Word: benemerito
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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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...
...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...
...many times in late years had the story come down to Caracas that for hours no one would believe it. Finally, though, there was no denying it: The Meritorious One (El Benemerito), was really dead. President Juan Vincente Gomez. 78, had died quietly in his bed of the uremia from which he suffered for many a month. With his General's cap and all his medals beside him, they laid him out in the village church at Maracay. All night long barefoot peasants shuffled past, their black eyes wide with wonder. In his lifetime canny Dictator Gomez made much...
...were simple. He stalked to the Casa Amarilla, the presi dential palace where he first took office, then through lines of blue-clad soldiers to Caracas Cathedral to dedicate 400,000 bolivars ($104,000) of restorations. On the sidewalks citizens yelled them selves hoarse. Was their President not El Benemerito, the Meritorious One? Had he not made a record in 25 years that no Hitler, no Mussolini could match? Venezuela had a balanced budget and a surplus of $13,00,000 in the national treasury. Her money is the soundest in the world. Not a single foreigner owns a Venezuelan...
...align with Nordic ideas of civil virtue. The old General is not only the richest man in Venezuela, but for all practical purposes owns the country. It has been charged that no project, from cattle breeding to oil leases, can exist without payment of a personal tribute to El Benemerito. All attempts to overthrow his government are instantly and brutally suppressed. Venezuela's pride, her highway system, has been built largely by the labor of political prisoners...
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