Demanding Camacho be freed, dozens of people picketed April 1 outside the U.S. prison in San Juan where he is being held. One of the protesters, Ramón Figueroa Sorrentini, said in a phone interview that a new coalition formed out of that demonstration, United Against Repression, will hold protests there every Saturday to demand his release.

“Antonio has been placed in the ‘hole,’” said his attorney, Linda Backiel, in a March 30 phone interview. “He says he does not have access to needed medicine.”

Camacho was seized by four to six FBI agents on the afternoon of March 28, minutes after he left the University of Puerto Rico campus here, where he had attended the opening day of the First Congress for the Decolonization of Puerto Rico. He was one of the main organizers of the conference.

As the FBI cops pointed their guns at him, Camacho responded, “You are the murderers of Ojeda!” according to his March 30 statement. Last September 23, FBI agents killed Filiberto Ojeda Ríos, a leader of the pro-independence group Los Macheteros, in his home in western Puerto Rico.

FBI officials told the media they acted on an arrest warrant dated Aug. 20, 2004, on charges that he did not report to parole officers. Camacho has spent 15 years in U.S. prisons because of his pro-independence activities. He was one of the independentistas convicted on frame-up charges in connection with a 1983 robbery of a Wells Fargo depot in Hartford, Connecticut. Camacho had previously been freed on parole in 1997, 2001, and 2004, and rearrested each time for failing to meet the onerous parole conditions.

In his statement, Camacho reiterated that he does not recognize Washington’s authority over Puerto Rico, a U.S. colony. “The federal court is not in Puerto Rico to dispense justice, but to hijack the sovereignty of the Puerto Rican people and advance the imperialist, expansionist policies of the United States. What is good for the hunter is not good for the hare,” he said.

The FBI timed the arrest to try to undercut the decolonization conference, “which has been well-received by all anticolonial sectors,” Camacho said.

Organizers of the March 28-30 decolonization congress held a press conference after Camacho’s arrest to demand his release and oppose the FBI’s assaults on the independence movement.

The conference, which drew a few hundred people over the three days, called for a series of activities over the coming months, including an educational campaign on the fight to end U.S. colonial rule, a national march calling for the decolonization of Puerto Rico, and a Second Congress for Decolonization, projected to take place in New York. A delegation from the National Council for Decolonization will join other pro-independence forces in testifying at the June 12 hearings of the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization.

The day after Camacho’s arrest, students organized a car caravan from the university to the Puerto Rican congressional building, with signs reading, “FBI out! Free Antonio Camacho!” They joined a march at the capitol called by the Hostos National Pro-Independence Movement (MINH) and others to protest a decision of the Puerto Rican House of Representatives to honor notorious right-wing Cuban businessman Julio Labatud, who has been linked to the 1979 assassination of Carlos Muñiz Varela. Muñiz Varela was a leader of the Antonio Maceo Brigade, an organization founded by Cuban-born youth to promote support for the Cuban Revolution.

About 1,000 people turned out for the protest against Labatud. Among the speakers were Carlos Muñiz Pérez, son of Muñiz Varela, and Raúl Alzaga, a founding leader of the Antonio Maceo Brigade. A close collaborator of Muñiz Varela, Alzaga has for years exposed the involvement of Puerto Rican cops and rightist Cuban exiles in Muñiz’s assassination, and the FBI’s complicity in its cover-up. Despite substantial evidence, the U.S. government has never prosecuted anyone for this crime.

Also speaking was Rosi Mari Pesquera, an independentista and sister of Santiago “Chagui” Mari Pesquera, whose 1976 murder has also been linked to rightist Cubans. Pro-independence forces have used the 30th anniversary of his death to step up their campaign for justice in his case.

The big-business press here has sought to tar the rally as a “riot,” as a banner headline in the March 30 El Nuevo Día put it. They have seized on an incident in which a few demonstrators entered the congressional building and broke windows inside. So far, two people have been charged for the incident.

Since the killing of Ojeda Ríos in September, the FBI has carried out further high-profile attacks on the independence movement, sparking protests and fueling the widespread hatred for the federal cops here. On February 10, heavily armed FBI agents raided the homes of half a dozen independentistas across the island. They carted off computers, files, and other personal items. In the Río Piedras area of San Juan, residents reacted angrily at the agents, who also pepper-sprayed reporters. FBI officials claim the raids were designed to thwart a “domestic terrorist attack” planned by independence activists.

In response, more than 1,000 people, carrying a giant Puerto Rican flag, marched down a major San Juan avenue chanting, “FBI get out” and “Respect Puerto Rico.”

Meanwhile, the government of Puerto Rico has gone to federal court accusing the U.S. Justice Department of obstructing a local investigation of the FBI killing of Ojeda Ríos.  
 
 
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