Vol. 72/No. 18      May 5, 2008

On April 16, FBI agents attempted to interrogate independence activists at their homes in five of Puerto Rico’s municipalities. According to the Caribbean and Latin American Coordinating Committee of Puerto Rico, those harassed included Tania Delgado, Miguel Viqueira, Miguel Sánchez, and José Castillo.

“When Miguel [Viqueira] was getting ready to leave for work, several armed agents with bulletproof vests identified with the initials FBI surrounded him and began threatening him in a hostile and proactive manner,” said a press release issued by the New School, the proindependence group to which Delgado and Viqueira belong.

Viqueira told the Orlando, Florida, El Sentinel that the agents said they were watching him and that he should be careful. Viqueira refused to cooperate, and the agents eventually left.

Two men and a woman in a white van approached Delgado, a 29-year-old lawyer. After she insisted on her right to an attorney, the agents left.

According to the Coordinating Committee, in at least one of the cases, FBI cops accused an independence fighter of being a member of the Popular Boricua Army-Macheteros and told her they knew her guerrilla name. Federal agents “are harassing the independence movement in their eagerness to remind us that they are in charge here, and that this is a colony,” said Héctor Pesquera, cochair of the Hostos National Independence Movement. That organization was one of the main sponsors of the protest in Puerto Rico, which demanded, “FBI, out of my country!”

In a separate incident April 18, FBI agents surrounded the working-class neighborhood La Perla on the outskirts of San Juan. Carrying assault rifles and wearing bulletproof vests and riot gear, 20 FBI agents together with about 25 national cops blocked off the neighborhood for nearly two hours. The operation was preceded by a series of raids in Puerto Rico supposedly aimed at drug trafficking and white-collar crime.
 
 
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