The Table of Solidarity has gathered on the occasion of the Public Hearings to denounce at this forum the nomination of an FBI agent to be Superintendent of the Puerto Rico Police. Various witnesses expressed their rejection of this pretension on the part of the governor-elect of Puerto Rico, Luis Fortuño, naming José Figueroa Sancha as the head of the Puerto Rico police force.

Statement of Elma Beatriz Rosado at the Public Hearings concerning the nomination of an FBI agent as Superintendent of the Puerto Rico Police

January 18, 2009

Good afternoon. My name is Elma Beatriz Rosado. I am a woman who struggles for the independence of Puerto Rico, and I come representing myself and the Filiberto Ojeda Ríos Foundation, named after the compañero assassinated by the FBI on September 23, 2005 in Hormigueros. Good afternoon to the court reporters at the Public Hearings into the matter of the nomination of an FBI agent to lead the Puerto Rico Police.

To begin with, I want to denounce the infiltration of an FBI agent, an agent of the government of the United States, into the Puerto Rico Police.

I want to oppose the intervention of the government of the United States into the affairs of Puerto Rican life.

In the struggle for the independence of Puerto Rico, we have suffered mistreatment and unending abuse. It is the truth. But it is also true that we have had triumphs which we are proud of, because we have managed to maintain our identity, our culture, and above all, our dignity. We have yet to achieve our freedom, sovereignty and independence. That is why we struggle.

Ours is an asymmetrical fight. The United States maintains an intense control over the Puerto Rican people exerting condemnable actions, day after day. Starting with the colonial condition, which, as imperial power, the United States has maintained over our country, countless rights have been snatched from us, and we have been exposed to humiliations and mistreatment.

We will not accept this any more. The United States must answer for the aggressions and attacks it has committed against our people. The list of these aggressions is far too long.

Today, particularly, I am going to refer to one that touches us very closely. In the name of our people, I want to repeat here the denunciations I presented before the International Workshop held in Havana last December, the tenth of December, about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

We denounce, condemn and repudiate the political assassination, the extrajudicial execution, of
Filiberto Ojeda Ríos by the government of the United States on September 23, 2005, in an operation in which more than 273 FBI agents participated.

We denounce, condemn and repudiate the torture carried out by the United States government on
Filiberto Ojeda Ríos when he was left to bleed to death, actively preventing him from receiving any medical attention.

We denounce the United States government’s politically motivated imprisonment of three Puerto Rican patriots, Carlos Alberto Torres, Oscar López Rivera, and Avelino González Claudio, for their struggle for the liberation of Puerto Rico. Two of them have served 27 and 28 years in prison.

We denounce the constant repression which the government of the United States conducts against those who struggle for the independence of Puerto Rico.

We denounce the nomination of the second in command of the FBI to be Superintendent of the Puerto Rico Police, an agent who participated in the assassination of Filiberto Ojeda Ríos and who participated for many years in actions against those who struggle for the independence of Puerto Rico. We cannot possibly allow such mercenaries to live among us, and we certainly cannot allow them to try to control our nation, taking posts within the country’s police force to repress us unendingly.

We denounce the colonial condition of Puerto Rico and the illegal presence of the United States on Puerto Rican territory and the state terrorism committed here.

We condemn the government of the United States for its constant aggressions and threats in Puerto Rico, in our sister Republics of Cuba and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, and in all nuestra America and every part of the world.

Now, when forces opposed to the Bolivarian revolution meet in Puerto Rico with functionaries of the United States government, they are demonstrating a lack of respect for our country. The United States thinks that it can do here what it cannot do in its own territory. From here, they plan and rehearse their attacks on our sisters and brothers in Latin American and other nations of the world.

And it must stop now!

We cannot allow them to continue isolating us from our Caribbean and Latin American community. The ties that bind us to our brothers and sisters are blood ties, cultural ties, historical ties, natural ties. It is a crime that they try to stop Puerto Ricans from traveling to Cuba, to meet with our Cuban brothers and sisters. The blockade of Cuba—another illegal intervention by the U.S. government— must be lifted. As I speak for Puerto Rican brothers and sisters as Caribbeans and as Latin Americans, I also speak of other U.S. interventions in our surroundings.

We demand that those responsible for the torture and assassination of Filiberto Ojeda Ríos be identified and held responsible, and we demand the immediate and unconditional release of our three Puerto Rican compañeros and brothers unjustly imprisoned by the U.S. government. We also demand the immediate and unconditional release of our five Cuban compañeros and brothers unjustly imprisoned by the U.S. government.

I want to mention some of the conclusions of the Table of Solidarity:

The nomination of the second in command of the FBI in Puerto Rico exposes the federalization of the Puerto Rican police force.

We denounce, repudiate and condemn that nomination.

We urge the Puerto Rican people to organize to recognize, combat and defend themselves against repression.

We invite the Puerto Rican people to join in activities in solidarity with the compañeros and compañeras who are persecuted for their work for our homeland and for mass repudiation of repressive agencies.

We need only to point out the political assassinations, the persecution of independentistas by way of subversive files. Let us not forget the counterintelligence program which the FBI carried out in Puerto Rico, dividing Puerto Rican families.

FBI, out of the Puerto Rico Police!
FBI, out of Puerto Rico!
Political assassinations must cease!
Repression must end!
FBI, out of Puerto Rico!

Thank you very much.

I would like to add, I want to point out, that the FBI has no legal, moral, ethical or any other authority to justify its presence and intervention into the life of the Puerto Rican people. They are the ones who are illegal. They are the ones who are undocumented.

I would like this tribunal to review just what power the FBI has for being in Puerto Rico, because they are here illegally, and they have to leave.

The intention to humiliate the Puerto Rican people is evident. Is there not a Puerto Rican in the Puerto Rico Police with the capacity to lead the police force? That is a question that should be answered.

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I can almost hear the first news of the day. The commentator will assume a semi-solemn tone and will recall: September 23. He will end his honorific mention in the first segment and, as time will “betray” him, he will pass on to the next topic after a brief commercial.

Only a couple thousand independentistas-the same ones every year-will gather at Lares and Hormigueros while the rest of the country goes about its business.

And nevertheless, the assassination of Filiberto Ojeda at the hands of the FBI will never languish. Like particles of oxygen in the air, it will forever remain impregnated in the deepest humming of our conscience.

Many Nationalists of the 50’s had something in common during their childhood: the incessant memory of the massacres of Río Piedras and Ponce, and since then, the terror of the Rhoads case, when a letter revealed that the North American doctor admitted injecting cancer into Puerto Ricans. The assassins were never accused. Life seemed to go on as if nothing had happened.

And nevertheless, two decades later, there was this persistent humming that guided eleven Nationalists toward the Fortaleza, Blair House and the United States Congress, in respective attacks that changed forever the perception that we Puerto Ricans were lifeless.

I barely mention it. Only from time to time do I talk about it with someone close. But not a single day passes that I don’t remember that night of terror when an official gang of assassins landed, occupied a community, shot a man and left him to bleed to death. A man who it was impossible to make disappear. And it’s not just me saying it, but tens of thousands of people who, from San Juan to Naguabo, rendered homage to one of the greatest revolutionaries of this epoch.

There are many laments, atrocious memories, pain in excess. But no one in this country can undo what was lived that day. As with Río Piedras and Ponce, Maravilla and Vieques, the 23rd of September will guide our steps. And that of those hundreds of little boys and girls who also lived it, and who that day began to comprehend some essential things about being Puerto Rican.

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The Puerto Rico chapter of the American Association of Jurists will present to the United Nations (U.N.) in June a complaint against the Government of the United States for what they understand to be the execution of Machetero leader Filiberto Ojeda Ríos by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigations.

The organization, through attorneys Fermín Arraiza and Ricardo Alfonso, will also appear between June 2 and 6 before the U.N. Human Rights Council to denounce this act and obtain support from other non-governmental organizations for the complaint.

“We will go there to denounce the assassination of Filiberto Ojeda and the cover-up by governmental authorities,” said Hiram Lozada, president of the Puerto Rico chapter of the American Association of Jurists.

The U.N. investigator before whom the complaint will be submitted at the end of June will be Philip Alston, Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions.

To press for profound investigation

“We will include in the denunciation the federal government’s refusal to give any type of relevant information so that an impartial and profound investigation could be conducted,” Arraiza stated.

The Puerto Rico Department of Justice resorted, with no success, all the way to the United States Supreme Court, seeking to oblige the U.S. government to offer the information under its control about the death of Ojeda Ríos at the hands of an FBI agent in an operation to arrest him in 2005 in Hormigueros.

Arraiza elaborated that the investigator may receive a complaint about the Ojeda Ríos case, even though the investigations under way in the Island have not terminated and even though all local government remedies have not been exhausted.

Once the rapporteur receives the complaint, he will notify the United States government, and the U.S. Department of State must extend to Alston a formal invitation to travel to Puerto Rico to carry out his investigation.

Associated Press

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The Boricua Popular Army The Macheteros warned today that the FBI is preparing for arrests, kidnappings and even acts to “provoke the death” of independentistas and people’s activists.

In a communiqué mailed to the Associated Press, The Macheteros indicated that the supposed “great onslaught of the FBI” comes in the context of the economic depression, the weakening of the political parties, and the “daily abuses” committed by federal authorities in the Island, which it did not detail.

“Our organization possesses information indicating that the FBI, with the collaboration of the colonial police, are planning an operation to arrest, kidnap, and in some cases provoke the death of independentista, socialist leaders and activists protecting the rights of the people, said the missive.

The Federal Bureau of Investigations evaluated the content of the communiqué, but refused to react. “We have no comment,” maintained Harry Rodríguez, spokesperson for the FBI on the Island.

“The FBI intends to strike at all the groupings and individuals capable of supporting the people in their struggle for decolonization, national liberation and social justice,” added the document dated May 19, but postmarked May 23.

The FBI considers the Macheteros a terrorist organization. Meanwhile, for decades independentistas have condemned persecution by U.S. authorities.

Following the death in 2005 of the self proclaimed leader of The Macheteros, Filiberto Ojeda Ríos, the FBI has taken steps to conduct searches and detentions, and a grand jury has subpoenaed several independentistas to appear before a New York court.

These efforts have been related to alleged evidence found in the house of Ojeda Ríos, who died after being shot during a federal operation to arrest him.

“The FBI will continue pressuring, harassing and threatening the Puerto Rican people, and the people of Puerto Rico are not going to collaborate with the agency that vilely assassinated our commander…” added the clandestine group.

“United we can remove the FBI from our country, as we achieved the removal of the U.S. Navy from Vieques. United we can save the Puerto Rican nation from the FBI assassins and their colonial collaborators,” added the document.

It referred to the campaign of civil disobedience unleashed following the death of a civil guard by a mistaken Navy bombing in Vieques. That campaign provoked the departure of the Armed Forces in May of 2003.

The Press Office of Police Headquarters was taking steps to obtain a comment from superintendent Pedro Toledo.

http://www.vocero.com/noticias.asp?s=Locales&n=110478

The archbishop of San Juan, Roberto González Nieves, confirmed to EL VOCERO that Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents interviewed him with respect to two visits that the religious leader had with the president of the Boricua Popular Army Los Macheteros, Filiberto Ojeda Ríos, while he was in clandestinity.

González Nieves indicated that some four or five months following the death of Ojeda Ríos, two FBI agents visited him at the Bishopric in Viejo San Juan. The agents’ visit came about due to the fact that during the search of the Machetero leader’s home on September 23, 2005 in Hormigueros, authorities confiscated a book the Archbishop had given him and in which the Archbishop had inscribed a dedication. The book was “Memory and Identity,” by now deceased pope John Paul II.

He indicated that the interview with the agents lasted several hours and was conducted in two parts. The first was about the Plan of Well Being of the Union, by the Independent Union of the Aqueduct and Sewer Authority (UIA by its Spanish initials), of which the Archbishop was president of the Board; and the second was about Ojeda Rí­os. “They asked me a lot of questions, but I can’t go into much detail because it would create an unnecessary atmosphere at this point. It lasted several hours. They called first and made an appointment. The atmosphere was respectful, and the dialogue was respectful. The bishops of Puerto Rico are aware of this interview,” he commented.

He explained that his communication with Ojeda Rí­os came about after an interview with the press where he was asked if he would be willing to dialogue with the Machetero leader, and he responded affirmatively, and that he would speak with him about peace and non-violence. “Seven months later I received a communication from Filiberto, and yes, I spoke with him personally on two occasions. Later I sent him a book by John Paul II with a dedication. He was reading it when the tragedy took place,” the prelate pointed out, clarifying that he was not Ojeda Ríos’ confessor.

As for his meetings with the Machetero leader, he expressed that “we had a pastoral dialogue. Above all, I spoke to him of the importance of non-violence, the methodology of dialogue and mediation and the importance of a spiritual guide. I detected in him an opening, and in his interior he was making favorable changes.” He did not offer details about the changes and declined to give details about the place of the meetings. He indicated that Ojeda Rí­os had asked for a third meeting, but the Archbishop responded that it would not be prudent. “He sent me a note about another meeting, and I responded that it would not be prudent, and I sent him the book. It wasn’t prudent for all the circumstances that were taking place,” he responded concisely.

Two days ago the Bar Association announced that it will seek the intervention of the Special Rapporteur of the United Nations (UN) to investigate the death of people at the hands of law enforcement or paramilitary agents. Ojeda Ríos was shot to death during an operation by FBI agents at his home in Hormigueros. Currently a Grand Jury continues to evaluate evidence about supposed illegal activities of the Boricua Popular Army. On February 10, 2006, the FBI confirmed in a press release that it carried out some six search warrants in Río Piedras, Trujillo Alto, San Germán, Aguadilla and Isabela “to prevent a potential terrorist attack.”

By Eugenio Hopgood
April 9, 2008

http://www.elnuevodia.com/diario/noticia/puertoricohoy/noticias/caso_cerrado/389412

Attorney General Roberto Sánchez Ramos revealed today that scientific evidence compiled by the Institute of Forensic Sciences in the death of Machetero leader Filiberto Ojeda Ríos shows that the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) agent who fired the fatal shot lied when he justified his act.

Regardless, Sánchez Ramos indicated in an extensive presentation that the Department of Justice closed its investigation because it lacks sufficient evidence to accuse the federal agents of criminal charges to prove them guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

He said he would ask federal congressional representatives of pertinent committees to initiate a legislative investigation into the death, and urged resident commissioner Luis Fortuño to join these efforts to shed light on the facts, once and for all.

The evidence compiled by the IFS determined that the agent identified by the pseudonym “Bryan” could not have seen Ojeda Ríos, as affirmed by the investigators of the Office of Investigator General (OIG) due to the conditions of visibility of the window, located 19′ feet away, during dusk on September 23, 2005.

“Bryan” told that federal office that he fired because he could see Ojeda Rí­os pointing a gun at him from inside the residence.

Sánchez Ramos maintained that the FBI’s rules for the use of deadly force prohibit an agent from shooting through a closed door; and that he understood that shooting through a window through which there was no view to the inside of the home would also violate those rules.

It was established that the trajectory of the bullet first pierced the refrigerator before hitting Ojeda Ríos’ body.

On the other hand, pathologist Francisco Cortés reported that the IFS estimated that Ojeda Ríos lasted 15 to 30 minutes before bleeding to death after having been shot.

Sánchez Ramos made the reservation that various experts had different opinions, some of whom said it took considerably longer for him to die.

The Attorney General indicated that they did consider the possibility of bringing charges of manslaughter against the federal agents, under the premise that Ojeda Rí­os bleed to death due to the fact that he was not provided medical assistance in time.

Nonetheless, said the official, they didn’t make the accusations due to the fact that they could not establish, beyond a reasonable doubt, that such an intervention would necessarily have saved the life of the Machetero leader.

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