VENEZUELA: The Padre's Boys

Jesuit Father José María Vélaz made sure that his 28 schoolboys went to confession and Communion before they boarded the chartered DC-3 that was to take them to Caracas for the holidays. The lads, aged 9 to 17, sons of prominent Caracas families, were students at Father Vélaz' Colegio de San Jose at Merida in western Venezuela; two were nephews of President German Suárez Flamerich. As they walked out to the plane in the midday heat, strapping, Chilean-born Father Vélaz waved goodbye.

Six hours later Padre Vélaz got word that the plane was lost. Next day the wreckage was sighted in the high Andes, 55 miles to the east. His black cassock flying, Padre Vélaz clambered aboard a special plane. By nightfall, with 15 volunteers and a hardy baqueano (ranger),the padre was climbing up the craggy trail toward the lofty Páramo de Dos Torres.

Over the Crest. The track soon grew so steep that the men had to climb on their hands and knees. Only fog-filtered moonlight lit their way. Temperatures fell below freezing. By the time they reached the 10,000-ft. level, ten of the volunteers had dropped out. José Vélaz, with his grey head bare and a towel wound round his neck, pressed on through a whipping gale. At 12,000 ft., the ranger led him over a crest. Below lay the shattered fragments of the DC-3 and 31 bodies, the boys and their air crew.

In the icy dawn the searchers gathered up the broken bodies. Padre Vélaz could not identify most of them, but carefully copied the laundry marks in their clothing. Then he helped enshroud his students in sheets. At 9, the party, carrying the shrouded bodies slung between poles, began its downhill procession. At the foot of the mountain, footsore and unshaven, Padre Vélaz met and talked with some of the boys' fathers, completed the work of identification by telegraphing for a list of school laundry numbers. Then he took charge and directed the task of soldering the zinc coffins.

Back to the City. Last week the victims were flown to Caracas, where funeral services were held in the suburban Gran Colombia school. Thousands watched as 31 black or white hearses (black for men and older boys, white for the plane's stewardess and the younger boys) moved slowly out of the school grounds toward the cemeteries. In the bright sunlight at the Southern General cemetery, not far from the flower-heaped grave of Venezuela's murdered President Carlos Delgado Chalbaud, twelve coffins were lowered into one large grave, others into family plots. Then, as the parents turned away to their cheerless Christmas, Padre Vélaz flew back to the classrooms of the Colegio de San José.