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Nationalist killing prompts security concerns in puerto rico { September 29 2005 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/29/national/29puerto.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/29/national/29puerto.html
September 29, 2005
Nationalist's Killing Prompts Tightening of Security in Puerto Rico
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SAN JUAN, P.R., Sept. 28 (AP) - The killing of a fugitive Puerto Rican nationalist in a shootout with the F.B.I. has sparked "rancor and rage" and prompted an increase in security at police stations and federal buildings, Puerto Rico's police chief said Wednesday.
It is too early to know if the killing of the man, Filiberto Ojeda Ríos, will spark a resurgence of pro-independence violence seen in this United States commonwealth from the 1970's to the 90's, but officials said they were not taking chances.
"You always take precautions when there are threats, but until now we haven't received any specific information about planned acts of violence," the police chief, Pedro Toledo, said.
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, canceled a planned visit to Puerto Rico, where she was to speak Friday, Philippe Reines, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, said. There was no response to phone calls and e-mail messages to Mr. Reines with further queries on why Mrs. Clinton changed her plans.
Ernesto Córdova, the president of the Chamber of Commerce, said he was told by Mrs. Clinton's office that the trip was postponed because of the "sensitivity of the current political situation."
Thousands of mourners turned out Tuesday for Mr. Ojeda Ríos's funeral, four days after he was shot to death by F.B.I. agents who came to arrest him at his farmhouse in southwestern Puerto Rico for the 1983 armed robbery of a Wells Fargo depot in Connecticut.
The militant nationalist group led by Ojeda Ríos, 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 F.B.I. said agents shot Mr. Ojeda Ríos, 72, after he opened fire them, but it later announced an independent inquiry into the shooting after local officials questioned the bureau's handling of the incident and after Mr. Ojeda Ríos's widow, who escaped from the farmhouse unharmed, said the F.B.I. fired first.
The shooting sparked isolated street demonstrations in which some protesters burned American flags and defaced two McDonald's restaurants with graffiti.
The backlash against the United States 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 Navy to abandon bombing exercises there in 2003.
Chief Toledo acknowledged that Mr. Ojeda Ríos's death has generated "a lot of rancor and rage" but he strongly rejected the idea that ordinary citizens would support acts of violence in favor of Puerto Rican independence.
"There can be repudiation over what happened, but acts of violence, the people won't accept that," Chief Toledo said.
Nevertheless, the authorities have increased security at United States government buildings, said José A. Fuste, the president of Puerto Rico's Federal District Court, told El Nuevo Día newspaper.
Most of Puerto Rico's four million residents either support its status as a commonwealth or want statehood.
The Macheteros have been linked to several violent acts from 1978 to 1998, the most notorious of which was the 1983 robbery of $7.2 million of the Well Fargo depot in West Hartford. The group was also accused of blowing up nine airplanes at an American military base in northern Puerto Rico in 1981.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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