[News] Filiberto Ojeda Rios: a Puerto Rican life
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Fri Sep 22 15:31:39 EDT 2006
(Reminder of Sunday Grito event at La Pena in Berkeley follows)
Filiberto Ojeda Rios: a Puerto Rican life
http://www.opendemocracy.net/home/index.jsp
[]
<http://www.opendemocracy.net/articles/#>Ari Paul
22 - 9 - 2006
The FBI killing of an independence campaigner on
a day of national resistance highlights Puerto
Rico tense relationship with Washington, reports Ari Paul.
------------------------------------------
[]
[]
23 September 2006 marks the anniversary of the
death of Puerto Rican independence leader
Filiberto Ojeda Rios at the hands of the United
States's federal police service, the FBI. It is
also a day when the people of this Caribbean
island of about 4 million people celebrate Grito
de Lares, an uprising in 1868 against the Spanish colonial rulers.
Some call it a coincidence, but Puerto Rican
independence activists (both on the island and in
the United States, under whose administration
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/country_profiles/3593469.stm>Puerto
Rico operates as a self-governing commonwealth)
see the killing of Rios as not just a botched
attempted to arrest an alleged bank robber, but
as a deliberate blow against their movement.
On the anniversary, activists in the western town
of Lares, in San Juan province, and in New York
will come together to commemorate Grito de Lares;
but this year they will mourn their loss and
display their anger against what they feel was an
<http://www.virtualboricua.org/Docs/for01.html>unjust
act by an unjust occupier. For many other US
citizens, the event can serve as a way to renew
the debate on possible independence for the territory.
Filiberto, life and death
Filiberto Ojeda Rios was the leader of an armed
resistance group called the Macheteros, or the
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Macheteros>Boricua
People's Army. What some would call a terrorist
ring others called a group of freedom fighters
using violence against American military
outposts. Since Rios saw the American presence
itself as the result of a violent invasion, he
thought violence in response was justified.
His militant politics were mixed with a carefree
temperament. News footage shows him laughing out
Viva Puerto Rico! while being hauled off by
American law-enforcement agents. The
<http://www.economist.com/people/displayStory.cfm?story_id=4455267>Economist,
a conservative British weekly, called him
"unusually bright", reporting that he had entered
university when he was 15 years old.
In 1983, he was arrested with other members of
the Macheteros in connection with a bank robbery
in Connecticut. While out on bail he was being
tracked with an electronic ankle bracelet, which
he removed on the symbolic date of 23 September, and went underground.
While in hiding in the western part of the
island, Rios became (according to some
independence activists) a sort of folk icon, as
he often gave radio interviews from safe houses
and wrote newspaper articles. People would often
talk about "Filiberto sightings," and these added
to his mystique even among those who may not have shared his politics.
There are many accounts of Rios' last days. What
is known is that an informant had tipped off the
FBI where Rios and his wife were living, although
Rios himself wasn't keeping it much of a secret.
Independence activists say he displayed a
Macheteros flag over his door, a claim also made
by the
<http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051024/jimenez>Nation
magazine. Hundreds of federal agents, working
without local officers, surrounded his house.
They claim Rios fired at them, and that they
fired back. Rios was shot, but the agents sealed
off the area and would not enter the house until
the next day, where he was found dead. The
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4287118.stm>FBI
claims they waited for safety reasons. Rios's
followers claim they did this so he would bleed to death.
Five months later, in February 2006, the FBI
raided the homes of several independence leaders.
In addition to the protests that followed Rios's
death in Puerto Rico itself, two US Congressmen
from New York questioned the FBI about its
behaviour. Puerto Rico's attorney-general also
conducted an investigation. A federal report
cleared the agents of excessive wrongdoing in ambushing Rios's dwelling.
Since his death, supporters in Puerto Rico have
held vigils in his memory on the 23rd of each
month in various towns, according to activists in
New York. In New York, a group of artists called
the
<http://www.ricanstruction.net/conspirators1.html>Ricanstruction
collective have screened video interviews with
Rios around the city on the same date.
"Whether they agreed with his politics or means
of fighting for independence or not", says Hiram
Rivera Marcano, 29, an independence activist
living in New York, "most Puerto Ricans felt it
was a cowardly act of violence against a 71-year-old man."
The case for freedom
After its long history of Spanish colonisation,
Puerto Rico was ceded to the United States in
1898 after the
<http://www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/1898/puertorico.html>Spanish-American
war. Today, people sceptical about the
independence movement contend that Puerto Rico
has it better than other Caribbean states due to
its special relationship with the United States.
Life expectancy is high. Puerto Ricans qualify
for American public-assistance programmes without
paying taxes for them. They can move freely to
American cities and gain employment. The relative
poverty in the independent Dominican Republic has
caused waves of migrants to cross the
<http://sportsforum.ws/sd/factbook/geos/rq.html>Mona
Passage into Puerto Rico in search of a better life.
"What is not ever mentioned or taken into
consideration", says Marcano, "is the price that
has been paid by Puerto Ricans for this better' living."
Unemployment is higher relative to America's more
depressed states. Puerto Rico also has higher
rates of poverty than the poorest states,
including hurricane-ravaged Louisiana and
Mississippi. With a lack of opportunities in
Puerto Rico, many move to the United States,
where they struggle to survive in the country's
working-class barrios. "We have lost traditions
and family customs", says Marcano. "Every day we
lose more and more of who we are, in the name of
assimilation here in the United States."
The island is still of importance to the United
States. Puerto Rico is a place in which American
businesses can set up production at low cost.
And, like Native American reservations and
maverick states such as Nevada, Puerto Rico
serves as a place for Americans to gamble.
The small island of
<http://www.vieques-island.com/navy/>Vieques off
Puerto Rico's coast may no longer used for target
practice by the American military, but it is
still of strategic military importance. It could
be a jumping-off point for a war with Cuba. It
also gives the US a foothold in a region that is
progressively rejecting the legacy of the
<http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/monroe.htm>Monroe
doctrine and the
<http://www.cid.harvard.edu/cidtrade/issues/washington.html>Washington
consensus alike.
Meanwhile,
<http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/09/21/news/CB_GEN_Puerto_Rico_Activists.php>nationalists
see Puerto Rico as the last real colony in a
world where multinational corporations have taken
the place of the imperial occupier in places like
Latin America. At the same time, plebiscites in
Puerto Rico have seen the population
overwhelmingly endorsing the status quo. Even the
Macheteros only count around 1,000 operatives.
Other separatist groups are considered dormant by US law-enforcement agencies.
For Filiberto Ojeda Rios, the reason independence
never became popular was institutionalised fear.
They feared economic instability and violence
from the United States. Others distanced
themselves from independence because they knew it
would mean losing public assistance. "We have
learned to look forward to and appreciate food
stamps and other hand outs the US throws at us", says Marcano.
Marcano believes that even though a transition to
independence would have its consequences, all
former colonies must have their taste of
sovereignty in the 21st century. In the
<http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/26/1434229>spirit
of the Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara, Rios
forecast that the movement for independence would
be motivated by something other than a cold
cost-benefit analysis of national sovereignty.
"One cannot love as much as we love our people",
Rios told a reporter in a videotaped interview
while underground. "The people won't let themselves be fooled."
<http://www.opendemocracy.net/articles/#>
[]
Copyright © <mailto:ari.paul at gmail.com>Ari Paul,
Published by openDemocracy Ltd. You may download
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Bay Area Boricuas
Annual Grito de Lares Celebration
Sunday September 24, 2006
$10-$15 sliding scale - 4-7:30pm
Featuring keynote speakers Adolfo Matos, former
Puerto Rican political prisoner, in California
for the first time since his release from Federal
Prison in 1999, and Zulma Oliveras, Puerto Rican
activist. Also featuring spoken word by Aya De
Leon and music by Rico Pabon, and live bomba y
plena by Cacique y Kongo. El Grito de Lares
refers to Puerto Rico's revolt against Spanish
rule in 1868. It is celebrated every year on the
island and in the states as a reminder of Puerto
Rico's continued struggle for sovereignty and justice.
The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org
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