This Thursday, October 4, marks the 36th anniversary of the Cantaura massacre, a violent act that caused the torture and death of 23 young revolutionaries of the Américo Silva Guerrilla Front.
In this regard, the President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, through his Twitter account @NicolasMaduro, cataloged that moment as “the living expression of the repressive policies and extermination by the puntofijismo (*), against those who thought and acted differently” .
It was the year of 1982, when the government of Luis Herrera Campins, murdered these young Venezuelans.
This massacre meant the dismantling of the last guerrilla front in the east and was used, along with those of El Amparo and Yumare, as methods of social coercion to keep at bay and exterminate the revolutionary movement.
17 bombs of 250 pounds each were thrown to the camp, while 1,500 troops of the army, the National Guard and the Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention Services (DISIP) surrounded the area with orders to annihilate the members of the Américo Silva Front.
The victims were: Roberto Rincón Cabrera, Empress Guzmán Cordero, Carmen Rojas García, Sor Alonso Salazar, José Núñez, Mauricio Tejada, Enrique Márquez Velásquez, Carlos Hernández Arzola, Idemar Castillo, Luisa Estévez Arranz, Baudilio Herrera Veracierto, José Becerra Navarro, Eumenedis Ysoida Gutiérrez Rojas, Diego Carrasquel, Luis Gómez, Antonio Echegarreta, Eusebio Martel Daza, Rubén Castro Batista, Nelson Pacín Callazo, José Zerpa, Carlos Zambrano Mira, Beatriz Jiménez and Julio Faría Mejía.
Nicolás Maduro
@NicolasMaduro
“Thirty-three years ago, 23 young revolutionaries of the Américo Silva Guerrilla Front were tortured and murdered. The Cantaura massacre is the living expression of the repressive policies and extermination of puntofijismo, against those who thought and acted differently.”
10:45 – 4 oct. 2018
(*) “Puntofijismo” refers to the period when the “Punto Fijo Pact” reigned, which was the agreed bi-partisan alternability pact signed in the 60s between the two right wing parties Acción Democrática and COPEI, which ruled the country from 1958 until 1998. It took place in former president Rafael Caldera’s house, which beared the “Punto Fijo” name, and not at the town of Punto Fijo in Falcon State, as it may seem.
