Published at: 04/03/2026 09:00 PM

(SIC Magazine, No. 513, April 1989)

On March 6, 1989, Jesuit priest Matías Camunas recounted what actually happened between February 27 and March 5, 1989. It is a clear and simple writing that describes the popular explosion and the massacres that shook their populous community and all of Venezuela:

• “The Army, when a little time passes and we all distance ourselves from these moments that we are living in, I am sure that it will be tried as the author of hundreds of deaths of the people's children...
• How much death has the Army and the Guard (GN) brought! Unnecessary, useless, absurd deaths, many of them those of boys and girls, some girls and boys from the neighborhoods of Petare, are deaths that cry out to heaven, that cry out to Divine Justice:
• “The death of Santa... who in his house is shot by these nervous, inexperienced soldiers, robots of death and the FAL and after a week in intensive care... has died.”
• “And Richard, 16 years old, a young man who had dedicated his hours to the popular organization of the Maca Library..., was in the house, they hit and shoot and the young man died; an excellent student and a yudoka”.
• “And the scene of the compadre... before the corpse of the one who was his partner in Sancocho. Another stray bullet and there he dies in the face of his strangeness.”
• “And Joel, 14, faced with his mother's cries: “son, don't look out the window where death haunts the neighborhood. A bullet in the forehead broke his life and his mother's heart.”
• “And Rubén, who was challenging the soldier stationed in the building... received two bullets from FAL.”
• “Death, fear, mistrust, races and shocks... Walls enduring the impacts of bullets at their discretion, the years endured hunger and anger, seeing how others store, steal, speculate and plunder the country, dollars, space, enjoyment, private jets in La Carlota, seeing how others speak and live in another reality, of another Venezuela invented in the image of their interests.”
• “That night of 27F... was the night of the scream of explosion, of the liberation of a town that makes its voice and strength heard... the Army is shooting, the Metropolitan Police (PM) is also shooting... The soldiers are stationed in the buildings of Palo Verde, on the terraces and they don't stop shooting...”.
• “On Wednesday morning, frightened neighbors come to get the priest to do something. 'They're shooting too much, they tell me, and they're killing a lot of people. '”
• “I don't have a cassock. I check the sunrise and the stole and go out into the street with people. Crossed lead. Defying death, a small group brings their dead friend or family member. And they leave him lying in the middle of the road. He has one FAL shot in the head and one in the back. He's freshly stabbed, his blood is fresh and it's flowing down his neck.”
• “When I start the prayers of mercy, another group of people arrive with another body. A shot in the heart, it was the morning or the night before. The dead black guy is cold and stiff.”
• “We immediately joined in prayer to the God of Life, who witnesses so much death. We ask you to protect the lives of your children, to welcome all the fallen, to protect us. They had stopped shooting when they saw the priest dressed to celebrate the sacrifice of the village's children; but, once the group of neighbors and curious people grew up, the shooting started again... They ask me to intercede with those who give the orders.”
• “Dressed in liturgical clothing... I find myself in front of a figure, a gun on my belt, in plain clothes, a striking nervous tic, looking sick, insecure and fragile... How is it possible that such a man can assume so much cruelty? And so we understand the free, unnecessary deaths, so many deaths that came through the window; treacherous and deadly, death on the defenseless hill...”
• “Externally, everything is returning to normal. But the country, the people, life will no longer be the same, it's no longer the same. The revolt of 27F changed a lot of things. Is it true that they threw bodies at El Guaire? Residents of the Ararat building confessed to us how they saw how people died in The Prefecture as a result of beatings, gunshots and that they were taking them to Guaire. They threw them there.”
• “The same version came to us from a well-known police officer. 'We were like drunk people and we didn't know what to do with so many dead people. Al Guaire with them'. And on Agriculture Street, near the Petare dome: 'You couldn't go past all the dead that were on the road. '”
• “The guarantees have not been returned. We are taking notes, writing down and we know that it is our obligation to narrate what we have seen and experienced. It is a sacred duty to present events from their bowels.”
• “The Jesuit community of La Vega and two seminarians have been arrested... At 12 o'clock at night they were taken to Paradise and then to the DIM of Boleíta: 'Some dangerous subversives'”.
• “... Money is being collected among the residents of the neighborhood to celebrate a mass, especially since there are still many people who were killed that were not collected, and their spirits are in pain. In the evenings, they have appeared to some neighbors. In the church tower, next to the cross, eleven FAL hits. Mute witnesses of the death that haunted us...”.

This happened, as is, when Carlos Andrés Pérez, once again, ordered the Armed Forces and State Security Police to deploy their weapons against the defenceless people.

It happened during the ten days that shook the most important cities in Venezuela, with a death toll of more than 3,600. Petare, then the largest favela in Latin America, affected by the massacre of more than 1 thousand innocent people at the hands of the Army, the PM and the DISIP. All this is summarized by a neighborhood priest, Vicar Cooperator of the Sacred Heart Parish, who came out in defense of the people, standing up to the world and history.

This is when it is demonstrated that the number of 11,000 victims of the Fourth Republic turns out to be an insignificant, small sample, surpassed by several thousand who disappeared, tortured and murdered during 40 years of bipartisan dictatorship.

Mazo News Team