Cantaura massacre


The Cantaura massacre was an incident on 4 October 1982 in which a guerrillas' camp near Cantaura in Venezuela's state of Anzoátegui was destroyed, and 23 of the 41 guerrilla fighters of the Frente Américo Silva killed. The Air Force of Venezuela dropped 17 250-lb bombs, and the camp was surrounded by 1500 military, Venezuelan National Guard and DISIP. In 2011 fifteen bodies of victims of the massacre were exhumed. It was reported that "the majority of victims were executed, their bodies show signs of torture and shots to the head". The guerrilla fighters were said to have been meeting to discuss the abandonment of the guerrilla struggle, in favour of participating in the political process.