On June 21, Venezuela commemorates the Martyrs' Day in honor of Fabricio Ojeda, a revolutionary who headed the Patriotic Board to overthrow the dictatorship of Marcos Perez Jimenez (1952-1958).
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Ojeda was a founding member of the Democratic-Republican Union (URD) party, through which he was elected lawmaker in 1958. At that time, he was also leading the Patriotic Board, a clandestine group that fought against the Perez Jimenez regime, which was finally overthrown by a popular revolt in January 1958.
In 1963, however, he decided to leave the Congress and founded the Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN). For this reason, he entered into open controversy with Venezuela's Communist Party (PCV).
On June 19, 1966, a PCV member revealed Ojeda's location in Caracas. Three days later, the Armed Forces Intelligence Service (SIFA), backed by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), captured and murdered him.
On January 23, 2017, representatives of contemporary progressive social and political movements honored Ojeda by transferring his mortal remains from him to National Pantheon.
On that occasion, Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro highlighted his courage and awarded him the First Class Liberators Post-Mortem Order.
"Fabricio Ojeda entered the National Pantheon today on his own merits as a fighter, as a patriot, as an eternal youth," Maduro stressed.