The rebellious and strong character of Venezuelan youth has its genesis in La Victoria, a town in the north-central part of the country located 80 kilometers from Caracas. In the midst of the Independence War in the 19th century, it was a strategic place as it served as a passageway between Valencia and Caracas.
At the beginning of February 1814, the royalist José Tomás Boves ordered the subordinate Francisco Tomás Morales to take La Victoria to isolate Simón Bolívar, who was besieging Puerto Cabello, in Carabobo. Upon learning of this movement, the Liberator instructed José Félix Ribas, then Military Governor of Caracas, to organize an army and attack the royalists by surprise.
Given the shortage of soldiers, Ribas joined 800 young students from the University of Caracas and the Santa Rosa de Lima seminary, who quickly learned combat strategies that they applied on February 12 of that year, when they confronted the Spanish. Although that army was superior in strength, the young people fought to make Ribas’s proclamation come true: “On this day that will be memorable, we cannot even choose between winning or dying: it is necessary to win! Long live the Republic!”
Indeed, they won. In honor of that feat, Bolívar conferred on Ribas the title of Winner of the Tyrants and, 133 years later, at the proposal of the poet Andrés Eloy Blanco, February 12 was declared Youth Day, a date with great value which is perpetuated in our people against the threats of imperial factors.
“I say to the fascists, to the heirs of Boves, here are the heirs of José Félix Ribas, of Bolívar, of Chávez and we will defeat them too”, President Nicolás Maduro stated