VENEZUELA: Encounter

As warm U. S. tourists bustled and Panamanian loafers ogled in the railway station at Colon, C. Z., one day last week, few noticed a swart, perspiring gentleman who descended from the Panama City train with his wife and five children in tow. But everyone turned in terror as with a sudden ccr-a-a-c-k a fierce-eyed fellow lashed out at him with a horsewhip. Soon the two were grappling for a revolver, rending the air with torrid Spanish curses. Police intervened and hustled both men off to jail.

There it was discovered that the assaulter was no ordinary brawler but Manuel Oyon, a onetime Venezuelan judge. The assaulted was General Jorge Garcia, onetime warden of Caracas’ infamous Rotunda prison where the late Dictator Juan Vicente (“El Benemerito”) Gómez kept Manuel Oyon and many another political prisoner. “He used to torture me!” cried Manuel Oyon. “The mere admission that he served as warden of the Rotunda is sufficient proof,” declared his lawyer. While the court tried to decide what to do with Manuel Oyon, who after his release from prison was deported by the present Venezuelan Government, General Garcia purred: “I treated him with the same kindness I showed all other persons. In fact, my mercy resulted in my removal.”

No place for a merciful jailer was La Rotunda, which specialized in El Benemerito’s two favorite brands of torture: the tortol, a rope knotted and tightened about the victim’s forehead until his skull cracked; the cepo, in which a rifle, tied under his knees with a rope looped around his neck, was jumped on until the vertebrae parted.