by Dylcia Pagan

While thousands of Puerto Ricans on the island/ nation of Puerto Rico were commemorating el Grito de Lares, our national day of revolutionary struggle against Spanish colonialism, and were listening to the annual message of our Comandante Filiberto Ojeda Rios, the feds chose to begin their attack on his home.  This was not a routine arrest of a “criminal”.   On the contrary, it was a planned military assassination of one of our most important leaders in the struggle for Puerto Rican independence.

Puerto Ricans from all walks of life recognized and protested against the cowardly and inhumane act of the feds who held his hometown of Hormigueros under federal seizure for 36 hours, did not allow Filiberto to meet with a legal negotiator, the press or his family, and instead shot more than 100 bullets at him and then allowed him to bleed to death.

But Comandante Filiberto was our Puerto Rican Che Guevara who also died as the combatant that he always was: with his combat boots and fatigues on, battling the enemy until the very end.

Filiberto was the leader of Los Macheteros del Ejercito Popular Boricua, who with his wife Beatrice had been in clandestinity for fifteen years.  His trajectory of armed struggle for the liberation of our nation Puerto Rico has a long history spanning several decades.

Filiberto’s funeral is said to have been the most attended in Puerto Rican history. There were thousands of children, senior citizens and workers of all walks of life standing along the highway with clenched fists and hands by their hearts chanting “¡Filiberto Vive!”, and every crossway was filled with people holding placards that stated clearly: “¡FBI Asesino!”. The funeral itself was transformed by our people into a massive act of Puerto Rican resistance. Every inch of the cemetery and the streets surrounding it were filled with supporters, Puerto Rican flags and the continuous chanting of: “¡Todo Boricua Machetero!”. There was no sense of fear, no reneging on Filiberto’s promise of a free and sovereign Puerto Rico.

What has also transpired is a profound solidarity from nations such as Cuba, Venezuela, Chile, Nicaragua, and the Native American and Black Liberation movements in the united states. Comandante Filiberto Ojeda Rios now lives in the soul and spirit of all those who struggle for freedom.

If the u.s. government thought even for a moment that their cowardly assassination of Comandante Filiberto Ojeda Rios would weaken our struggle for national liberation, they were wrong. The Puerto Rican people now more than ever recognize that in 1868 El Grito de Lares represented the foremost revolutionary act against Spanish colonialism and today, in 2005, El Grito de Lares represents our cry to end u.s. colonial rule over our nation, Puerto Rico.

¡Viva Puerto Rico Libre y Soberana!

¡Filiberto Vive!

NOTE: Dylcia Pagan is a heroine of the Puerto Rican people.  She has made incredible sacrifices in her life to free her country.  She was forced to give up her one and only son to be raised by strangers before being arrested and sentenced to 55 years in u.s. prisons.  She served 20 years as a Puerto Rican prisoner of war and political prisoner. She was released by President Clinton in 1999 along with 10 other Puerto Rican prisoners of war and political prisoners through the efforts of the Puerto Rican people and others working in solidarity. She has returned to her homeland where she and her son continues to struggle for the independence of Puerto Rico.