[Ppnews] Five Years Later: Remembering Filiberto Ojeda Rios

[Political Prisoner News]

https://nacla.org/node/6568


Five Years Later: Remembering Filiberto Ojeda Ríos

May 11 2010

Juan A. Ocasio Rivera and Elma Beatriz Rosado

Few incidents have galvanized the Puerto Rican 
nation as much as the FBI’s extra-judicial 
killing of independence leader Filiberto Ojeda 
Ríos in September 2005. Indeed, the politically 
divided country exploded in outrage over the 
incident, and Ojeda Ríos’s funeral procession was 
the largest ever attended in the island’s 
history. Since then, his image and his message 
have been repeatedly projected by supporters of 
independence. Indeed, striking student activists 
across the island who have shut down the public 
university system protesting increases in tuition 
are revisiting his speeches, communiqués, 
writings, and interviews to inform their 
developing activism. As the U.S. Congress reviews 
legislation this month proposing a change in the 
<http://www.democracynow.org/2010/5/6/house_vote_on_puerto_ricos_status>island’s 
status, independence supporting organizations 
continue to grapple with the revolutionary’s 
final call for unity as the necessary ingredient 
to move their agenda forward. To an increasing 
number of Puerto Ricans, the image of the fallen 
martyr and his message is never far off.

Ojeda Ríos (1933?2005) led a life of 
revolutionary activity in Puerto Rico as early as 
1961, when he first went underground. He was 
arrested in 1970, after being accused of 
belonging to armed anti-colonial insurgency 
groups, but he evaded prosecution by again 
returning underground. Later, in 1978, he helped 
found the Ejército Popular Boricua-Macheteros, 
also known as Los Macheteros. Notorious for its 
brazen attacks on U.S. military interests, the 
guerrillas proclaimed their goal of securing the 
independence of Puerto Rico through revolutionary action.

In 1985, the FBI launched raids against 
independence activists across the island, 
angering even the local Commonwealth government, 
which had not been warned in advance. After a 
dramatic firefight, Ojeda Ríos was among those 
arrested, but was later acquitted. While his 
acquittal was for charges stemming from his armed 
resistance to the FBI’s arrest attempt?which he 
claimed was an assassination attempt?the real 
charges brought by the FBI immediately after the 
acquittal included seditious conspiracy and 
charges for the 1983 Wells Fargo bank heist, 
which the Macheteros publicly took credit for. 
Ojeda Ríos knew that they had been pursuing him 
since the late 1960s and was clear on the need to 
protect his life and his organization.

Ojeda Ríos returned underground in 1990, causing 
widespread embarrassment to the FBI. Over the 
next 15 years, his would be the voice of 
rebellion and revolution, of social justice, of 
the working class, and of his ultimate vision of 
a Puerto Rico emancipated from the dependency and 
control of U.S. colonialism. His name and figure 
became legendary; his voice and image repeatedly 
emerged in the form of videos, voice recordings, 
and even exclusive TV interviews.

Unrelenting in its pursuit, the FBI sent 
Quantico’s Hostage Rescue Team to attack Ojeda 
Ríos’s home in the mountains of Hormigueros in 
September 2005. Elma Beatriz Rosado, his wife, 
safely made it out of the home during the 
firefight that ensued. She witnessed the ambush 
in which Ojeda Ríos was left to bleed to death 
after an FBI sniper’s single bullet wounded him. 
<http://www.independencia.net/articulos/jdav_reapmuerteFOR19ago09html.html>News 
reports suggested that agents tampered with the 
scene, and officials at FBI headquarters 
discussed 
<http://www.cubadebate.cu/noticias/2009/09/10/denuncian-que-intentaron-fabricar-suicidio-de-filiberto-ojeda/>portraying 
the incident as a suicide in order to cover up misconduct.

In March, compañera Elma Beatriz remembered Ojeda 
Ríos’s life and struggle at a panel held at the 
<http://www.leftforum.org/>Left Forum. Here is a 
slightly abridged transcript of what she said:

Filiberto Ojeda Ríos worked tirelessly toward 
achieving dignity for his country. He reaffirmed 
the principle of legitimate struggle and 
denounced colonialism’s vileness, basing his 
arguments on the 
<http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/independence.htm>United 
Nations resolution: “The subjection of peoples to 
alien subjugation, domination, and exploitation 
constitutes a denial of fundamental human rights, 
is contrary to the Charter of the United Nations 
and is an impediment to the promotion of world peace and co-operation.”

. . . More than 40 years passed, during which the 
FBI engaged in a merciless fight against him in 
their efforts to neutralize him and, 
concurrently, try to destroy his revolutionary 
ideas. On August 30, 1985, the FBI tried to 
assassinate him in his home in Luquillo. This 
fact was admitted in court by one of the FBI 
agents, who declared, under oath, that he shot to 
kill. They failed, and from that moment on, a 
sentence, illegally articulated by the U.S. 
agency, had been signed, a bullet for Filiberto 
Ojeda Ríos, a sentence they enforced on September 
23, 2005, when they finally assassinated him in the town of Hormigueros.

. . . The practice of casting shadows over Puerto 
Rican revolutionaries and patriots [has been] 
unfittingly applied in Puerto Rico by the 
government of the United States since the 1930s, 
when their principal target was the Nationalist 
Party and [independence leader] Pedro Albizu 
Campos. This practice was executed with greater 
detail from 1960 onward, when the FBI resorted to 
grafting on to Puerto Rico their 
counterintelligence, or counterspy program, 
<http://books.google.com/books?id=DFlIcxsGUEIC&pg=PA63&dq=puerto+rican+cointelpro&hl=en&ei=BY3pS4mlIoP7lweIoPz6Cg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=puerto%20rican%20cointelpro&f=false>COINTELPRO, 
which had, as its primary objective, the 
disruption of the independentista movement and 
curtailing their activities. The directives 
specified in a 
<http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Caribbean/FBI_PuertoRicanGroups.html>memorandum 
sent to the FBI office in San Juan instructed the 
agents to focus their efforts on disruption and 
discord; on casting doubts on Puerto Ricans as to 
the wisdom of remaining in the independentista 
movement; and in causing defections within the independentista movement ranks.

. . . Filiberto was a revolutionary. He believed 
in the inalienable right of the people to 
liberty, to control their own destiny. The 
struggle for liberty was the maximum principle 
governing his life; he was not willing to 
renounce the use of any means in defending and 
protecting his country. In his revolutionary 
path, Filiberto fought through all means 
possible, excluding terrorism. His practice was 
one of humanity, the cornerstone of his 
revolutionary formation. He constantly vowed that 
he would not allow the abuse of a Puerto Rican 
brother or sister, considering them as part of his own family.

Filiberto fought for his country’s liberty. He 
defended himself and fought using numerous and 
varied mechanisms. He denounced Puerto Rico’s 
colonial status at the United Nations 
Decolonization Committee Hearing in 1990; he 
analyzed Puerto Rico’s situation and explained 
his strategies, plans, and projections through 
press communiqués and in messages directed to his 
Puerto Rican brothers and sisters; he organized 
actions reaffirming the rights of the Puerto 
Rican people; he reaffirmed the bonds of 
solidarity with Caribbean and Latin American 
countries; he collaborated in the struggles for 
equality and human rights at the international 
level, even in the United States.

As part of his concept of struggle, he joined 
numerous campaigns and battles, being among the 
most prominent, his efforts to 
<http://www.cubadebate.cu/opinion/2010/03/08/la-verdadera-imagen-de-filiberto-ojeda-rios-tallada-en-las-entranas-de-la-tierra-puertorriquena/>constitute 
the Popular Front for National Salvation. His 
concern was, besides liberation, social justice. 
He was alarmed by the degradation of the 
environment and advocated the conservation of 
natural resources, particularly forests. His 
heart ached at seeing the lack of health options 
for Puerto Ricans, and he denounced the 
insensitivity of a health system embedded in 
rampant capitalism. He felt uneasy about the lack 
of housing and advocated for those with fewer 
economic resources, especially people living in 
public housing projects, and he expressed his 
indignation at the discrimination against them. 
He was concerned with the future of youth, who 
had always had a special place in his heart, and 
he would tell them to study, and he encouraged 
and supported the demands made by the students’ movements.

The intervention of the United States armed 
forces in recruiting Puerto Ricans for their wars 
and teaching them to kill corroded his soul, and 
he challenged those affronts with his words and 
actions. He was worried about the people’s right 
to work and warned about the government’s 
intentions of transforming Puerto Ricans into 
totally dependent beings. He expressed his 
solidarity with the just causes adopted by Puerto 
Rican labor unions and denounced the government’s 
attempts at trying to strip the workers of their 
sense of pride in work. He would criticize the 
intolerance of some toward religious people, and 
he promoted the understanding of different 
spiritual traditions, emphasizing nondiscrimination.

He was disturbed by the loss of Puerto Rican 
identity, and he joined national reaffirmation 
efforts, recognizing the initiatives and 
achievements of those who forged Puerto Rican 
culture. The fact that Puerto Ricans were kept in 
situations where they were deprived of their 
liberty caused him anguish, and he was constantly 
demanding their liberation; in one case, 
interceding with Latin American movements for the 
release of a Puerto Rican sister so that she 
would be allowed to return to her country. And he 
was also willing to be traded in exchange for 
Puerto Rican patriots jailed by the U.S. 
government, which would allow them to return to 
their homeland. Finally, he was always willing to 
give his life for his ideals. . . .

----------
Juan A. Ocasio Rivera is a social worker, 
professor, and freelance writer based in 
Mayaguez, Puerto Rico. He has contributed to such 
online publications as Counterpunch and New York 
Latino Journal. Elma Beatriz Rosado is a Puerto 
Rican independentista. She contributes to the 
newspaper Claridad and to Cubadebate, and heads 
the Filiberto Ojeda Ríos Foundation.



Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

415 863-9977

www.Freedomarchives.org  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/ppnews_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20100511/9e1703f1/attachment.htm>