In the early hours of Saturday, June 14, a peasant camp in Pedraza, Barinas state, was the scene of an assault by a group of armed men. A witness who managed to escape from the attack described the assailants as individuals dressed in civilian clothes, carrying long weapons and speaking with a distinct llanero accent.
Their testimony provides details about the breach, the subjugation of those present, and the violence exerted, with the attackers not identifying themselves as members of state security forces at any point.
Question: To get started with the information you have, how did the guys who apprehended you present themselves? What did they say upon arrival? Did they shout?
Answer: “I’ll tell you from the beginning. I was lying in my hammock, in a mosquito net, finishing up a movie when I heard something coming from the forest. Since that day we had been cutting grass, it sounded like rain falling, something like that… so I just kept listening. Then, about four meters from where I was, I heard a gunshot. As soon as I heard that, I started running. I bolted out of the hammock scared and heard them shout, ‘whoever moves, we’re going to kill them, and whoever looks at us will die.’ As I ran towards another hut nearby, I saw they had the other guys. They never identified themselves. I was about to cross by the side of the hut when suddenly I felt a rifle pressed against my neck, and they shouted, ‘Get down on the ground, get down on the ground!’ I just fell immediately. They kept saying, ‘If you look up, I will kill you.’…”
The witness recounts how, amidst the confusion and fear, he managed to escape the situation. “When the guy holding me down turned to go back, and he was still making others lie down, that’s when I ran. There was thick vegetation and a fence, so I smashed against the vegetation. I squeezed under the fence, and since there was a small stream passing by, it was less than knee-high, I jumped in and found myself beside the wire. The guy aiming at me shouted to another, ‘One went that way, one went that way,’ and the one inside the hut was shining a flashlight around. The hut was close to the wire, so the light was shining above, and if he shone it down, he’d see my feet, which were less than a meter away. The bush was thick, and there were some fallen palms, so I hid under them. When they turned their backs and ordered the others they had kneeling to crawl towards the other hut, I waited for them to go, then I started to crawl backwards until I fell into the small stream and escaped about 200 meters.”
The escape was desperate and exhausting. “I crawled through the stream where I couldn’t hear them, and I started running toward the savannah. I climbed over a fence and ran, ran, ran until I hit the embankment. When I reached it, I ran straight to a friend’s house where I knew there was internet. I arrived there an hour later, barefoot and in shorts, totally disheveled and scratched all over.”
Question: Okay, let’s go back to the hammock. What else did they say? Did they introduce themselves? Did they say, ‘We are this, we are guards, we are police, or paramilitaries’?
Answer: “At that moment, they didn’t say anything. They didn’t come to say anything; they just shined flashlights in our faces and pointed guns at everyone. When I was on the ground, I realized how they were dressed, that they were in civilian clothes with long weapons when they pressed the gun to my neck. I saw the weapon when I fell to the ground, and I could feel the guy was wearing civilian clothing, but I didn’t have time to notice anyone else because they buried my face in the dirt.”
Question: And the gun that was pointed at you, what type was it? Did you manage to see any specific model or characteristics?
Answer: “It was a rifle, a long weapon, that’s what they pointed at me. And the other guy they had in front of me was also being pointed at with a long weapon. When I hit the ground, I looked under myself and saw the other person who was on his knees, he had a three-year-old girl with him, and he was saying, ‘No, but the girl,’ and they told him to shut up, ‘Shut up, or we will kill you.’ As he slept with a machete next to him, they asked, ‘What are you doing with this machete?’ The only thing he kept saying was, ‘No, but the girl, the girl,’ and they grabbed the machete and shook it a couple of times; I heard that very clearly.”
Question: Are you sure the weapon pointed at you was a rifle?
Answer: “Yeah, it was a rifle because the guards carry long rifles, and you know what a rifle looks like.”
Question: But do you think they were guards? Were they civilians?
Answer: “I saw they were out of uniform; how would people distinguish between a guard and another person? When I saw they weren’t guards, I got scared, thinking, ‘This is a different group; if they catch us, they’re going to kill us all.’”
Question: Besides not wearing guard uniforms, what other civilian characteristics did they have?
Answer: “I couldn’t see much more since they were shining flashlights in our faces and had us on the ground.”
Question: Sorry, can you analyze the footsteps near you? Could you distinguish between boots and regular shoes?
Answer: “No, I couldn’t tell. When I was there, I just tucked myself into the forest, and all I did was listen and pray to God, thinking if they saw me they would kill me, and in that moment, I couldn’t distinguish much. I only saw the guy pointing at me; he told me if I looked up, I’d die. And while I was on the ground, I noticed he was wearing a black shirt and a hat. Once I hit the ground, I didn’t look up, not even by accident.”
Question: Did you hear anything from the women in the camp? What happened to them?
Answer: “Only one shouted, just one shout, and then they threw me to the ground. When the guy turned his back, I took the chance to cross through the forest and waited for them to leave.”
Question: You mentioned it was a young man who trapped you. Why did you think he was young? Was he young? What was the average age of the group? Were they all young?
Answer: “Something like that. When I saw him, he was about my height, and from his voice, I just recognized older people. So yeah, he was young. The person who pointed at me looked like the one who came on horseback; that’s the voice I recognized the most.”
Question: What was his accent like? Was it an andino, llanero, or barinés accent? Where could he be from?
Answer: “It was a llanero accent; it sounded like a llanero from Apure. When I heard the guy say, ‘Get down on the ground or I’ll kill you,’ I thought, ‘That has to be the guy who was on a horse earlier.’ I began pleading to God to save me, to protect me, and give me a chance to get out. Because I thought, ‘If they catch us all, who’s going to let Carlos know what happened?’ If they catch us all, they’ll kill us.”
Question: Besides the people on horseback, was anyone else watching or paying attention to you in the days prior?
Answer: “No, the only people who were around were those on the horses, and they came a couple of times.”
Question: How many men were on the horses?
Answer: “There were four on horseback. Three had horses, and two were on one horse.”
Question: Did you, as farmers at the camp, have any nighttime surveillance?
Answer: “That night it was raining, and we didn’t think they would come that late. From 6 PM onwards, one would stay on guard until midnight, and another would take over until morning. But since it was raining that night, there was no watch.”
The witness concludes his story with a sense of uncertainty and fear that continues to haunt him even after escaping. “By the way, I work as a milkman, and when I went to deliver today, the manager told me, ‘Two guards came looking for you, they have your photo, and they’re hunting you down. If they find you, they will arrest you. What did you do?’ I replied, ‘I didn’t do anything wrong.’ He said, ‘They are looking for you, and they will block an entrance to where you live; they will set up a check point there, and further up the road, they’ll put up another one.’ He was serious. But look, I… and it was something that scared me even more.”
The situation described by the witness highlights the vulnerability of peasant communities in the face of unidentified armed groups and the need for a thorough investigation to clarify the events and ensure the safety of the residents of Pedraza.