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September 29, 2005
west side (his) story repeats itself...
This saddens me so that I am unable to comment extensively. I will say that I am dismayed that with everything that has been taken from my beloved Tainos, they are still fighting to survive. The oldest colony in the world, under the rule of the the country that is supposed to epitomize democracy...when will the terrors of colonization end?
***
U.S. Assassinates Puerto Rican Independence Figure
By Bill Van Auken
09/27/05 "WSW" -- -- The fatal September 23 shooting of Puerto Rican
nationalist leader Filiberto Ojeda Rios represents an act of state terror and
cold-blooded murder by the US government. It is one more proof that in the
name of a "global war on terrorism," Washington has arrogated to itself the
right to conduct political assassinations and act as judge, jury and
executioner against opponents of US policies and interests.
Aged 72, Ojeda Rios was the leader of the Boricua Popular Army, also known as
the Macheteros, a group that advocated independence for Puerto Rico. He was
wanted on charges that he had participated in the planning of a 1983 Wells
Fargo armored car robbery in Hartford, Connecticut, in which $7.1 million was
taken. A fugitive for 15 years since fleeing house arrest in 1990, he was
sentenced in absentia to 55 years in jail.
Ojeda Rios was alone with his wife in their home in the rural southwestern
Puerto Rican municipality of Hormigueros, near the city of Mayagüez, when
scores of FBI agents stormed his property, unleashing a rain of bullets.
According to reports, at least 100 armed agents were involved, backed by
helicopters and a squad of military sharpshooters brought to the island from
Virginia.
The nationalist leader was struck by a single bullet from a sharpshooter's
high-powered rifle. While he suffered no wound to any vital organ, he was left
to bleed to death on the floor of his home as FBI agents refused to allow
Puerto Rican authorities and emergency medical teams anywhere near the house,
maintaining a militarized perimeter for 24 hours.
Later, an FBI spokesman claimed that the agents who had surrounded the house
and shot Ojeda Rios feared that the house could be wired with explosives and
were waiting for reinforcements to fly in from the US.
Testimony from his wife and a neighbor, as well as the results of an autopsy,
exposed as lies the FBI's version of events. US authorities had claimed that
federal agents had come to arrest Ojeda Rios, opening fire only after he had
fired on them.
In a press conference Monday, however, the nationalist leader's wife, Elma
Beatriz Rosado Barbosa, testified, "On Friday, September 23, in the afternoon
hours, our house was surrounded. Armed men penetrated our property and took
our house by assault, hitting it in a brutal and terrible manner, firing with
heavy weapons against the front wall of our residence.
Hector Reyes, whose house is approximately 300 feet from that of Ojeda Rios,
confirmed this account, saying that the US assault team began firing on the
house as soon as the helicopters arrived on the scene. "The first shots were
very powerful, not from a little revolver like they say he had," said Reyes.
The killing sparked spontaneous demonstrations throughout the island and
statements of condemnation by leaders of virtually every political tendency,
from pro-independence to the supporters of the island's status as a US
"commonwealth" and those advocating US statehood.
Even the territory's Governor Anibal Acevedo Vila, whose Popular Democratic
Party supports the island's current colonial status, found himself compelled
to declare his "deep indignation" and demand an explanation from the FBI for
the killing of Ojeda. "As governor, I make an energetic demand to the federal
authorities to end the silence that they have maintained in relation to these
events," he said.
Neither the governor nor the Puerto Rican police and local prosecutors were
given any advance notice that the FBI was about to mount a military operation
on the island. They first learned of the siege from news reports and received
no official report from the FBI until nearly a full day later. An FBI
spokesman claimed that the silence owed to the fact that the operation was
"developing" and the agency feared endangering its agents.
The head of the Catholic Church in Puerto Rico, Monsignor Roberto Gonzalez
Nieves, also condemned the killing, warning that it would "continue the cycle
of violence.
"They are operating as if they were in hostile territory, like Iraq or
Afghanistan," said Radio Isla political commentator Ignacio Rivera. "It has
political consequences," added Rivera, a supporter of statehood for Puerto
Rico. "They achieved their military objective, but the political side was
absurd.
The half-hearted protests from the island's establishment were a timid
reflection of the popular outrage the killing has provoked throughout Puerto
Rico.
There were demands on the island for the declaration of a day of national
mourning for Ojeda. The University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras, the island's
largest campus with 23,000 students, announced that students would be excused
from classes and university employees given the day off to attend the
nationalist leader's funeral Tuesday.
In a press release, the university's president, Gladys Escalona de Motta,
stated, "I call on the university community, in an exercise of its free
expression, to set a high example in these moments when the nation demands
clarity." She added, "Puerto Rico needs to take stock of its convictions to
confront the feelings that have overcome the country.
The FBI chose as the day to carry out the assassination the 137th anniversary
of the "Grito de Lares," the first revolt for Puerto Rican independence from
Spain. The day is celebrated each year as a commemoration of the Puerto Rican
national struggle against colonialism.
It appears likely that the day was chosen based on the belief that Ojeda Rios
would more likely be alone, as his sympathizers and supporters would be
marking the day with public meetings and demonstrations. The Puerto Rican
nationalist leader recorded messages that were read out in Lares every year.
Ironically, his last message was broadcast even as federal agents were moving
in to kill him.
Many, however, saw the choice of the day as a political statement by
Washington of impunity and contempt for the sentiments of the Puerto Rican
people.
An autopsy performed at the San Juan Institute of Forensic Sciences confirmed
the sadistic character of the FBI's assassination of Ojeda Rios. It showed
that he suffered a single bullet wound entering beneath his collarbone and
exiting his back.
"He did not die instantaneously," said Doctor Hector Pesquera, who
participated in the autopsy. "What I saw as a doctor was that they let him
bleed to death.... In my opinion, there was enough time, a considerable time
in which he was wounded and he did not receive the aid that could have saved
his life.
Puerto Rico's Justice Secretary, Roberto Sanchez Ramos, concurred with this
assessment, stating, "The information we have is that if Mr. Ojeda had
received immediate medical attention after being shot, he would have survived.
Ojeda Rios had been the subject of a similar FBI raid involving helicopters
and scores of agents in 1985, when he was arrested in connection with the
Wells Fargo robbery. He was subsequently jailed and tried for attempted murder
for shooting and wounding one of the FBI agents during the arrest. A federal
jury in San Juan, however, found him not guilty, its members accepting his
argument that he had acted in self-defense against the government's
aggression.
The FBI and other US authorities never forgave nor forgot this humiliation.
Now they have taken advantage of changed political conditions in the
US-characterized by the "global war on terrorism" and the USA Patriot Act-to
murder him. Clearly, if the agency had wanted to arrest a 72-year-old man,
accompanied only by his wife, they could have taken him alive.
The assassination of Ojeda is a case of Washington deploying a death squad on
what it claims as its own territory. This brutal killing serves as a warning
of the methods the US government is prepared to use to suppress political
opposition within the US itself.
Copyright 1998-2005 World Socialist Web Site
Posted by dvaldesd at September 29, 2005 09:41 AM