Fabricio Ojeda

Who was Fabricio Ojeda?

Fabricio Ojeda was a Venezuelan journalist, politician, and guerrilla leader. He was the President of the Patriotic Junta that organised the movement to end Marcos Pérez Jiménez' dictatorship, and was then elected to the Venezuelan Chamber of Deputies for the Democratic Republican Union, before becoming a leader of the Armed Forces of National Liberation. He died in custody in 1966.

As a student Ojeda became a member of the Democratic Republican Union. In 1955 he began studying journalism at the Central University of Venezuela. In 1956 he became a reporter for El Nacional, based in the Miraflores Palace, and used this position to help organise the end of Jiménez' rule. On 11 June 1957 Ojeda invited two other URD members and a Communist, Guillermo Garcia Ponce, to his home, and they agreed that the time was ripe to form a multi-partisan organisation aiming to overthrow Jiménez. The Patriotic Junta was soon joined by Democratic Action and COPEI, and used the only clandestine press left in Venezuela, that of the Communist Party of Venezuela, to publish a manifesto. The Junta ultimately played a leading role in coordinating the 1958 Venezuelan coup d'état the following January, including organising a general strike on 21 January. As the head of the Patriotic Junta, Ojeda emerged from the Jiménez dictatorship as the most important URD member after its leader, Jóvito Villalba.