[News] The FBI Murders a Legend
Anti-Imperialist News
News at freedomarchives.org
Tue Sep 27 12:09:57 EDT 2005
September 26, 2005
http://www.counterpunch.org/cruz09262005.html
Assassination in Puerto Rico
The FBI Murders a Legend
By RAFAEL RODRIGUEZ CRUZ
On September 23, 2005, hundreds of separatists gathered in a small town of
Puerto Rico called Lares to conmemorate the 137-years old-failed
revolutionary attempt against Spaniard colonial rule, known as Grito de
Lares. At about 3:00 PM on that day, the crowd was listening to a recorded
message from Filiberto Ojeda Rios, leader of the Boricua Popular Army, Los
Macheteros (the Machete Wielders). Ojeda's recorded message had already
become a staple of the Lares celebration for a number of years, as he could
not speak in person to the public.
Filiberto Ojeda Rios has been in the FBI's most wanted list since 1990,
when he jumped bail while awaiting prosecution for the 1983 Wells Fargo
robbery in Hartford, Connecticut. During the fifteen years Ojeda Rios was a
fugitive from the FBI, he had managed to stay active underground as an
independentista leader, periodically giving interviews to the press and
sending messages of unity to the sadly divided anti-imperialist forces in
Puerto Rico. He was considered a Puerto Rican version of Che Guevara. For
years, the FBI offered a reward of one million dollars, for information
leading to his arrest.
According to Luis Fraticelli, head of the local FBI in San Juan, on
September 20, 2005, they discovered Ojeda's hiding place in the mountains
of Hormigueros, Puerto Rico. Fraticelli claims that twenty FBI agents
surrounded the small shack where Filiberto Ojeda was hiding with his wife,
Elma Beatriz Rosado, and decided to begin a stakeout. The FBI also claims
that three days later, on September 23, 2005 at about 3:00 PM, Ojeda
suddenly opened the door of the shack and began firing at them, injuring
one of the FBI agents in the stomach. They then returned the fire; so they
say. Although the FBI had no further gun exchange with Ojeda after 3:00 PM,
they decided to call Washington, D.C. and ask for instructions as to what
to do. Fraticelly says that they were instructed by Washington not to do
anything.
The town locals, suspecting that something was happening, gathered around
the entrance of the farm where the events were happening and began yelling
at the FBI agents, accusing them of having murdered someone (no reasonable
person trusts the FBI in Puerto Rico). But the locals knew Filiberto as
oldman Luis, a 72 years old and peaceful fellow, who lived in the small
shack and used most of his time to plant tropical flowers. They had no idea
that el viejo Luis was the famous Filiberto Ojeda Rios, el Comandante
Machetero. Meanwhile, hundreds of independentitas were now gathering in San
Juan in front of the FBI's offices to denounce the assassination of Ojeda
by FBI agents. They had a tip, as Filiberto had contacted a yet unknown
person by use of a cell phone, and already by 4:00 PM on September 23, 2005
everybody in Puerto Rico knew what the FBI was doing something suspicious.
The local media traveled to the Hormigueros region to obtain first hand
information about the alleged confrontation between the FBI and the
Machetero's leader. The FBI, following instructions from Washington - they
say- refused to give out any information. Pressured by the local media, the
governor of Puerto Rico, Anibal Acevedo Vila, admitted that the FBI never
informed local authorities that they were conducting an operation against
Ojeda. Moreover, the FBI told the Puerto Rican government that no local
official -including attorneys for the Commonwealth's government- could have
access to the farm. So, the FBI waited and waited, allegedly for
instructions from Washington.
According to Fraticelli, on September 24, 2005 at 4:00 AM, more than twelve
hours after the gun exchange, a group of FBI agents arrived from Virginia
to continue with the capture. They entered the farm and found Ojeda dead,
with his hand on the chest, as if he had been trying to stop an hemorrhage.
Thirteen hours later, at 5:00 PM, Fraticelli confirmed that Ojeda was dead
and claimed that the FBI had acted in self defense.
Because of other violent events against independentistas in Puerto Rico, no
one believes the FBI's fishy story. The governor of the Island -by no means
a sympathizer with the independentista movement- told the press that the
whole event was suspicious, that the FBI was trying to cover something. The
head of the Catholic Church, archbishop Roberto González, lamented the
death of Ojeda and referred to the FBI's actions as a "sinister operation."
The FBI reluctantly agreed to the independentistas' demand that Filiberto's
dead body be given immediately to the local authorities for an autopsy.
The autopsy was conducted the night of September 24, 2005 and revealed
precisely what everybody feared the most: Filiberto slowly bled to death,
while the FBI barred anyone from entering the shack to find out about his
condition or to help him. According to Dr. Pio Rechany, coroner of the
Institute for Forensic Medicine in San Juan, Filiberto received a single
bullet wound in his shoulder that perforated one of his lungs and went out
in the lower back region. It was not a wound that could kill someone
instantly. With medical care, Ojeda could have been saved. It was a slow
and painful death.
As with the killing of two independentistas by the Puerto Rican police in
1978 (which brought suspicions as to FBI wrongdoing), there is fortunately
a civilian witness as to what happened in Hormigueros on September 23,
2005: Filiberto's own surviving wife, Elma. Perhaps the only thing that the
FBI told the local media, hours and hours after the shooting, is the fact
that they had arrested Ojeda's wife, and that she was in FBI's custody. In
fact, they kept her in custody until the morning of September 24, 2005,
never informing her that her husband was dead. But Elma's version of the
story completely refuses the FBI's tale.
She says that at some point in time, a considerable number of FBI agents
approached the shack firing at will. Fearing for Elma's well-being,
Filiberto managed to shout at them and negotiate with the FBI the safety of
his wife. She walked out of the shack, and the FBI blindfolded her, putting
the now typical duct tape on her eyes. She was immediately taken away and
kept uninformed of events. Filiberto, she says, knew that the FBI was there
to kill him and did not talk at any time about surrendering himself. After
all, that is what happened in Cerro Maravilla, where the local police
-acting allegedly in cohort with the FBI- executed two unarmed
independentistas, well after they had surrendered to the authorities. The
Attorney General for Puerto Rico has already corroborated Elma's story. The
FBI fired more than a hundred rounds of bullets. Filiberto was able to
respond only ten times. There was no attempt to arrest him; they came to
kill him with premeditation.
Filiberto had a good reason to believe that the FBI was there to kill him
in a deliberate fashion. In 1985, when the FBI went to arrest Ojeda in
relation to the Wells Fargo robbery, he exchanged fire with them and
allegedly injured an FBI agent in the face. The FBI filed criminal charges
against Ojeda, and he was prosecuted in the federal court in Puerto Rico
for the alleged attempt to injure an FBI agent. In the middle of the trial,
Ojeda fired his attorneys and filed a pro se appearance. He defended
himself and was acquitted. The jurors believed Ojeda's version of the
events, that he had reason to believe that the FBI was trying to execute
him and, thus, that he acted in self-defense. Added to this, exactly
fifteen years ago, on September 23, 1990, Filiberto Ojeda got rid of an
electronic ankle bracelet that was imposed on him by a federal judge in
Hartford, Connecticut, as a further condition for his one million dollar
bail release, after he was charged with conspiracy in the Wells Fargo seven
million dollars robbery. From 1990 to 2005, Filiberto was running loose in
Puerto Rico, outsmarting the FBI on an Island that is smaller than the
State of Connecticut and where everybody, through means of gossip, can
easily find out what the other islanders are doing, even in their bed. So,
the FBI knew for sure that Filiberto was being protected by the community
at large. The FBI had a motive for their assassination.
Filiberto Ojeda will be buried the afternoon of September 27, 2005, as a
hero in his hometown of Naguabo, Puerto Rico. The Puerto Rican Bar
Association has announced that it will conduct a full investigation
-together with the Government of Puerto Rico- to determine if the FBI
murdered Ojeda. His wake will be tonight at the Puerto Rican Bar
Association Building in Miramar, Puerto Rico.
It is not strange that the killing of Filiberto Ojeda by the FBI has united
Puerto Ricans in a way not seen since the struggle to stop the use of
Vieques for military practices. Most people in the Island believe that
Ojeda was killed in a premeditated fashion on September 23, 2005, as a way
of sending a message to the independentista movement. An almost identical
thing happened on July 25, 1978 -the anniversary of the U.S. military
invasion of Puerto Rico- in Cerro Maravilla, which were the basis of the
film Show of Force with Robert Duval. On that occasion, however, the FBI
hid behind the local police to conduct the operation that resulted in the
assassination of two independentistas. The FBI did not do the shooting, but
no one doubts that they acted as co-conspirators.
So, on September 23, 2005, in the town of Hormigueros, Puerto Rico, the FBI
murdered a legend, but in the process, stupidly, they created a bigger one.
Rafael Rodriguez Cruz is an attorney in Hartford, Connecticut. He is also a
member of the Board of Directors of the Rosenberg Fund for Children and one
of the directors of Claridad, an independentista newspaper in Puerto Rico.
In 2000 he was convicted in federal court for civil disobedience in
Vieques. He lives in Springfiled, Massachussets and can be contacted at
<mailto:rguayama at aol.com>rguayama at aol.com.
The Freedom Archives
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(415) 863-9977
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