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<font size=3><i>Monday, September 26th, 2005<br>
</i></font><font size=4><b>FBI Shoots Dead Puerto Rican Nationalist
Leader Filiberto Ojeda Rios<br><br>
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<a href="http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/26/1434229" eudora="autourl">
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/26/1434229<br>
</a><hr>
For the past four decades Filiberto Ojeda Rios had been a leading figure
in the fight for Puerto Rican independence and against U.S. colonial
rule. He was wanted by the FBI for his role in a 1983 bank heist.
[includes rush transcript] <br>
<hr>
Longtime Puerto Rican nationalist leader Filiberto Ojeda Rios has been
killed by the FBI. The shooting occurred Friday after FBI agents
surrounded a house where he was staying. According to an autopsy, Rios
bleed to death after being hit with a single bullet. Officials didn’t
enter his home until Saturday, many hours after he was shot. <br><br>
The FBI claimed the 72-year-old Ojeda Rios fired first but independence
activists accused the FBI of assassinating him. <br><br>
For the past four decades Ojeda Rios had been a leading figure in the
fight for Puerto Rican independence and against U.S. colonial rule.
<br><br>
In 1967 he founded and led the Armed Revolutionary Independence Movement.
He was later a key organizer with the FALN, the Armed Forces of National
Liberation and then the Boricua Popular Army, also known as the Los
Macheteros. <br><br>
The FBI considered Ojeda Rios a wanted fugitive because of his ties to a
$7 million bank robbery in 1983 in Connecticut. He had been living
underground for 15 years. <br><br>
On Friday night, 500 supporters of independence protested the shooting by
blocking one of the main roads in San Juan. Here in New York, a protest
is scheduled for today at 5 p.m. at 26 Federal Plaza. <br><br>
Earlier this morning I spoke with political analyst and radio host
Juan-Manuel Garcia-Passalacqua in Puerto Rico and asked him to lay out
what happened. <br><br>
<ul>
<b>Juan-Manuel Garcia-Passalacqua</b>, Puerto Rican political analyst and
radio host.
</ul><hr>
<i><br><br>
</i><b>AMY GOODMAN: </b>Earlier this morning, I spoke with political
analyst and radio host, Juan-Manuel Garcia-Passalacqua, in Puerto Rico
and asked him to lay out what happened. <br><br>
<ul>
<b>JUAN-MANUEL GARCIA-PASSALACQUA: </b>What happened, and again it's in
all the newspapers, because the widow survived, and she has told the
story. What happened was that the special team of the Federal Bureau of
Investigations entered Filiberto Ojeda's home in a rural barrio in the
town of Hormigueros by crashing the gate and shooting one hundred times
against the house. Filiberto then put on his fatigues and his boots and
responded the fire with ten shots. And the number of -- the number of
spent cartridges shows that he was shooting ten times, and the F.B.I. was
shooting a hundred times. <br><br>
After that, again, none of the hundred shots caught him, but a
sharpshooter that was located on a high ground, maybe in a helicopter,
shot him with a single bullet through again his neck or his -- place near
the face. And he fell, and then for 12 solid hours, the F.B.I. refused to
enter or let anyone enter the house waiting for Filiberto Ojeda Rios to
bleed to death, which is exactly what the coroner certified this morning
that Filiberto Ojeda Rios died of a single wound brought because of
bleeding caused by that wound that lasted for hours without any medical
or any other help. So, once again, it is clear this was a political
assassination. <br><br>
<b>AMY GOODMAN: </b>Can you talk about the significance of Filiberto
Ojeda Rios? <br><br>
<b>JUAN-MANUEL GARCIA-PASSALACQUA: </b>Yes, Filiberto Ojeda Rios was a
young trumpet player in Chicago when he was involved in the efforts of
the revolutionary Cuba intelligence in that city to promote independent
sentiment in that city, and after that, he came back to Puerto Rico and
founded what was known as the Ejercito Popular Boricua Macheteros, the
clandestine sector of the nationalist movement in Puerto Rico that was
responsible, as you know, for several successful attacks, including the
blowing up of several airplanes in the military base in San Juan for $45
million, and later for the assault of a truck, a brinks truck in
Hartford, Connecticut, also successful, again, in the course of
independence. <br>
He was tried for those events in a federal court in Puerto Rico, and he
was absolved unanimously by a Puerto Rican jury. I had the chance of
interviewing him on television that day, and we remained friends from
that day on. And he obviously was very proud of the fact that the Puerto
Rican jury had absolved him of all crimes and had decided -- and this is
the official decision of the jury -- that he had acted in legitimate
defense against the forces of the United States. Then he went into
clandestine activity again by taking off his -- how would you call that
thing that they put on your feet -- whatever -- the electric -- whatever.
<br><br>
<b>AMY GOODMAN: </b>The bracelet. <br><br>
<b>JUAN-MANUEL GARCIA-PASSALACQUA: </b>The bracelet, exactly. And he went
into the mountains and lived there in the mountains in the town of
Hormigueros. He built a house there, changed his physical appearance,
shaved his beard -- that was his trademark -- and became Don Luis, the
gardener of roses. And that’s how his neighbors knew him for many years.
But again, on the day of the celebration or commemoration of the Grito de
Lares, the Puerto Rican revolution against Spain in 1868, he was attacked
by a group of at least 25 Federal Bureau of Investigation officials that,
again, broke the gate of his home, shot one hundred times against him. He
had a chance of responding that fire only ten times, and then the fatal
shot by a sharpshooter in high ground took his weapon from his hands and
fell. <br>
After that, for 12 or 15 solid hours, he was left there to bleed. The
blood from his body seeped out of the house under the door and through
the little place in front of the house and could be seen by everybody.
Everybody watching could have known that he was bleeding to death, but
the Federal Bureau of Investigations repeatedly [inaudible] his doctors
or his attorneys that were there as he bled to death. And that is the
story. That’s how Filiberto Ojeda Rios has gone into immortality in the
history of Puerto Rico. <br><br>
<b>AMY GOODMAN: </b>And his wife? <br><br>
<b>JUAN-MANUEL GARCIA-PASSALACQUA: </b>His wife is now freed. She will
hold a press conference in a couple of hours here in Puerto Rico. And the
press today advances what she will say. She will say that she is the only
living witness and that the F.B.I. officers entered her home shooting one
hundred times, that Filiberto Ojeda Rios defended himself, and he was
shot and fell, and he shouted to her, “Leave now! Save your life and keep
fighting!” And that is what she will testify in a couple of hours in a
press conference at the [inaudible].<br><br>
</ul><b>AMY GOODMAN: </b>Radio host Juan-Manuel Garcia-Passalacqua,
speaking from Puerto Rico on the assassination of Filiberto Ojeda
Rios<br><br>
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