The Dictatorship Of General Marcos Perez Jimenez In Venezuela

The General Marcos Perez Jimenez was in power in Venezuela in 1958.

He had guided the destinies of the country since 1952, although he had also formed part, along with two other military men, of a triumvirate that was in charge since 1948, when they headed a military coup that had overthrown the democratically elected President, the immensely popular writer Mr. Romulo Gallegos.

When the then President and leader of the triumvirato, Lieutenant Coronel Carlos Delgado Chalbaud died in November 1950 (kidnapped and in a set of very strange circumstances, to the point that rumors said that Perez Jimenez ordered his death), the military named Perez Jimenez President, ratified later by the popular vote in a plebiscite (which was supposed to
have been rigged).

Perez Jimenez was ousted from power on January 23, 1958, in a military coup headed by the then Rear Admiral Wolfgang Larrazabal Ugueto, who later was a losing candidate in the election to the Presidency of the Venezuelan Republic (lost to the political party AD’s candidate, Romulo Betancourt).

The evening of the military coup, the warplanes were flying low over Caracas and when it was dark, from the courtyard of the house where we lived, from the corners of Mamey to Dolores, in Caracas, the brightness of the tracer bullets could be seen.

In the house, they placed upholstery against the tall windows of the adjacent room to the right of ours, which then was empty and closer to the streets.

Everybody went to bed early that night, with my parents glued to the radio that announced the liberation of the political prisoners, and many demonstrations.

The dictator, having lost the backing of a good deal of the military, and fearful of the crowds that had invaded the streets, left the country in a hurry with his family, from the city airport of La Carlota, in the East of Caracas, on their way to exile in the Dominican Republic, governed then by his friend, the also dictator Leonidas, “Chapita” Trujillo, and later, to the USA.

For many days, the newspapers in Caracas were full of histories reporting the excesses of the Seguridad Nacional, the political police of the regimen and of its boss, the henchman, and torturer Pedro Estrada, who tortured and took the life of many Venezuelans.

There were also talks about the millions of dollars stolen by the dictator, who in his hurry to leave the country, had a suitcase forgotten at the airport, supposedly full of dollars and property titles of his many possessions.

One of the stories that impressed me more, said that the dictator and his friends chased young and curvy models wearing bikinis while riding motor-scooters (?), throughout the beaches of the beautiful island of La Orchila, an island at the north, in the Venezuelan Caribbean.
I recall seeing allusive caricatures in the printed Venezuelan media.

Perez Jimenez lived in Madrid, Spain, with his family, in a mansion with all possible security measures.

In reality, he lived in the USA until 1963, when that country extradited him to Venezuela on corruption charges, (it was said that he had embezzled some $ 200 million dollars).

Perez Jimenez went to jail in Venezuela. He spent 5 years in the Carcel Modelo, until in 1968 he went to Court, was found guilty and condemned to 4½ years in jail, a sentence he had already fulfilled, so he was immediately released.

A very small punishment, for someone who supposedly ordered tortured or killed many Venezuelans, and who stole public funds (he was very rich, and just 54 years old).

Upon his release, he moved to Madrid, Spain.

He was again a Presidential candidate in Venezuela in 1973, and although he didn’t win, his political party, the Cruzada Cívica Nacionalista, obtained a lot of votes and Representatives to the Venezuelan Congress.

As time went by, General Marcos Perez Jimenez and his opportunistic party were consigned to oblivion and disappeared completely from the Venezuelan political scenario, until his death for natural causes, in Alcobendas, Madrid, Spain, in 2001, at the age of 87.