Puerto Ricans protest FBI’s
‘assassination’
Yawu Miller
The FBI’s September 23 shooting of one of the Puerto Rican
independence movement’s most prominent leaders has created
a firestorm of controversy uniting — albeit briefly —
the island’s political factions in outrage against the United
States.
Last week, Puerto Rican activists held demonstrations and prayer
vigils to protest what many are calling the FBI’s murder of
Filiberto Ojeda Rios, who bled to death after being shot by agents
who converged on a small house in rural Puerto Rico where Ojeda
and his wife were in hiding.
Puerto Ricans here in Boston say the condemnation of the FBI shooting
have come from a broad spectrum of islanders, including those in
favor of statehood and commonwealth status for the island. Talk
radio stations on the island have been inundated with calls and
demonstrations have broken out in Puerto Rican towns and cities.
“There are masses of people coming out to the street,”
said local Puerto Rican activist Giancarlo Buscaglia. “Their
voices are being heard.”
FBI officials said after they had surrounded the Ojeda’s house
for three days, Ojeda opened the door and began firing at the 20
agents there. The agents then returned fire, according to the FBI
account. They entered the house on September 24 at 4 a.m. and found
Ojeda dead with a gunshot wound to the shoulder and neck.
Ojeda’s wife, Elma Beatriz Rosado, gave a different version
of events, claiming that FBI agents opened fire on the house before
Ojeda was able to negotiate for her safe passage from the building.
After Ojeda pleaded for negotiations, Rosado was arrested, blindfolded,
then led away from the house before the firing resumed.
Rosado told reporters in Puerto Rico that she knew the FBI had come
to assassinate her husband, who has been in hiding after jumping
bail in 1990 while awaiting charges for his alleged role in a 1982
armored car heist in Connecticut.
Ironically Ojeda, who is widely seen as one of the founders of the
modern armed Puerto Rican independence movement, died on the anniversary
of Grito de Lares, a 19th century declaration of independence in
the island’s uprising against Spanish colonial rule.
Thus, while Independentistas — as those favoring nationhood
for Puerto Rico are known — were listening to a taped address
recorded by Ojeda, FBI agents were removing his body from the house
where he bled to death.
In Boston, Puerto Rican activists staged demonstrations and a prayer
service in honor of Ojeda.
“The entire population is enraged at the assassination of
this leader,” said local activist Marta Rodriguez, speaking
at a rally in front of the JFK Federal building in Boston last Thursday.
“They thought that by killing him on the Grito de Lares that
they would intimidate us. Somehow their signals got crossed.”
Although Independentistas make up a minority of Puerto Rico’s
political spectrum, advocates of statehood and those advocating
a continued commonwealth status for the island were caught up in
the controversy.
“No one from the government of Puerto Rico was made aware
of the FBI’s operation,” note Jose Masso, the director
of the Boston office of the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration.
“No one found out about it until 22 hours after the fact.
For some people what this says is that Puerto Rico is still a colony
of the United States.”
Puerto Rican Governor Anibal Acevedo Vila, a supporter of commonwealth
status, denounced the FBI operation and called for an investigation.
Masso said accounts of the shooting that appeared in the Puerto
Rican press are at variance with the FBI’s recounting of the
event, questioning whether Ojeda fired first.
“There’s always been a distrust with regard to the U.S.
military in Puerto Rico and other countries in the Caribbean and
Latin America,” Masso notes. “Regardless of Ojeda’s
political beliefs and vision, folks are outraged that a 72-year-old
man would die of gunshot wounds in questionable circumstances.”
Ojeda was buried last week in his home town of Naguabo, Puerto Rico.
The Puerto Rican Bar Association has announced that it will conduct
an investigation into Ojeda’s killing, working in conjunction
with the Puerto Rican government.
|
|