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“Destroy the seed before it grows...!”
BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD—Special for Granma
International
“DESTROY
that seed before it grows...!” shouted Luis Posada
Carriles, alias Comisario Basilio, to one of his men
who was interrogating Venezuelan Brenda Esquivel in
July 1972, at a locale of the political police (DISIP)
in Maracay, Venezuela. Posada had just found out
that the young woman was eight months pregnant.
The sad
testimony of that brave woman, recorded on video, is
part of the important dossier drawn up in Venezuela
by torture victims and relatives of people murdered
by Posada. In the late 1970s, that terrorist was
based in Venezuela under the guidance of the Central
Intelligence Agency, and from 1967 he was part of
the DISIP intelligence authorities.
A
transcription of Brenda Esquivel’s testimony was
provided to Granma International.
In her
description of events, Esquivel explains what
happened in the midst of an interrogation she
underwent after a dramatic arrest in a house in La
Victoria, about 50 kilometers from Caracas.
“I remember that the previous day – on June 2, 1972
– they killed Botini Marín in El Paraíso, along with
Ramón Antonio
Álvarez,
who was my companion at the time... They made it
look as if these two were involved in the kidnapping
of Domínguez the industrialist. They had arrested
them a few days earlier. Later, tortured and
drugged, they took them to that place, carried out
the sham, and killed them there...”
At the time Brenda was living in a relative’s house
in La Victoria. “The next day, my sister and I
arrived, and we went out nearby to buy the
newspaper...and saw a lot of movement by
strangers...We went into the house and were saying,
look, there’s something weird going on there...”
“I remember some officers came by, acting as though
they were utility workers. Then we realized they
were police agents. More came. They knocked on the
door and said ‘Open up now!’ Immediately, they began
firing inside.”
The police operation, directed by Luis Posada
Carriles, turned into a massacre.
“I remember that the uniformed police arrived, the
Army was there, the PTJ, the DISIP and an army
helicopter was firing down at the yard of the house.
I remember when our comrades fell... The first
comrade was a young guy we used to call Freddy...”
“Then my
sister’s husband, who also died there, said ‘let’s
stop this for a moment to save the children.’
Because there were two of Edmundo’s children there,
Edmundito and ‘Nené,’ and my sister had given birth
just 20 days before. So there were three children.
And I was pregnant... So he yelled out for them to
hold their fire, because two women and three
children were going to come out. Then, from outside,
they say yes and they stopped... But the as soon as
we started to leave, they began shooting, and we had
to throw ourselves on the ground. The idea was to
kill us, too...
“All of a
sudden, the shooting stopped, and a police agent
shouted: ‘Women and children out, we aren’t going to
do anything to you.’”
“COMISARIO, WHAT SHOULD WE DO WITH THE WOMEN AND
CHILDREN?”
Brenda
Esquivel continues: “As we were coming out, one of
the guys, the youngest one, a Spaniard we used to
call Fidel, grabbed my sister and grabbed me, and
embraced us, as if to come out with us and save his
own life. But when we got outside, the first thing
they did was put us up against a wall. And there,
they shot him in the head... in front of the
children and in front of us!”
Then an
agent yelled out to Posada, “Comisario, what should
we do with the women and children?” The thug
answered immediately: ‘Kill them, too!’
“When he
said that, all the people, people who were around
there, begin shouting ‘Murderers! Don’t kill the
women and children!’ If it hadn’t been for those
people and the community, we would have been dead.
The people saved our lives.
“They
brought out Edmundo Hernández, wounded. He had
wounds all over his body, but he was still alive.
They brought him out, threw him on the ground, and
in front of his two children, began kicking him in
the face, all of them kicked him.”
From there,
the two women and the children were taken in a jeep
to different police stations, ending up finally in
DISIP offices in Maracay.
“That was,
as they say, a terrible ordeal... We were tortured,
both physically and mentally, psychologically... And
we saw how they psychologically tortured the
children terribly, offering them food if they would
say where their mommy was, where their daddy’s other
friends were...”
Brenda
emotionally recalled her 20-day-old niece. “Because
of the impact of everything that had happened, my
sister had no milk, so the baby girl was there...
completely dehydrated... and they didn’t care about
that.”
“HE
TURNED AND KICKED ME IN THE STOMACH”
She tells of
the moment when Luis Posada Carriles, Comisario
Basilio, was told that one of the two women held was
pregnant, and how that reveals the cynicism of that
individual, who is currently in an immigration jail
in El Paso, Texas, under White House protection.
“They
brought me up to the first floor, and that’s when I
heard them say ‘Comisario Basilio...she’s pregnant!’
And then an agent, who was not him, asked me ‘How
many months pregnant are you?’ I say ‘Eight.’ Then
he asked (Posada): ‘What should we do with her,
Comisario?’ And (Posada) says to him, ‘Destroy that
seed before it grows...!’
“Then the
agent turned and kicked me in the stomach...That was
when I felt...That kick was what killed my child...”
The woman
began to bleed profusely. “All they did was laugh,
nothing more. And I was walking, and bleeding, and
losing liquid, and they were laughing...
“That order
was given by Comisario Basilio. Later on, years
later, I knew that that Comisario Basilio was Posada
Carriles. As far as I’m concerned, he was the one
directing the entire operation.”
But the
torture continued. “After they kicked me, they took
me to a bathroom. They had a bathtub there and began
sticking my head in, but didn’t finish doing it.
‘Are you going to talk?’ And they stuck my head in,
and took it out again.”
SAVED BY
JOSE VICENTE RANGEL
Brenda
Esqivel’s hell, tortured with her dead child in her
womb, was interminable.
“I don’t
know, I don’t remember, how many days we were there.
I estimate approximately 10, 12 days, something like
that. It was until my mother contacted the Human
Rights Committee.”
José Vicente
Rangel, currently the vice president of the
Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, was defending
victims of human rights violations at the time as
part of a parliamentary committee. He immediately
intervened.
“My mother
contacted him and met with him, and told him about
everything that was happening. They arrived there at
the DISIP.... My sister told José Vicente Rangel
about the condition I was in... The first thing that
he did was order for them to take me to a police
station, and have me see a doctor. He also ordered
for a doctor to see my sister, because she was also
in bad shape.”
In the
video, Brenda is asked, “The child inside you was
dead?”
“Yes, dead,”
she replies. “I had a fever. I wasn’t very coherent.
I was, well...and there was a smell...”
Brenda
Esquivel continued her story: “When they took me out
of DISIP, José Vicente Rangel ordered them not to
take me out handcuffed. And they didn’t take me out
handcuffed. But the moment I was in the car, they
handcuffed me. And they brought me into the
Concepción Palacios Maternity Hospital handcuffed...
“I remember
that they took me into a doctor’s office to be
examined, and the doctor told me to lie down. ‘No,
no, no, no, I don’t need to examine you, I already
know what’s wrong by the smell...’ And then he said:
‘Take her to the operating room.’ And they
immediately took me to the operating room.”
That
terrible testimony is followed by other descriptions
of incredibly cruel treatment that occurred during
the arrest that lasted for more than four months.
More torture, executions and threats.
The group of victims of Luis Posada Carriles in
Venezuela now has more than 80 video-taped
testimonies, relentlessly documenting the activities
of the terrorist and CIA agent in Venezuela. They
also have in their possession documents from police
files that demonstrate the criminal responsibility
of this protégé of the U.S. administration.
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