Puerto Rico: Pawn in U.S.-Venezuela Politics

The commando group operative that killed Filiberto Ojeda Ríos in 2005, leader of Los Macheteros*, was coordinated by the Office of the Secretary of State of the United States, Condoleezza Rice, according to unofficial reports provided by a political source linked to the agency.

Furthermore, the source indicated that the Ojeda Ríos incident was part of Washington’s Puerto Rico strategy. Current political and diplomatic actions are in progress to confront Venezuela’s attempt to expand the influence of the Bolivarian Revolution in Puerto Rico and the rest of the region.

Among the measures that are discussed in Washington political circles is the possibility of promoting a Congressional inquiry into Venezuelan diplomatic activities in Puerto Rico and asking for the retirement of the Consulate General of Venezuela in San Juan. The source said that they had conversed about the topic in the Venezuelan section of the U.S. State Department directed by Foreign Affaris Officer Moisés Behar.

It is a matter with a history that goes back to the end of the 18th century, when the U.S. and England agreed to support Latin American independence in exchange for not challenging the imperial supremacy of a series of islands, among them Puerto Rico. A few years later, Simón Bolivar tried without success to liberate Puerto Rico, which would become a U.S. colony at the end of the 19th century as a result of the Spanish American War.

More recently, the U.S. has kept under evaluation the search for a solution to the colonial case of Puerto Rico and President Barack Obama has assured that definitive steps will be taken during the next four years.

The actions of the U.S. State Department, in accordance with the source’s report, also links Florida politicians with those in Puerto Rico, among them the speaker of the pro-government New Progressive Party in the Senate, Roberto Arango-Vincent.

The legislator, an important ally to Governor Luis Fortuño, has carried on an intense campaign against Venezuelan diplomacy in Puerto Rico and has unsuccessfully solicited meetings with the consulate office as well as with the Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in Washington to present his protest.

In fact, Puerto Rico was the scene of controversy related to Venezuela in 2009. Last January, Arango-Vincent was informed about a meeting between U.S. officers and Venezuelan businesspeople. The case of Ojeda Ríos is the first that involved a violent murder.

This chain of revelations has been a consequence of a story printed last year by the Miami Herald in which an FBI inquiry revealed that the then Venezuelan consul in San Juan, Vinicio Romero, had links to radical groups in Puerto Rico between 2004 and 2005. During this time period, the only known FBI operation in San Juan was the attempt to capture Ojeda Ríos.

The source was confronted with the fact that U.S. code stipulates that when it carries out this type of inquiry into terrorism against a foreign diplomat, not only do they have to notify the State Department, but the Office of the Secretary of State also has the legal responsibility to act as liaison and coordinate all participating agencies. The source did not show surprise in any way and explained that he was always conscious that it was this way and that it implied that the agency in charge of U.S. diplomacy was also where bloody deeds were coordinated.

On 23 Sept 2005, an FBI commando group assaulted Ojeda Ríos’s house in a rural area of the western town of Hormigueros, an operation in which a sniper wounded the veteran military chief and left him to slowly bleed to death. In agreement with a report by the Inspector General of the FBI, the order that no one was to enter the house until the next day was given directly from the center of command in Washington.

The investigation by the Inspector General concluded that the operative committed errors but was not criminally responsible. In the same manner, although the prosecutor of the Justice Department of Puerto Rico determined that they should continue the investigation as a case of assassination, the Office of the Secretary of Justice eliminated this part of the report. The archive files simply state that they had not found sufficient evidence of negligent homicide.

At present, the only official investigation on the case is the one carried out by the Civil Rights Commission, the draft of which is expected by the middle of this January.

Ojeda Ríos’s death had the immediate effect of ending conversations with the Catholic Church in which the possibility of a peaceful manner in which the U.S. would concede Puerto Rican independence was explored. In fact, the last of these meetings had been canceled when the church said that it could not guarantee security.

Shortly after the events, U.S. security officers showed that the Government of Puerto Rico allegedly recorded evidence that showed military training of the Macheteros, according to recently declassified documents. For their part, the Macheteros, now led by the mysterious Comandante Guasábara and his staff, have remained underground and silent.

Meanwhile, Ojeda Ríos, who supported the Bolivarian Revolution and issued a declaration that repudiated the 2002 coup against President Hugo Chávez, has received diverse posthumous honors in Venezuela. His widow, Mrs. Elma Beatriz Rosado Barbosa, was received by the Venezuelan Head of State.

*Editor’s Note: Los Macheteros, or Boricua Popular Army, is a clandestine political group and paramilitary organization that advocates Puerto Rican independence from the United States through violent means.