Arcaya (17 years old).

CONTEXT:

• On October 10, 1964, three months before the massacres of army “hunters” against peasants, in a presidential address, Raúl Leoni ordered a contingent of the National Guard: “You have the mission of liquidating communist subversion in the country forever.”
• Starting the “Long and Final” extermination operation, which was directly supervised by US military personnel.
• On this subject, the former national guard, and later journalist, Pedro Timaure, stated: “While in the National Guard, I came to do the anti-guerrilla course here at the Corpahuaico Barracks, here in El Tocuyo. Most of all, we were furrieles and I remember that instructors came from the United States.”
• While in that barracks, the guerrilla fighter Eligio Linares recalls that more than 60 detainees were taken out and an officer nicknamed “the harrier” pointing to a pile of dead bodies of those shot said: “here they sing or we kill them like all those we have here”.
• Thus, a hundred peasants were shot by the anti-guerrilla siege in La Marqueseña, Sanare, Ospino, El Molino, La Palma, Arenales, Humo Caro Alto, Humo Caro Bajo, Los Membrillos and all the hamlets that were located within the area of the Theater of Operations No. 3 (TO-3), located in Urica, whose range of action covered the states Lara, Portuguesa, Barinas and Trujillo.

Mazo News Team