In the name of the "war on drugs," the governor's proposed antidrug bureau, modeled on Washington's drug czar post, will have wide powers. According to an article in the February 23 issue of the pro-independence weekly Claridad, the drug chief will supervise police surveillance and have the power to demand information on private individuals and organizations from various government departments, including housing, family affairs, public works, and the treasury.

Calderón's proposed appointee, Jorge Collazo, sparked a storm of controversy when he sought to downplay his involvement in the political victimization of independence fighters during his long career as a cop.

In a February 25 TV interview, Collazo asserted that the March 1976 murder of Santiago Mari Pesquera, the eldest son of pro-independence leader Juan Mari Bras, was a common crime that occurred after the young man supposedly had an argument with strangers "over drinks" in a San Juan cafe.

The National Hostos Congress (CNH), a pro-independence group, and the relatives of Mari Pesquera immediately issued statements condemning Collazo's remarks. The CNH accused Collazo of "lying and covering up the involvement of Cuban exile elements and federal repressive agencies in the assassination of Santiago Mari Pesquera."

First of all, Mari Bras noted in a February 27 letter to Calderón, his son was attacked and kidnapped at a Burger King--"where they do not serve alcoholic beverages."

Mari Pesquera, 24, was driven to a remote area near the town of Caguas. His body was found on March 24, 1976; he had been shot in the head. Police arrested Henry Walter Coira, 23, the son of a right-wing exiled Cuban businessman. Coira was the only person charged, although a Puerto Rican Justice Department investigation in the 1980s concluded he could not have acted alone. He was convicted and was released from prison after three years.  
 
Wave of attacks
Supporters of the Puerto Rican independence struggle have pointed out that the killing of Mari Pesquera took place during a wave of violent government and right-wing attacks against the independence and union movements. This included an armed assault on the presses of Claridad, then the voice of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party (PSP), and the bombing of the paper's editorial offices.

Covering a news conference in New York by José Alvarez, first secretary of the U.S. branch of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party (PSP), the Militant reported in its April 9, 1976, issue, "Shortly before Pesquera's murder, a smoke bomb was thrown at the PSP's Central Committee offices in Puerto Rico and a shot was fired into the house of PSP leader Rosi Mari, daughter of Juan Mari Bras. Alvarez linked the murder and these other recent attacks on the PSP to the election campaign the party is running in Puerto Rico."

Years later, declassified FBI files showed federal cops reporting with satisfaction that as a result of his son's death, Mari Bras had been forced to curtail his campaign as the PSP's candidate for governor of Puerto Rico.

In his press conference shortly after Mari Pesquera's murder, Alvarez pointed out that not one individual has been convicted in connection with more than 200 violent attacks against the PSP and other pro-independence groups during the last several years. Other attacks included frame-ups of independence activists, the use of agents provocateurs against the electrical workers union, and the compiling of spy files--known as the carpetas--on tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans.

Mari Bras, a founder of the PSP and for many years its central leader, was a special target of the FBI, which over the years compiled 75 volumes of secret spy files on him.

The disruption campaign by the FBI was part of its notorious Cointelpro operation, which was directed against the unions, Black, women's rights, anti-Vietnam War, and other social movements, targeting millions of people both in the United States and in Puerto Rico.

Collazo's career is intimately associated with this repression. According to a detailed article in the February 23 issue of Claridad, he worked in the Intelligence Division of the Puerto Rican police in the 1960s, having trained at the FBI Academy and the Pentagon's notorious School of the Americas in Ft. Benning, Georgia. As an "antiterrorism expert" his job involved maintaining files on independence supporters.

In 1977 Collazo was appointed to the newly created Security Council, established by Gov. Carlos Romero Barceló to wage war against "subversion," which targeted the independence and labor movements. After the government crisis sparked by revelations of the police entrapment and murder of two young pro-independence fighters at Cerro Maravilla in 1978, a number of low-level cops were convicted and the police chief, Desiderio Cartagena, was forced to resign. He was replaced by Romero loyalist Jorge Collazo.  
 
Death squad
During this time, Claridad has reported, several cops, led by police colonel Alejo Maldonado, organized a death squad that, among other crimes, was responsible for the 1979 murder of Carlos Muñiz Varela, a founder of the Antonio Maceo Brigade, an organization of young Cubans supporting normalization of U.S. relations with Cuba. Maldonado, three right-wing Cuban exiles, and a right-wing Puerto Rican politician have been implicated in the death of Muñiz Varela. The police have never charged anyone.

In its statement, the National Hostos Congress declared, "Col. Jorge Collazo should be questioned not only about the murder of young Santiago Mari Pesquera, including the participation of federal agents, of which he knows more than he says, but especially everything related to those who planned and took part in the assassination of Carlos Muñiz Varela, as well as the killing of union leader Juan Caballero, the death of two independentistas by a bomb that exploded in the public square of Mayagüez on Jan. 11, 1975, and the assaults on the newspaper Claridad and the Impresora Nacional printshop."

In face of this outcry, the Calderón administration announced it would change the proposed bureau's name from "Drug Control Office" to "Office for the Coordination of Control, Treatment, and Rehabilitation in Face of Problems Related to Drugs."
 
 
Related article:
U.S. Navy temporarily halts Vieques bombing  
 
 
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