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Fbi killing in puerto rico roils anti US setiment { September 28 2005 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/local/state/hc-28201306.apds.m0852.bc-ct--wellsep28,0,7707915.story?coll=hc-headlines-local-wirehttp://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/local/state/hc-28201306.apds.m0852.bc-ct--wellsep28,0,7707915.story?coll=hc-headlines-local-wire
FBI killing of nationalist leader roils anti-U.S. sentiment
Associated Press
September 28, 2005
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- A shadowy militant threatens vengeance for the death of a nationalist leader at the hands of "Yankee murderers." Protesters take to the streets, fists held aloft as they burn American flags and deface a pair of McDonald's restaurants with anti-U.S. graffiti.
The killing of a fugitive Puerto Rican nationalist leader in a gunbattle with the FBI has triggered a wave of anti-American sentiment in this Caribbean island territory and has even prompted threats of retaliation from a radical wing of Puerto Rico's independence movement.
Local officials say it's too early to know if the slaying of Filiberto Ojeda Rios, who was wanted for a 1983 Connecticut robbery, will spark a resurgence of pro-independence violence seen between the 1970s and 1990s. But they say they're beefing up security around police stations and federal offices just in case.
"You always take precautions when there are threats, but until now we haven't received any specific information about planned acts of violence," Puerto Rico police chief Pedro Toledo said.
He said Ojeda Rios' death has generated "a lot of rancor and rage" but rejected the idea that a militant pro-independence movement would find support among ordinary Puerto Ricans, most of whom support keeping the island status as a U.S. commonwealth or making it the 51st U.S. state.
"There can be repudiation over what happened, but acts of violence, the people won't accept that," Toledo said.
Thousands of mourners turned out Tuesday for Ojeda Rios' funeral, four days after he was shot to death by FBI agents who came to arrest him at his farmhouse in southwestern Puerto Rico for the armed robbery of $7.2 million from a Wells Fargo depot in West Hartford, Conn., 22 years ago.
The militant nationalist group led by Ojeda Rios, the Macheteros, or Cane Cutters, vowed to avenge his death in a statement read to mourners by the funeral's master of ceremonies.
"Yankees murderers, your days are numbered! ... The fight will continue now and until the Yankees leave our soil," read the letter, which was signed by a Commander Guasabara "from somewhere on the island."
The FBI said they shot the 72-year-old after he opened fire on agents, but later announced an independent probe into the shooting after local officials questioned the bureau's handling of the raid and Ojeda Rios' widow, who escaped from the farmhouse unharmed, said the FBI fired first.
The shooting prompted angry comparisons to the 1993 government siege at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, and sparked street demonstrations in which some protesters burned American flags and defaced two McDonald's restaurants with graffiti saying "FBI murderers!"
Further inflaming passions was the date of the FBI raid - Sept. 23 - the anniversary of the "Grito de Lares," when Puerto Ricans rebelled to demand independence from Spain in 1868. Some "independistas" say the Ojeda Rios' death could revive the marginalized independence movement.
"They (the United States) are shaking up a sleeping ant hill. We're going to continue this fight more than ever," said prominent nationalist leader Wilma Reveron.
U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton canceled a planned visit to the island Friday where she was to have spoken to the chamber of commerce in the southern city of Ponce, Clinton spokesman Philippe Reines said, without saying if the decision was connected to the protests.
Chamber of Commerce President Ernesto Cordova would only say that Clinton, a Democrat from New York, postponed the trip because of the "sensitivity of the current political situation."
The latest backlash against the U.S. government is the largest since an errant bomb killed a civilian guard on the island of Vieques in 1999. That incident sparked several years of protests, eventually prompting the U.S. Navy to abandon bombing exercises there in 2003.
Some have suggested the FBI would have acted differently if Puerto Rico were a U.S. state or a sovereign nation, but Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila said the U.S. has shown "the same improper manner" elsewhere in the past.
"They also went to Panama to arrest a president because he was violating laws of the United States. One has to reject and repudiate these events - and we have," Acevedo Vila told reporters Wednesday, referring to the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama to arrest President Manuel Noriega.
The Macheteros have been linked to several violent acts between 1978 and 1998, the most notorious of which was the West Hartford robbery. Three others are still being sought in connection with that crime.
The group also was accused of blowing up nine airplanes at a U.S. military base in northern Puerto Rico in 1981.
The U.S. seized Puerto Rico in the Spanish-American war. The island's 4 million people are U.S. citizens but cannot vote for a U.S. president and pay no federal taxes.
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Associated Press reporter Leonardo Aldridge in San Juan, Puerto Rico contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2005, The Associated Press
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