FBI launches new attack on Puerto Rican movement

On Jan. 11 the plaza in front of Federal Court in Brooklyn was filled with Puerto Ricans and their allies denouncing a new witch hunt against the pro-independence movement in their homeland.

Protest outside Brooklyn, N.Y., Federal Court. WW photo

The demonstrators, who numbered around 500, chanted, “Filiberto lives, the struggle continues!” and “FBI: terrorists, assassins, imperialists!”

On Jan. 10 and 11, similar demonstrations took place in Hartford, Conn.; Los Angeles and Oakland, Calif.; Chicago; Philadelphia; Cleveland; Fitchburg, Mass.; and Orlando, Fla.

In San Juan, P.R., more than 1,500 demonstrators marched in front of the Federal Court House with placards that read “FBI assassins.”

“Filiberto” refers to Filiberto Ojeda Ríos, a leader of the Ejército Popular Boricua-Macheteros, who was gunned down by the FBI right inside his home in Hormigueros, P.R., on Sept. 23, 2005. Now the U.S. political police agency is going after Puerto Ricans in New York City.

Three were subpoenaed to appear before a New York grand jury on Jan. 11 and a fourth is reportedly being hunted. The three are Tania Frontera, a graphic designer; Christopher Torres, a social worker; and Julio Pabón, a filmmaker. The FBI may also be looking for Héctor Rivera, another cultural worker.

Just two days after the subpoenas, a committee was set up in New York called the Hostos Jan. 11 Grand Jury Resistance Campaign. The movement is calling for no collaboration with the oppressive authorities. It states that this heightened repression is a violation of human rights and of Article 1514 of the United Nations Charter, which states in part that “the subjection of a people by foreign subjugation, domination and exploitation constitutes a denigration of fundamental human rights” and concludes that “any such people have a right to resist that foreign domination.”

A media conference at New York’s City Hall the day of the demonstration was well attended. Both events had an impact and the authorities agreed to a postponement of the grand jury. It was a tentative victory, but this struggle is not over and the movement remains vigilant.

The choice of Jan. 11 as the original date of the grand jury was an affront to the memory of one of Puerto Rico’s most revered pro-independence leaders, Eugenio María de Hostos. Born on Jan. 11, 1839, Hostos had been an abolitionist and an advocate of workers’ and women’s rights. He also supported a federation of the Caribbean islands.

After the murder of Filiberto Ojeda Ríos in 2005, popular outrage crossed party lines in Puerto Rico and pushed the conciliatory and pro-colonial government of Anibal Acevedo Vilá to launch an investigation into the FBI’s actions.

This past summer several articles in the press there exposed the role of the U.S. “security” company DynCorp in Filiberto’s murder. Like the Blackwater contract employees who murder innocent civilians in Iraq and New Orleans, these U.S. mercenaries have only one goal in mind and that is to kill and repress. Washington’s response to this inquiry has been to charge Acevedo Vilá with corruption.

In other words, the colonizer is saying to the occupied: “How dare you question us?” Washington’s plan may now be to put its colony in Puerto Rico under direct U.S. receivership.

Puerto Ricans have resisted U.S. culture and the imposition of English-only in schools, and over the years have formed liberation organizations such as the Nationalist Party, the FALN and the Macheteros. Now the movement and its allies are calling for the FBI and the U.S. Navy to get out of Puerto Rico. International solidarity is needed.

The pro-independence movement has come together to defend the sisters and brothers in the struggle. It is also demanding the freedom of political prisoners Oscar López Rivera, Carlos Alberto Torres, Haydée Beltrán Torres and José Pérez González.