Macheteros Warn of FBI Onslaught

The Boricua Popular Army aka The Macheteros, is warning that the FBI is getting ready to launch a campaign against Puerto Ricans actively engaged in the struggled for Puerto Rico's independence and other activists.

"Our organization possesses information indicating that the FBI, with the collaboration of the colonial police, are planning an operation to arrest, kidnap, and in some cases provoke the death of independentista, socialist leaders and activists protecting the rights of the people, said the missive. "The FBI intends to strike at all the groupings and individuals capable of supporting the people in their struggle for decolonization, national liberation and social justice," added the document dated May 19, but postmarked May 23. "United we can remove the FBI from our country, as we achieved the removal of the U.S. Navy from Vieques. United we can save the Puerto Rican nation from the FBI assassins and their colonial collaborators," added the document.

The FBI had no comment. While some may say that the Macheteros are nothing but a terrorist organization, as the U.S. has labeled them, history has shown us that the FBI has been capable of such actions. Google cointelpro and you'll see what I mean.

Source : NYC Independent Media Center

Puerto Rican machetero pleads not guilty

A member of Puerto Rican nationalist group los macheteros pleaded not guilty to an armed robbery in 1983. Avelino Gonzalez Claudio proclaimed his innocence to several charges relating to the $7 million heist of a West Hartford Wells Fargo armored car depot which was supposedly masterminded by los macheteros.

Last Friday, we mentioned how attorneys tried to avoid Gonzalez Claudio’s extradition from Puerto Rico to Connecticut on the grounds of the island’s “colonial status with the U.S.” Gonzalez Claudio had been arrested by the FBI earlier this month, and according to the Associated Press:

Authorities have long suspected that Los Macheteros used proceeds from the robbery to finance attacks aimed at forcing the U.S. to grant Puerto Rico independence. Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens, but cannot vote in presidential elections and have no voting representative in Congress.

The Macheteros, whose name is variously translated as the "Machete Wielders" or "Cane Cutters" are suspected in a series of such bombings and attacks staged throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Their alleged leader, Filiberto Ojeda Rios, was killed in a 2005 shootout with the FBI at a remote farmhouse in Puerto Rico.

Sources- International Herald Tribune, WFSB, The Latin Americanist, Associated Press, Wikipedia, newsday.com

Image- tkb.org (Insignia of los macheteros)

Machetro to be Extradited to Connecticut

A member of the Puerto Rican nationalist organization, los Macheteros, arrested earlier this month on charges connected to a 1983 Wells Fargo armored truck heist, had his bail request denied and was ordered to be extradited to the New England state to face trial. Avelino Gonzalez Claudio's legal team were fighting the extradition order on the grounds that Avelino is a political prisoner, based on Puerto Rico's colonial status with the U.S.

Source : VivirLatino, personal email