Venezuela: Saboteurs on the March

With the Dec. 1 presidential elections drawing closer, Venezuela’s embattled President Rómulo Betancourt faces mounting attacks by the rabidly pro-Castro F.A.L.N. terrorists who are determined to make a mockery of law and order. For a few hours last week, Betancourt seemed to have won a round against the F.A.L.N. But as it turned out, the Castroites had an even bigger week against Betancourt.

Acting on a tip, Caracas police captured four F.A.L.N. hoods hiding out in a midtown apartment. One of them was a real prize: José Rómulo Niño, 27, a leader in the spectacular hijacking of the government freighter Anzoátegui, the brains behind a $250,000 stickup last August, and trigger man this month in a police station raid that left one policeman dead. But no sooner was the good news announced than the government discovered that nine other F.A.L.N. leaders had somehow escaped from a maximum-security prison in western Venezuela. At large again was Fabricio Ojeda, 34, a former national Deputy sentenced to 18 years as a Communist guerrilla. Of the remaining eight, one was a convicted guerrilla. The other seven were top men in the bloody Puerto Cabello and Carúpano military revolts last year. While this was going on, the F.A.L.N., whose members may number less than 400, burned a Du Pont warehouse and a clothing store, blasted its sixth Creole Petroleum Corp. pipe line in nine months, and murdered still another Caracas policeman—their forty-ninth of the year.