[News] SF - Oct. 13 - Commemorate the life of Filiberto Ojeda Rios

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Commemorate the life of Filiberto Ojeda Rios
Thursday, October 13th, 7-9 pm
Women's Building


Join us on Thursday, October 13th to commemorate the life of Filiberto 
Ojeda Rios, the courageous leader of the Puerto Rican Independence Movement 
who was assassinated by the FBI on Friday, September 23rd, 2005.  Filiberto 
was a founder of the clandestine group, Los Macheteros and was living in 
clandestinity at the time of his criminal murder (see story below for more 
information).

Bring your grief, your rage, your memories, poetry, pictures, art, music 
and food to share.
7-9 pm at the Women's Building, 3543 18th St., Audre Lorde Room.

The FBI Murders a Legend
By RAFAEL RODRIGUEZ CRUZ

O n 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 
rguayama at aol.com.

The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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