My diary and Ricardo Campos' chronicle

It was for the days when I had to move house. I moved to a bigger and more comfortable place, actually. But as those who have had to suffer these changes know, moving house is not pleasant at all. Maybe it is my biggest trauma. The truth is that when I was sorting my books and other things in some boxes, I found my diary of 2018, a year in which I also changed house and country. Going through it, I could see the multiple writing projects never finished. Among them I found the idea of writing a chronicle about Ricardo Campos, who had been a student of the same faculty at the university where I worked at the time.

It seemed unfair not to have fulfilled that purpose. It was a stab in the back of my conscience. I felt some remorse because I felt that Ricardo was able to do what many of us did not do: expose his life to defend the idea of freedom that we had and that, after some time, has given us the total reason. So, seeing Hive account@theinkwell's call for entries, I decided to try my hand at writing non-fiction to see how it goes with this first attempt on this platform.

Ricardo Campos was thirty years old when he became the face of the protest in Cumaná. As Youth Secretary of the Democratic Action (AD) party, he had taken the reins of the struggle in the streets against the government's call for a Constituent Assembly.

The morning he was shot in the head, Campos was a few meters from his house, at a makeshift barricade on a downtown street. Protesters chanted slogans and waved banners as vehicles swerved to avoid the conflict zone.

The gunshot came out of nowhere, a thunderous sound that cut through the morning air. The boom was followed by a piercing scream of pain, and the crowd came to a sudden halt, frozen in horror.

By the time the ambulance arrived, it was too late for Ricardo Campos. Doctors did what they could to save him, but the brain damage was irreversible. Campos was declared dead that same morning.

The news spread like wildfire throughout the city, and the protest intensified somewhat in the days that followed. The streets filled with people, shouting slogans and demanding justice for Ricardo Campos. But justice never came. The Sucre municipal police officer who shot Campos was acquitted in a controversial and contentious trial, which many saw as a mockery of the young activist's memory.

Ricardo Campos' death became a symbol of the struggle against government repression, a constant reminder of the need to resist and fight for justice and freedom. His name and legacy remain in the collective memory of Cumaná, a city that, we wish, will never forget the sacrifice of a brave man who fought for his ideals until the end.