[NYTr] Protests in 6 States Against FBI, Grand Jury Harassment of P'Ricans

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

el Diario/La Prensa - Jan 8, 2008
http://www.eldiariony.com/noticias/detail.aspx?section=%20&desc=Nuestros%20Países&id=1789363


Protests announced against the FBI in six states

by Jesús Dávila
SAN JUAN/ EDLP Correspondent

Protests against the Federal Bureau of Investigations, for subpoenas of
Puerto Rican independentists to appear before a grand jury
investigation of the Popular Boricua Army/­Macheteros, will take place
in New York, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, Illinois and California, as
well as Puerto Rico. The protest in Puerto Rico will be on January 10;
the simultaneous demonstrations in the U.S. will take place on January
11. All the protests will urge non collaboration with the grand jury.

The announcement was made yesterday at a press conference attended
by the main independence organizations of the country, and during
which Doña Elma Beatriz Rosado Barbosa, widow of the Macheteros
commander Filiberto Ojeda, affirmed that it is "a legitimate
organization," while the FBI "needs to be thinking about getting
out of Puerto Rico."

Rosado Barbosa said she was familiar with the FBI's "Strategic Plan
for 2004-09" and affirmed that "this strategic plan is outlining
all the actions" that this U.S. agency is taking against Puerto
Rican independentists.

This very notion, that the FBI is using the topic of The Macheteros
to attack the entire independence movement, motivated the united
reaction of organizations that rarely coincide. In fact, the
majority of the leaders who attended touched on this point and
avoided answering questions about The Macheteros, except Rosado
Barbosa and the Nationalist hero Rafael Cancel Miranda, who
explained that the problem is that anyone who admits the existence
of this organization would have to explain how he knew it.

"The Macheteros exist. Everyone knows it," said Rosado Barbosa, who
survived the attack in Hormigueros when an FBI commando injured
Ojeda and left him to bleed to death.

Representing Puerto Rican communities in the U.S. was Vicente Alba,
of New York, who informed the group of protests scheduled for
January 11— the day the three Puerto Ricans are to appear before
the grand jury— not only in front of the federal court in Candem
Plaza, Brooklyn, but also in Chicago, Cleveland, Orlando, Chicago,
Los Angeles and San Francisco. Alba explained that the most recent
revelations on details related to the death of Ojeda raise an
entire set of questions about the FBI, and that this agency has
decided to avoid answering by taking the offensive against Puerto
Rican independentists.

The Secretary General of the Puerto Rican Independence Party, Juan
Dalmau, also touched on this point, affirming that the Special
Agent in Charge of the San Juan FBI, Luis Fraticelli, was the
person in charge of the attack on Ojeda, calling Fraticelli
"criminal."

Michael González Cruz, of The New School, said that while the
investigation "may be related to" The Macheteros, its true basis is
a general attack, because "the independence movement is still a
force that challenges the colony."

Also participating in the press conference were the National Hostos
Independence Movement, the Socialist Front, the Socialist Workers
Movement, the Coordinating Committee of Solidarity with the
Caribbean and Latin America, and other organizations.

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