Resistance Struggles for National Salvation in Puerto Rico Juan Antonio Ocasio Rivera

REVIEWS Resistance Struggles for National Salvation in Puerto Rico JUAN ANTONIO OCASIO RIVERA niversity Of Puerto Rico sociology professor the underground armed revolutionary groups (1960s– Michael González Cruz follows up his 2006 present), and the mass political resistance in Puerto Rico U title Revolutionary Nationalism with A plena today. Despite continued repression from the police and voz: nuestra resistencia 2005–2010, once again directing FBI, current activists are finding new methods of strug- a frontal assault on colonialism and political repression gle and new ways of breathing life into Puerto Rico’s his- in Puerto Rico. toric revolutionary national movement The Spanish-language book is a col- of liberation. lection of 22 articles—reprinted from outlets such as the San Juan–based ONzález CRuz spendS A gOOd newspaper Claridad and Cultura Vene- deal of attention on the life zolana magazine—along with a speech Gand assassination of Puerto by González Cruz. The book begins by Rico’s legendary revolutionary fighter examining colonialism, anti-colonial- Filiberto Ojeda Ríos. From the 1960s ism, and repression in Puerto Rico. The on, Ojeda Ríos founded and led sev- articles then cover issues surrounding eral underground revolutionary or- Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution and ganizations on the island, including finally pay homage to the late Alberto Los Macheteros, which was created in Márquez, a committed island activist in 1978 and carried out several assaults Puerto Rico’s independence movement. on U.S. military bases and other fed- The book ends with a new piece writ- eral installations. Ojeda Ríos spent two ten by the author in which he summa- major periods of his life underground rizes his key points and reiterates his and continued to call for revolutionary proposal for a national united front to A PLENA VOZ: NUESTRA armed struggle to obtain Puerto Rico’s resist neoliberal policies and the con- RESISTENCI A 2005–2010 freedom. In 2005, the FBI located and tinued colonial condition of the island. by Michael González Cruz, Editorial Tras- confronted Ojeda Ríos, riddling his The material documents not only talleres, 2011, 149 pp., $20 (paperback), home with over 100 bullets. Ojeda the infamous actions of the FBI in its available in Spanish only Ríos was shot in the clavicle, but medi- attempts to destroy the Puerto Ri- cal attention was denied, and he bled can independence movement—often to death inside his home. The attack violently—but also the survival instincts of a movement outraged most islanders and galvanized the left. The that does not yield in the face of repression. González death of Ojeda Ríos at the hands of the FBI highlights the Cruz makes the connection between the historic strug- themes of repression, colonialism, and popular struggle gles of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party (1930s–50s), visited throughout the book. The FBI has been the agency that has most consis- Juan Antonio Ocasio Rivera is a Puerto Rico–based activist, social tently targeted social and political activists in the United worker, and professor. He has written for several online publica- States and its colony, Puerto Rico. As recounted in the tions, including CounterPunch, Upside Down World, and New chapter titled “Fraticelli Partying? In the Rotary Club,” York Latino Journal, and was active in the New York–based All the agency’s former San Juan station director Luis Frati- of New York With Vieques. celli publicly lamented, during a talk to Rotary Club FALL 2012 NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 73 members on October 3, 2006, that such state violence and places this mon Puerto Rican activists to inform many Puerto Ricans consider Los within the context of the historic on the activities of their peers, this Macheteros and the former Nation- and violent repression of the inde- time presumably to investigate sup- alist political prisoners heroes. Frati- pendence movement on the island. port received by Ojeda Ríos and celli did not explain how the agency González Cruz also dedicates the work of Los Macheteros. Those planned to counteract this influence space to the popular struggle to end young people also refused to partici- but took credit for ordering the as- the Navy’s use of Vieques island as a pate, though none were imprisoned. sault on Ojeda Ríos’s residence and bombing range. He writes that this Their defiant resistance was a major refusing him medical aid when he inspiring mass campaign was not victory against the U.S. government’s was injured. only devoid of the usual meddling attempts to infiltrate the Puerto Ri- and manipulation by political par- can independence movement. N an early chapter, “The ties, but it was also part of the larger In the chapter “Students Under Political-Military Thought decolonization movement that saw Watch,” González Cruz writes about Iof Filiberto Ojeda Ríos,” liberating Vieques as linked to its the series of Puerto Rican student González Cruz discusses the politi- anti-colonial struggle. strikes that shut down the university cal beliefs of the iconic Puerto Rican “This effort contributed to the system on the island in 2010 and revolutionary, presenting them as “a partial emancipation of our colo- 2011. The police and government product of the decolonization strug- nized nation,” writes González Cruz, response was overwhelmingly vio- gles” of a myriad of Latin American “a prolonged battle by fishermen lent and brutal. This student strug- revolutionary figures, such as South armed with slingshots, young people gle, in particular, resonates with the American liberators Simón Bolívar, defending themselves with stones, title of the book: Our Resistance. Antonio Valero de Bernabé (a Puerto Macheteros ambushing sailors, paci- The theme of resistance contin- Rican who served as one of Bolivar’s fists who disobeyed the unjust laws ues with the chapter “The Strike generals), and José de San Martín; of the colonial regime, pastors who and the Macheteros,” analyzing the Cuba’s José Martí; and Puerto Rico’s accompanied their people, and tens notion of a general strike in Puerto Ramón Emeterio Betances and Pedro of thousands who marched armed Rico. It uses information gleaned Albizu Campos. Ojeda Ríos believed with solidarity.” from a published interview with in Pan-Americanism and interna- Aside from Vieques, González the leadership of Los Macheteros in tional solidarity, and dreamed of re- Cruz highlights various campaigns Claridad in late 2010 and the teach- alizing Martí and Betance’s dream of won throughout the modern his- ings of renowned national poet and an Antillean Federation that would tory of Puerto Rico’s independence veteran revolutionary nationalist include Cuba, the Dominican Re- movement, including commu- leader Juan Antonio Corretjer. The public, Haiti, and Puerto Rico. The nity, environmental, and political analysis provides an interesting chapter also looks at Ojeda Ríos’s struggles that he presents as indi- backdrop for the ongoing threats support for armed struggle as a cators of progress in the fight for of stoppages and general strikes means of national liberation and his independence. during the current economic crisis theory of revolutionary violence as Among these victories is the facing the island, as it includes in- merely a response to colonial state Puerto Rican nationalist movement’s formation quoted straight from the violence. consistent resistance to the U.S. gov- most revolutionary forces on the The state’s use of violence is an ernment’s use of federal grand ju- island, whose communiqués are inevitable theme touched upon ries. From 1980 to 1985, more than rarely examined in other texts. throughout A plena voz. According a dozen Puerto Rican activists were There are five chapters dedicated to González Cruz, the state views it- imprisoned for their refusal to par- to Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolu- self as the only legitimate arbiter of ticipate in a grand jury investigation tion, in which the author seeks the use of violence—delegitimizing into independence activists, presum- to shed light on the U.S. efforts to its use by the people—and even cur- ably an effort to disrupt the activities quash President Hugo Chávez’s tailing basic rights and freedoms in of movement organizations. Follow- revolutionary politics. The final order to preserve that right for itself. ing the assassination of Ojeda Ríos, chapters are dedicated to elevating He highlights the 2005 assassination another grand jury investigation in the status and notoriety of the late of Ojeda Ríos as a prime example of New York City attempted to sum- Alberto Márquez, a veteran Puerto 74 NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS VOL. 45, NO. 3 Rican activist respected for his years tempt to repress an organized and political victories of mass struggle on of commitment to the independence formidable anti-colonial national the island, akin to the Arab Spring struggle. Those wishing to better fa- liberation movement. In its confron- and Occupy movements. His adher- miliarize themselves with Márquez tation with the state’s intelligence ence to the political thought of the would do well to review González apparatus, the movement declares venerated revolutionary Ojeda Ríos, Cruz’s lengthy, insightful interview victory over the efforts to snuff out with special emphasis on the need with him printed in the book. its life and its successes, sneering for unity within the independence The author closes with an origi- at the FBI with calls to action, mass movement, is a call to overcoming nal essay, “House Without Doors: demonstrations, communiqués, pro- egoism in the ranks. His report back The Front for National Salvation,” a tests, analysis, and continued efforts on the revolutionary process in Ven- piece clamoring for ideological unity to develop unity across the spectrum ezuela is merely an offering of how in the movement with an eye toward of the independence movement. a politically revolutionary front can achieving the salvation of the Puerto “Now is the time to aim our reorganize national priorities to win Rican nation from colonialism and weapons at the enemy, the time to the support of the people by meet- destructive neoliberal policies.

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