Puerto Rico Journal

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Víctor Manuel Gerena: Case Closed On Wells Fargo Robbery — Except For Missing $7 Million And Top Fugitive

1983 file photo: Victor Gerena, 25, of Hartford, an employee of Wells Fargo Armored Service has been sought in connection with the robbery at the firm's West Hartford garage of an estimated $7 million in cash.

1983 file photo: Victor Gerena, 25, of Hartford, an employee of Wells Fargo… (UPI )

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» Case Closed On Wells Fargo Robbery — Except For Missing $7 Million And Top Fugitive
18/12/14 00:54 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . 1983 file photo: Victor Gerena, 25, of Hartford, an employee of Wells Fargo… (UPI November 24, 2012 | By EDMUND H. MAHONY
...

In the days after the robbery, Connecticut was transfixed by its audacity. An unremarkable Wells Fargo employee from Hartford named Victor Gerena had injected two co-workers with a substance intended to subdue them, stuffed $7 million in used bills into a rented Buick and disappeared into the night.

Over the decades leading to Gonzalez's capture last year in the Puerto Rican mountains, the U.S. listed Los Macheteros as a terrorist organization and blamed it and a related group for more death and destruction than any other terror network operating in the U.S. until al Qaeda struck New York in 1994 and 2001.

The Macheteros killed two U.S. sailors, blew up eight National Guard jets and attacked two federal courthouses with Cuban supplied rockets, all in Puerto Rico. The related Armed Forces of National Liberation, known by the initials FALN, launched a bombing campaign against mainland targets, including Mobil Oil and the Fraunces Tavern in New York.

The Macheteros led the FBI on a chase around the Caribbean, from Puerto Rico to Mexico, Panama and Cuba, as the organization met to negotiate a division of the money and more guns with the government of their principal supporter and supplier, Cuban President Fidel Castro. The robbery confirmed a belief long held by FBI agents in the Caribbean that Castro had been training and supplying the militant wing of the independence movement since the 1960s.

The FBI was so alarmed by the robbery and related violence that the bureau sent a team to San Juan to end it. When the agents helped draft the first Wells Fargo indictment in 1985, they argued —unsuccessfully — to name senior Cuban government figures as conspirators.

Although there was a sense of finality in the courtroom when Gonzalez was sentenced to five years in prison on Nov. 14, analysts say forces more powerful than the FBI had begun years earlier to push the violent, clandestine movement for Puerto Rico's independence into the past.

...

Another factor is the declining health that has forced Castro from office and transferred Cuba's government to his brother, Raul. While Fidel, since his youth, has been among the most militant supporters of Puerto Rico's independence, brother Raul has expressed little interest.

"I think that the independence movement in Puerto Rico starting in the 1960s, such as it was, was a creation by and large of Fidel Castro and Cuban intelligence," said Brian Latell, one of this country's leading Cuba scholars and former CIA national intelligence officer for Latin America. "Since assuming leadership in 2006, Raul doesn't have an interest. And, of course, the situation in Puerto Rico is very different."

As a student at the University of Havana in 1947, Fidel Castro chaired the Committee for the Liberation of Puerto Rico, His support for an independent Puerto Rico continued through his presidency, said Latell, who has written extensively on the subject.

"He provided extensive support of all types — and not just political and moral help, as he claimed — to Puerto Rican independence parties and front groups, and also to terrorist cells that engaged in lethal violence on the island and in mainland American cities," Latell wrote in "After Fidel," one of his books.

The Justice Department indicted 19 conspirators in the Wells Fargo case. All have been prosecuted in U.S. District Court in Hartford, an institution that will be associated forever with Puerto Rican independence. U.S. marshals in Connecticut, worried about the Macheteros, may have been the first in the country to build a bomb barrier around a courthouse.

» Víctor Manuel Gerena - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
18/12/14 00:46 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Wikipedia - Recent changes [en]. Víctor Manuel Gerena (born June 24, 1958) is an American fugitive wanted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for the September 1983 White Eagle armed robbery , as a...

» Tells the Facts, Names the Names
18/12/14 00:41 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
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mikenova shared this story from Prensa Latina: Main News. 17 de diciembre de 2014, 17:25 San Juan, Dec 17 (Prensa Latina) Puerto Rican governor, Alejandro Garcia applauded today the decision of United States President Barack Obama, to re...

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Hartford Courant
May 13, 201128 years after $7M Conn. heist, arrest leaves just 1 suspect at large _ he's probably in Cuba MICHAEL MELIA Associated Press
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — One by one, and as recently as this week, the suspects in a 1983 heist that netted $7 million for a militant group have been tracked down. All 17 of them — except for the part-time armored car guard accused of playing the central role in what was then the biggest cash robbery in U.S. history.
And if Victor Manuel Gerena is in Cuba, as the FBI believes, there's little hope that authorities will catch him anytime soon.
He's charged with ambushing fellow guard James McKeon, hog-tying him and jamming a needle into his neck before loading the money into a rented Buick and driving off from the West Hartford armored car depot. Gerena could have left with twice as much money, McKeon said, but the rest apparently wouldn't fit in the car.
With a coat smothering his head, McKeon listened as Gerena stuffed the cash into duffel bags. "I thought he was going to kill me," McKeon said. "All I said was 'Vic,' and he said 'Jim, I've got nothing against you. I'm just tired of working for other people.'"
Gerena has been on the FBI's 10 most wanted list since 1984, longer than any other fugitive. With the arrest of an alleged accomplice Tuesday in a Puerto Rican mountain town, Gerena is the only person still at large in the crime he was allegedly recruited for by Los Macheteros, a militant wing of the broader movement for Puerto Rican independence.
U.S. authorities say Gerena is among dozens of American fugitives who have received sanctuary from the communist government. Cuba has long advocated for Puerto Rico's independence from the United States, and some people, including a former Cuban intelligence agent, have claimed the government of Fidel Castro helped finance the Wells Fargo heist.
As Havana and Washington take halting steps toward improved relations, U.S. authorities hope there will be an opportunity to arrest Gerena.
"That's not going to happen now, but there is always a chance to capture fugitives," said Luis Fraticelli, the special agent in charge of FBI operations in Puerto Rico.
Los Macheteros, whose name is translated as "Machete Wielders" or "Cane Cutters," are suspected of using the stolen money to finance bombings and attacks in their push for independence for the U.S. territory. Most of their violent activities took place in the 1970s and 1980s, including a 1979 attack on a bus carrying U.S. sailors that killed two and wounded 10.
A total of 17 people were indicted in Hartford in connection with the robbery, but none played a bigger role than the Macheteros' inside man, Gerena — a New York-born college dropout whose mother, Gloria, was an ardent supporter of independence for Puerto Rico.
"Victor pulled the whole thing off by himself," McKeon said. "He was a really good worker and everything, but you never know about a guy."
It was the night of Sept. 12, 1983, and McKeon was doing paperwork to close out his shift inside the Wells Fargo depot when Gerena, then 25, grabbed McKeon's gun and tied him up along with another guard. He injected both with an incapacitating substance; McKeon later learned from the hospital that it was a mixture of aspirin and water.
There have been bigger cash robberies since in the U.S.: In 1997, three netted more than $17 million each, including one in Los Angeles in which $18.9 million was stolen.
McKeon, now 52, said police interrogated him for two days following the robbery. The depot later closed, and McKeon blames Gerena for his loss of a good-paying manager's job.
"When Victor robbed me, I went back to driving a truck and cooking," said McKeon, who lives in Suffield, Conn., and works as a cook at a restaurant.
West Hartford Police Chief James Strillacci, who was a young sergeant in the wealthy Hartford suburb at the time of the robbery, said he has followed the case closely even though it is in the hands of federal authorities. Since Gerena has not surfaced with any public remarks, he said it's impossible to know whether Gerena was motivated more by ideology or profit.
A former Cuban intelligence agent who defected to Europe in the 1990s, Jorge Masetti, wrote in a book and testified to U.S. authorities that the Cuban government provided $50,000 in "seed money" for the robbery. He said the loot was smuggled across the border to Mexico in a recreational vehicle, and that he was involved in shipping some of the $7 million haul from the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City to Havana. Cuban officials have dismissed his account.
Since last year, Gerena has been on the FBI's most wanted list longer than anyone else in its history. Donald Eugene Webb, who allegedly killed the police chief in Saxonburg, Pa., in 1980, was taken off the list in 2007 after more than 25 years and 10 months because many believed he was already dead.
Philip Peters, a Cuba analyst at the Arlington, Va.-based Lexington Institute think tank, said the U.S. State Department has protested the presence of some of its most wanted fugitives in Cuba, but it is politically awkward because Cuba would like to prosecute some people living in the U.S.
"There's no evidence of any serious negotiations going on that address the fugitives," he said.
The government in Havana did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Gerena.
The last of the other fugitives in the Wells Fargo heist have been tracked down recently in Puerto Rico. On Tuesday, the FBI arrested Norberto Gonzalez Claudio, 65, who is suspected of helping to smuggle the cash out of the U.S. mainland. On Friday he was ordered to be extradited to Connecticut to face charges that include bank robbery, transportation of stolen money and conspiracy.
Three loaded weapons — a submachine gun and two handguns — and body armor were found next to Gonzalez's bed during a search of his apartment, federal prosecutor Warren Vazquez said at the hearing in San Juan. A defense attorney said there is no evidence Gonzalez was ever involved in violence.
The arrest followed the 2008 capture of Gonzalez's older brother, Avelino, who was sentenced last year to seven years in prison for his role in the heist. In 2005, an FBI shootout at a farmhouse in western Puerto Rico killed Filiberto Ojeda Rios, a Machetero leader who jumped bond in 1990 while awaiting trial.
Fraticelli said the breaks over the last six years have resulted from the persistence of agents and officers assigned to a joint anti-terrorism task force. "We made sure we connected the dots," he said.
The FBI has offered a $1 million reward for information leading to Gerena's capture. As long as he remains in Cuba, however, observers say prosecutors are unlikely to completely resolve the case anytime soon.
"The only way they could get Gerena is if all the clutter in our relationship with Cuba gets lifted," said James Bergenn, a Connecticut attorney who represented Avelino Gonzalez Claudio.
___
Associated Press writer Ben Fox contributed to this report from San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Suspect in $7 million robbery arrested after decades as fugitive
Thursday December 18th, 2014 at 2:04 AM

CNN.Com - Justice

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By the CNN Wire Staff

May 11, 2011 3:08 p.m. EDT

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Norberto Gonzalez Claudio is arrested in Puerto Rico
He is accused of participating in a 1983 Connecticut robbery that netted $7 million
FBI: The suspect is believed to be a member of the terrorist group Los Macheteros
The group seeks Puerto Rican independence, the FBI says

(CNN) -- A 65-year-old suspect in a $7 million Connecticut robbery was arrested more than two decades after the heist, the FBI said in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Norberto Gonzalez Claudio was arrested Tuesday in Cayey, Puerto Rico, the FBI said in a statement.

Gonzalez Claudio is accused of participating in the armed robbery of a Connecticut Wells Fargo depot on September 12, 1983. According to the FBI in Connecticut, the robbery of the armored car facility in West Hartford was one of the largest cash heists at the time, and dozens of collaborators have been arrested.

Two of Gonzalez Claudio's brothers were also indicted for the heist. Avelino Gonzalez Claudio was arrested in 2008 and sentenced in 2010 to seven years in prison. According to court records, Orlando Gonzalez Claudio was given probation in another case. It was not clear if he served time for the robbery.

A federal arrest warrant was issued in August 1985 charging Gonzalez Claudio with obstruction of commerce by robbery and conspiracy, the FBI said.

Another warrant was issued in March 1986 charging Gonzalez Claudio with bank robbery, aggravated robbery, theft from interstate shipment, foreign and interstate transportation of stolen money, and conspiracy to interfere with commerce by robbery, the FBI said.

If convicted, Gonzalez Claudio could face 275 years of imprisonment.

The FBI said Gonzalez Claudio, a native of Puerto Rico, is believed to be a member of the domestic terrorist organization Los Macheteros -- or "the machete wielders" -- which has claimed responsibility for several murders, armed robberies and terrorist bombings.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Connecticut has said the robbery was committed to fund the activities of Los Macheteros.

"The publicly stated goal of the Macheteros is to obtain the independence of Puerto Rico by armed struggle against the United States government," the FBI has said.

According to a 1985 indictment, the Macheteros funded themselves through "expropriations," including robbery.

Norberto Gonzalez Claudio and his brother Avelino are listed in the indictment as belonging to the group of Macheteros who devised the plan for Victor Manuel Gerena, an employee of Wells Fargo Armored Service, to rob his own company.

The organization used nicknames and codenames to avoid detection, the indictment states. Gerena, who was also a Macheteros member, was known as "Aguila," or eagle. The operation was known as the White Eagle.

After the robbery, the Macheteros moved Gerena and some of the stolen money into Mexico, the indictment states. After that, the group moved more money.

The same month as the robbery, the Macheteros transported Gerena to Cuba, according to the indictment.

Among the activities the group carried out with the stolen money was a gift giveaway in Puerto Rico, the court document states.

Although not as well known as other organizations with the terrorist label, the Macheteros in the late 1970s and 1980s claimed responsibility for numerous bombings and attacks on U.S. military personnel in Puerto Rico.

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macheteros gerena - Google Search
Thursday December 18th, 2014 at 1:58 AM

Víctor Manuel Gerena - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Víctor_Manuel_Gerena

Wikipedia

Víctor Manuel Gerena (born June 24, 1958) is an American fugitive wanted by the ... In Puerto Rico,Machetero leaders Filiberto Ojeda Rios and Juan Segarra ...

Case Closed On Wells Fargo Robbery — Except For ...

articles.courant.com/.../hc-macheteros-cuba-20121124_1_los-machetero...

Nov 24, 2012 - 1983 file photo: Victor Gerena, 25, of Hartford, an employee of Wells ... the doctrinaire young Puerto Rican militants called Los Macheteros who, ...

Suspect in $7 million robbery arrested after decades as ...

<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/05/11/connecticut.fugitive.arrested/" rel="nofollow">www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/05/11/connecticut.fugitive.arrested/</a>

CNN

May 11, 2011 - After the robbery, the Macheteros moved Gerena and some of the stolen money into Mexico, the indictment states. After that, the group moved ...

28 years after $7M Conn. heist, arrest leaves just 1 suspect ...

<a href="http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/puertorico/norberto-hartford.htm" rel="nofollow">www.latinamericanstudies.org/puertorico/norberto-hartford.htm</a>

May 13, 2011 - And if Victor Manuel Gerena is in Cuba, as the FBI believes, there's ... at large in the crime he was allegedly recruited for by Los Macheteros, ...

Los Macheteros se delatan unos a otros

<a href="http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/puertorico/delatan.htm" rel="nofollow">www.latinamericanstudies.org/puertorico/delatan.htm</a>
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El 19 de octubre de 1984, los Macheteros dejaron un comunicado en ... Segarra dijo que Gerena no podía quejarse porque sabía que iba a estar fuera del país ...

Images for macheteros gerenaReport images

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FBI down to 1 fugitive in $7 million Conn. Heist | Fox News

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May 13, 2011 - And if Victor Manuel Gerena is in Cuba, as the FBI believes, there's little ... none played a bigger role than the Macheteros' inside man, Gerena ...

Victor Manuel Gerena: The FBI Ten Most Wanted List's ...

<a href="http://www.slate.com/.../victor_manuel_" rel="nofollow">www.slate.com/.../victor_manuel_</a>gerena_the_fbi_ten_most_wanted...

Slate

Apr 1, 2013 - But he was lying. Gerena had been recruited by a Puerto Rican separatist group called Los Macheteros, which planned to use the stolen cash ...

Fugitive in Wells Fargo Heist Captured | West Hartford, CT ...

patch.com/connecticut/.../fugitive-in-wells-fargo-heist-captur...

Patch Media

May 10, 2011 - 12, 1983 heist – Victor Manuel Gerena of Hartford, the so-called inside ... allegedly key figures in a violent separatist group, Los Macheteros.

Cierran el caso del atraco a la Wells Fargo en 1983

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Nov 25, 2012 - El caso por el robo de un camión de Wells Fargo en 1983 en Connecticut fue dado por cerrado aunque el 'machetero' Víctor Gerena, autor ...

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Case Closed On Wells Fargo Robbery — Except For Missing $7 Million And Top Fugitive
Thursday December 18th, 2014 at 1:54 AM

1983 file photo: Victor Gerena, 25, of Hartford, an employee of Wells Fargo… (UPI )

November 24, 2012|By EDMUND H. MAHONY, <a href="mailto:emahony@courant.com">emahony@courant.com</a>, The Hartford Courant

When Norberto Gonzalez Claudio was sentenced to prison this month — older, grayer and as devoted as ever to Puerto Rico's independence — it effectively closed the book on Connecticut's greatest political crime, so far as a case can be closed when $7 million and the guy who stole it are missing.

Gonzalez, now 67, was a leader of the doctrinaire young Puerto Rican militants called Los Macheteros who, in 1983 carried off what was then the biggest cash robbery in U.S. history. They stole the $7 million from a Wells Fargo depot in West Hartford and declared that they would use it to wage a war for independence against their colonial oppressor, the United States.

"I think the sentencing put a period at the end of things," said Marlene Hunter, who was part of the FBI team that cracked the Wells Fargo robbery and who later retired as the head of the FBI's San Juan division.

Puerto Rico is saturated by culture and commerce from the north, where more Puerto Ricans now live than on the island. An influential independence party exists and politicians who support the island's current, territorial relationship with the U.S. swept the election earlier this month. But in an historic, if contentious, election day plebiscite, majorities of Puerto Ricans voted displeasure with their territorial status and support for becoming a state.

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Víctor Manuel Gerena - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Thursday December 18th, 2014 at 1:46 AM

Wikipedia - Recent Changes [En]

Víctor Manuel Gerena (born June 24, 1958) is an American fugitive wanted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for the September 1983 White Eagle armed robbery, as a member of a Los Macheterosgang, of a Wells Fargo armored car facility. The $7 million in cash was the largest cash robbery in U.S. history at that time.[1]

On May 14, 1984, Gerena became the 386th fugitive to be placed on the FBI's Top Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. He remains at large, and on April 11, 2010, became the fugitive to have spent the most time on the list,[2] surpassing Donald Eugene Webb, who was removed from the list on March 31, 2007, after 25 years, 10 months, and 27 days (no leads for many years, possibly dead).[3]On the list for over 30 years (as of 2014), Gerena is believed to be living in Cuba.[4]

Bank heist[edit]

In Puerto Rico, Machetero leaders Filiberto Ojeda Rios and Juan Segarra Palmer had heard of Gerena. Gerena's mother's background as a pro-independence advocate and Gerena's dislike of life in the army made him, in Ojeda Rios and Segarra Palmer's eyes, a candidate to become a member of Los Macheteros. They flew to Hartford, Connecticut and convinced Gerena to help them with their cause by participating in the heist.[citation needed]

According to law enforcement authorities, on September 12, 1983, Gerena dropped off his girlfriend at Hartford City Hall, where she was to get a marriage license for the couple. He then went to work and spent the rest of the day with co-workers James McKeon and Timothy Girard. At some point, Gerena removed McKeon's gun, handcuffed and tied up his two co-workers, and injected them with an unknown non-lethal substance in order to further disable them which did not work.[5] He put $7,000,000 in the trunk of a car, then left with the money.[5] Gerena then presumably transferred to another vehicle and disappeared. Little information has come to light since.[citation needed]

Fugitive[edit]

According to published reports, Gerena was transported to Mexico,[4] where he boarded a Cubana de Aviación jet at Mexico City International Airport in Mexico City, arriving at José Martí International Airport in Havana. Years later, a cousin of Gerena accompanied journalist Edmund Mahoney to Cuba in an attempt to locate Gerena, but they did not succeed. Mahoney published a story in 2001 titled "Chasing Gerena".[6] The FBI is offering a reward for information leading to Gerena's capture of up to $1,000,000.[2]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

Persondata
Name	Gerena, Victor Manuel
Alternative names
Short description	American bank robber
Date of birth	June 24, 1958
Place of birth	New York, New York
Date of death
Place of death

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Tells the Facts, Names the Names
Thursday December 18th, 2014 at 1:41 AM

CounterPunch: Tells The Facts, Names The Names

With the holiday season underway and Eric Holder on his way out the door as Attorney General, many Puerto Ricans are stepping up their calls for President Barack Obama to pardon 71-year-old political prisoner Oscar López Rivera, who has spent the last 33 years behind bars for seditious conspiracy. The holiday season is a common time for Presidents to use their power to grant clemency, but this does not appear likely in 2014 for the President who has granted the fewest pardons in modern times. For Puerto Ricans, dismissal of their political demands is emblematic of their subjugation as colonial subjects.

Last week at a concert in San Juan, reggaeton singer René Pérez Joglar of the band Calle 13 brought López’s daughter Clarissa on stage to read a letter pleading for her father’s release.

After winning the silver medal in judo in the Central American and Caribbean games in November, Augusto Miranda told the press: “I want to use this forum for all the people of Puerto Rico and the United States. It’s an abuse what they’ve done to Oscar López Rivera, political prisoner. It’s time to give him his freedom.”

The President of the Universidad de Puerto Rico (UPR), Uroyoán Ramón Emeterio Walker, joined with students at the university to call for Lopez’s release, citing “humanitarian reasons” for what Emeterio called a “disproportionate” sentence.

Human rights activists such as Nobel Peace Laureates Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Máiread Corrigan Maguire and Adolfo Pérez Esquivel have called on Obama to release López. Anti-apartheid hero Tutu has said that López’s “crime” was “conspiracy to free his peoples from the shackles of imperial justice.”

Thousands take to social media every day using the hashtag #FreeOscarLopez to express their support for his cause.

The fact that President Obama’s nominee for Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, is awaiting Senate confirmation could adversely impact a ruling on López’s clemency petition, notedEl Nuevo Dia. The current Attorney General, Eric Holder, was Deputy Attorney General when President Clinton offered clemency to 16 Puerto Rican prisoners in 1999. López was one of those included in Clinton’s conditional offer, which would have required him to serve 10 more years in prison. López rejected the offer because it was not extended to all of his fellow nationalist prisoners.

López was sentenced in 1981 to 55 years in prison. The main charge against him, seditious conspiracy, is the same one used to convict Nelson Mandela, who served 27 years in prison. López was convicted of other charges related to possession of firearms, which López described as “no more than a weapons collector would have at home,” and stolen cars. [1]

The government accused López of being a leader in the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional Puertorriqueña (FALN), a militant nationalist organization that sought independence for the island through armed struggle. The group claimed responsibility for a series of bombings of government and economic targets in New York in Chicago during the 70s and early 80s. The Chicago Tribune described the FALN bombs as “fortunately so placed and timed as to damage property rather than persons” and said that nationalists “were out to call attention to their cause rather than to shed blood.”

The judge said he would sentence López to the “electric chair” if he could, and the Lead Prosecutor said he “would like to see these Puerto Ricans die in jail.” [2] López’s political affiliations were clearly the motivating factor in his egregiously excessive sentence.

López himself was never accused of injuring and killing anyone. The government did not charge López in connection with a single bombing incident. In the U.S. justice system, you cannot punish someone for something they haven’t been personally tried for in court. Attempts to justify López’s sentence by blaming him for acts the FALN claimed responsibility for are nothing more than guilt by association.

Later, López would receive 15 more years for conspiracy to escape, the result of a plotdevised by FBI informants placed in his unit.

In his defense, López argued that according to international law he had the status of prisoner of war as an anticolonial fighter. As colonialism is a crime against humanity under international law, and international organizations had determined that Puerto Rico is a colony of the United States, López argued that he should be judged by an international body. [3]

In a 1987 resolution condemning international terrorism, the UN General Assembly purposefully excluded actions by people seeking the “inalienable right to self-determination and independence of all peoples under colonial and racist regimes.” The resolution specified “the right of these peoples to struggle to this end.” The measure passed by a margin of 153-2. Only Israel and the United States voted against it.

A History of Repression

While today roughly only 5% of Puerto Ricans on the island favor independence, this was not always the case. After the United States defeated Spain in the Spanish-American War in 1898, the U.S. assumed possession of Puerto Rico along with Spain’s other colonies. The U.S. controlled Puerto Rico’s government and gave enormously profitable sugar and coffee plantations to private American corporations. The U.S. government suppressed resistance to colonial occupation and refused all demands to relinquish control of the island.

In 1948, the Puerto Rican Senate passed Law 53. The “Gag Law” criminalized nationalist politics. It prohibited organizing, assembling, writing or speaking to promote independence. It even prohibited displaying the Puerto Rican flag.

Luis Muñoz Marin, the head of the Senate at the time, became Puerto Rico’s governor the next year. His Partido Popular Democratico (PPD) passed a new Constitution in 1952 that granted Puerto Rico its Commonwealth status. However, this shed the territory’s colonial status in name only.

Independence movements had determined to resort to armed struggle after facing decades of repression politically. They saw the Commonwealth as a euphemism for an illegitimate arrangement that perpetuated the colonial status quo.

Pedro Albizu Campos, leader of Puerto Rico’s Nationalist Party, had been imprisoned along with other nationalists in 1936. He spent 10 years behind bars. After being released, he continued fighting for the liberation of Puerto Rico from colonialism.

In 1954, Lolita Lebrón led an attack with other nationalists on the House of Representatives. Shooting from the gallery of the chamber, they wounded five Congressmen. Lebrón spent 25 years in prison. She later said “times have changed … I would not take up arms nowadays, but I acknowledge that the people have a right to use any means available to free themselves.”

Puerto Rican nationalist groups were among the first targeted as part of J. Edgar Hoover’s notorious FBI Cointelpro illegal spying campaign. Cointelpro became known to the public during the Church Committee hearings in the late 1970s, when it was revealed that the program had been used to illegally spy on civil rights leaders, anti-war protestors, American Indian movements, and other groups who challenged the political status quo.

While most Puerto Ricans do not support independence, most do support decolonization – whether it is through integration into the United States as a state, or through a sovereign association with the United States similar to that of Marshall Islands.

In a historic November 2012 referendum, Puerto Rican voters decisively rejected the current colonial status with a 54% majority. Only voters on the island were allowed to participate in the referendum. If Puerto Ricans and their descendants in the diaspora – where independence is more popular – were included, the number likely would have been much higher.

Today support for López’s release is shared by both the pro-status quo PPD and pro-statehood PNP. Puerto Rico’s Governor Alejandro García Padilla and lone (non-voting) representative in Congress Pedro Pierluisi – the former of the PPD and the latter of the PNP – have both petitioned President Obama for López’s freedom.

Latin American countries have expressed solidarity with Puerto Rico on both the causes of decolonization and freedom for López. In his visit to the White House, President of Uruguay José “Pepe” Mujica called for Obama to grant a pardon to López. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has called for Puerto Rico to be able to join the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and for freedom for López. “The Island of Puerto Rico is not alone in its struggle for dignity and independence,” Maduro said.

The two causes also received international backing from the UN Special Committee on Decolonization, which approved a resolution this summer that called on the United States to “end subjugation” of Puerto Rico and to release López.

No Recourse to Political Participation

Although Puerto Ricans are American citizens, Puerto Ricans residing on the island cannot cast a vote in federal elections. Entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare do not apply equally to Puerto Ricans. U.S. businesses are guaranteed the same access to Puerto Rico as to any state under the Interstate Commerce Clause, subverting the island’s self-sufficiency. Puerto Rico doesn’t have the ability to make foreign policy, enter into trade agreements, impose tariffs, or provide universal public health insurance.

In the Insular Cases, the Supreme Court determined that Puerto Rico and other territories belong to, but are not part of, the United States. In comparing this to the “Separate but Equal” system established by the Court’s Plessy vs. Ferguson decision, Judge Juan R. Torruella says that the Insular Cases created a “Separate and Unequal” system for Puerto Rico. The difference, Torruella notes, is that unlike Plessy, which has been overturned, the Insular Cases created “a regime of de facto political apartheid, which continues in full vigor.”

Without any representation in Congress or a vote in Presidential elections, Puerto Ricans have their political rights subjugated to the U.S. government. Even on an issue as popular among Puerto Ricans as the release of Oscar López, they have no recourse to participate in the political process at the federal level.

There is no indication that Obama intends to even respond to López’s clemency plea, much less grant it. In his speech at Nelson Mandela’s funeral, Obama said that “around the world today, men and women are still imprisoned for their political beliefs.” The overwhelming opinion among Puerto Ricans is that this description applies precisely to López.

The disregard that Obama has shown for recognizing the will of Puerto Ricans to free Oscar López demonstrates the uphill challenges Puerto Ricans face to shed their second-class status and obtain equal rights. If the President refuses even to grant a simple pardon, what chance do Puerto Ricans have of the U.S. government acting on the 2012 referendum and allowing them to achieve self-determination?

Predictably, the issue has been put on the back burner in Washington. The extent of federal action generated by the referendum is a $2.5 million appropriation to hold another referendum, which would also be non-binding. Only the U.S. Congress can change Puerto Rico’s status. And with Republicans in control of both chambers, it is more likely they will dedicate a national holiday to Karl Marx.

There is broad support in Puerto Rico for decolonization, and almost unanimous support for the liberation of Oscar López. But, as has been the case for the last 116 years, Puerto Ricans find themselves at the mercy of first-class citizens on the mainland who control their fate.

Matt Peppe writes about politics, U.S. foreign policy and Latin America on his blog. You can follow him on twitter.

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Prensa Latina News Agency - Puerto Rican Leaders Applaud Obama''s Decision on Cuba
Thursday December 18th, 2014 at 1:16 AM

Prensa Latina: Main News

17 de diciembre de 2014, 17:25San Juan, Dec 17 (Prensa Latina) Puerto Rican governor, Alejandro Garcia applauded today the decision of United States President Barack Obama, to re-establish diplomatic relations with Cuba.

In this regard, Garcia warned that Puerto Rico should be 'increasingly ready" due to the competition that will generate the change in the economic arena.
"I firstly congratulated President Obama as he again made us look well', he said.
The announcement of the re-establishment of the diplomatic relations in Washington by the US leader was in parallel with the one made in Havana by Cuban President Raul Castro, however it does not include the end of the economic blockade imposed on Cuba in 1962.
On the same line, the president of the Puerto Rican Independence Party, Ruben Berrios, considered the announce marks the beginning of the end of arrogance and aggression against the island.
"This is the beginning of the end of a policy of arrogance and aggression against Cuba, which will have far reaching consequences in Latin America and the Caribbean", he stated.
"Now it is needed the rectification in relation to Puerto Rico', he added.
He pointed out that isolation did not work with Cuba just as colonialism does not work in Puerto Rico.
Obama has reworked his government's position because the U.S. position on Cuba -always contrary to the interests of Cuba - is also contrary to the interests of the United States.
ef/ycf/mgt/nrm

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Growing crisis in Puerto Rico’s colonial regime » Around the world » Workers World
Thursday December 18th, 2014 at 1:06 AM

Workers World

The following article was written by Panamanian sociologist Olmedo Beluche, who recently visited Puerto Rico to participate in a series of conferences on the anticolonial struggle in Panama and Puerto Rico.

An economic and social crisis has struck the “Commonwealth,” a euphemism that U.S. imperialism uses to disguise the colonial regime under which it has dominated the island since 1898. The neoliberal policies that were imposed starting from the 1980s, combined with the global economic crisis, which has hit hard since 2008, has led Puerto Rico’s colonial regime to an unsustainable situation that could explode at any moment.

The privatization of public enterprises, of state industry, of services and even of roads has decreased revenues to the state government that does not come directly from taxes. This process has led to an enormous fiscal crisis of the Puerto Rican state, which has been loaded onto the backs of the working class. As reported by the newspaper El Nuevo Día, budget deficits are being resolved each year through the acquisition of new loans (totaling nearly $23 billion since 2000) until the accumulated debt reached $72 billion, with $3.7 billion a year in interest payments. (<a href="http://elnuevodia.com" rel="nofollow">elnuevodia.com</a>, Nov. 7)

Debt that, according to the colonial constitution imposed on Puerto Rico in 1952, the state must pay the bondholders before satisfying the basic needs of the population. Debt that has led the current governor, Alejandro García Padilla of the Popular Democratic Party (PPD), to place a drastic limit on public spending and propose a tax increase on fuel oil of 40 percent, from $9.25 to $15.50 per barrel entering the country, at a time when there has been a considerable drop in international prices.

According to the governor and his advisors, the tax increase is necessary to save from ruin and further privatization the three service institutions it administers: the Health Insurance Administration, the Roads and Transport Authority and the Electric Power Authority. This approach to economic policy has led the unemployment rate to fluctuate between 13 and 15 percent, to a high dependence of the population on the system of federal unemployment benefits system (“coupons”) and to a migration to the United States that averages 3,000 young people each month.

According to polls in El Nuevo Dia, 60 percent of the Puerto Rican population disapproves of Governor Garcia Padilla, 92 percent believe that things are going badly or very badly, 93 percent believe that their situation now is the same as or worse than one year ago, and 79 percent believe that things will be worse in another year. (<a href="http://elnuevodia.com" rel="nofollow">elnuevodia.com</a>, Nov. 8)

The parliamentary opposition, the also rightist New “Progressive” Party (PNP), seeks to block the reforms of the PPD, more as an electoral ploy than out of principle, and its sole proposal to address the crisis is to promote “statehood” for Puerto Rico, that is, to move from the “Commonwealth” status to become a full-fledged state of the United States of America. Although the PNP is flirting with sectors of the U.S. Republican Party, what is essential here is that the new balance of power in the U.S. Congress, following the results of the Nov. 4 election, does not seem to favor those who propose annexation.

The Republican Party’s extremist (Tea Party) wing has opposed any immigration reform that allows legalization of all 50 million Latin American immigrants living in the United States. Is it likely they will favor statehood for Puerto Rico that would add another 4 million Latinos/as with full political and social rights? This does not seem logical.

Although the historic Independence Party disappeared electorally by not getting the 3 percent required by law in the elections two years ago, there appeared on the political scene a project of a class-based political party, the Party of the Working People, led by Professor Rafael Bernabe. This party also failed to survive the election but insists on re-registering before the next election. It did manage to win a council seat in the municipality of Vieques.

Class-struggle unionism in Borinquen

Puerto Rico has a long tradition of union struggle of its workers and popular sectors. In recent times, what everyone remembers is the “People’s Strike” against the privatization of the telephone company in 1998, whose combative union had wide popular solidarity, although later it was defeated. The students of the University of Puerto Rico staged a militant strike with occupation of Rio Piedras campus a couple of years ago. This year the teachers were on strike for better wages.

The Union of Electrical and Irrigation Industry (UTIER) and its president Angel Figueroa Jaramillo are the benchmark of class unionism facing the neoliberal measures that strike at the rights of the Borinquen working class. Jaramillo explains that UTIER practices unionism under the “principle of non-economistic class struggle that turns into class solidarity with other sectors.” This principle led UTIER to break with the AFL-CIO and link up with the World Federation of Trade Unions.

Jaramillo traces the history of UTIER since the electricity industry was nationalized in 1942, dividing it into two periods, the first period being the establishment of the conquests and rights that became labor rights for the whole class (Christmas bonus, job security, system of pensions and retirement, etc.) lasting until the early 1970s, and the other in defense of labor rights against the neoliberal attacks, from then until the present, with four major strikes (1973, 1977, 1981 and 2012).

The president of UTIER explains that confronted with a state deficit, the government intends to reduce the budget by $1 billion, which, because it eliminates necessary personnel, degrades the quality of public services. The worst step, however, has been the imposition of Act 66 of “Fiscal Sustainability and Government Operations,” which diminishes the existing rights of 160,000 public employees and their families and 55,000 other municipal employees.

Law 66 attempts to make unions accept the temporary suspension of certain rights won by collective bargaining in exchange for supposed job security. It is negotiation with a gun pointed at the union’s head, for the same law states that while unions are required to give up their rights (at least until July 2017), public corporations are not obliged to respect any agreement and can continually impose new attacks on existing workers’ rights.

UTIER is promoting a regrouping of class and militant trade unionism not only with the Union Coordinating Group, but with other social and political movements through organizations like the Solidarity and Struggle Front.

Vieques still fighting, confronting Pentagon

Along with the struggle against privatization of the telephone system, around year 2000, the other big struggle that shook Puerto Rico and aroused solidarity from Latin America and the world was that of the community of the island of Vieques, which demanded that the U.S. military close its military bases and decontaminate the shooting ranges. That struggle ended in a victory in 2003 when the military bases were closed and bombing practice ceased.

During a meeting, 70-year-old Carmen Valencia told how Vieques was an island mainly dedicated to the cultivation of sugarcane, a task in which her father was engaged until the 1940s when the Navy arrived, closed mills and seized two-thirds of the island for military bases and target areas. “Without lights or fans, we had to lock ourselves in the home at 5 p.m. to avoid the abuses committed by the military against the women.”

Vieques’ struggle continues today, demanding adequate decontamination of the shooting ranges. Rev. Eunice Santana Meletius says, “The response of the empire in terms of cleaning up the pollution in the land does not cease to surprise and outrage us. It exposes the contempt it has for life; the excessive greed that always drives it to spend the minimum and its manipulative and sneaky way of acting to avoid meeting the basic requirements of decency and humanity.” (Compartir es Vivir, October 2014)

Santana tells how the alleged decontamination executed by the Pentagon consists in burning bombs outdoors to make them explode, which spreads its contaminants; how there is still sunk in a bay off Vieques the destroyer USS Killen, used in tests with nuclear weapons and loaded with 200 barrels whose contents are unknown; how Anones Lagoon, “the most polluted place,” has opened up a channel to drain its toxic contents to the sea.

Comrade Nilda Medina explains that the problem is not only decontamination, but that there are no adequate medical services to treat the many cases of cancer and other diseases affecting the population. To which must be added the many social problems of a population that continues to lose its livelihood, now in the hands of a growing tourist industry controlled by and at the service of North Americans.

Something is moving in the independence movement

A distant observer might assume that the issues of independence and decolonization would be considered subversive and outlawed in Puerto Rico, but what has happened is the contrary: Historical memory and the vindication of the Puerto Rican heroes is everywhere. In many corners one can find monuments to the leaders of this movement: Ramon Emeterio Betances, Eugenio Maria De Hostos and even Pedro Albizu Campos. In Ponce, for example, they have launched a Museum House of the Massacre, which occurred there in 1937, carried out by the colonial police against activists in the Nationalist Party of Albizu.

The independence activists argue that the main factor preventing a massive shift toward the independence of Puerto Rico is the economic crisis itself and the dependence of a large percentage of the population on the system of federal coupons, which creates a conservative culture and attitude among people without class consciousness.

Francisco Torres, current president of the Nationalist Party, which continues the struggle of Albizu, Lolita Lebrón and others, explains that at this time an Independence Roundtable has been set up to try to unite this fragmented segment of society. At least ten organizations are participating in this roundtable: They include the Nationalist Party, the PRT-Machetero, the MINH (National Independence Hostosian Movement) and the Socialist Front, among others. They have established six points of discussion for a programmatic approach that allows a joint action for independence.

On the other hand, a group still in the minority has launched the bold proposal of establishing the National Sovereign State of Borinken, which refuses to recognize the colonial government and acts as a parallel government around which a National Assembly of the Borinken People could unify the pro-independence people.

Whatever happens, we assume that the final collapse of colonial rule will come from a dialectical combination of social and anti-capitalist workers’ struggle with demands for self-determination and national independence. In both instances, the people of Borinken have the unconditional support of their sisters and brothers in Latin America.

Translation by Workers World/Mundo Obrero.

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Mess in Venezuela Is One Reason Cuba Turned to the U.S.
Thursday December 18th, 2014 at 12:42 AM

Cuba’s decision to agree to a prisoner exchange with the U.S. in return for easing a five-decade embargo comes as the Caribbean island's key benefactor, Venezuela, struggles to avoid default.

With Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro unable to contain the world’s fastest inflation and the country’s bonds trading at default levels, Cuban President Raul Castro has been working to diversify the Communist country’s economy away from Venezuela, which provides about 100,000 barrels of oil a day in exchange for medical personnel.

“You only need to look at the economic disaster that is Venezuela and clearly it’s a bad bet to have all your chips in one basket,” Christopher Sabatini, policy director at Council of the Americas, said in phone interview from New York. “That 100,000 barrels per day gift of oil is going to end very soon.”

Cuba’s leaders are well aware of the risks of dependency after the economy collapsed in the early 1990s when the Soviet Union collapsed. Since early 2013, Castro has eased travel restrictions, increased incentives for foreign investment and tried to reduce public payrolls. That hasn’t boosted the economy, which is poised to expand 0.8 percent this year, according to Moody’s Investors Service, less than the 2.2 percent forecast by the government at the start of 2014.

U.S. President Barack Obama today said he will use his authority to begin normalizing relations with Cuba, loosening a trade and travel embargo that dates back to the early days of the Cold War. The move came after Castro released an American aid contractor, Alan Gross, who had been imprisoned for five years and an unnamed U.S. intelligence agent.

Credit Cards

Under the new policies, U.S. travelers will be able to use credit and debit cards in Cuba and Americans will be able to legally bring home as much as $100 in previously illegal Cuban cigars treasured by aficionados.

U.S. companies will be permitted to export to Cuba telecommunications equipment, agricultural commodities, construction supplies and materials for small businesses. U.S. financial institutions will be allowed to open accounts with Cuban banks.

“It’s a huge step,” Philip Peters, a Cuba scholar and vice president of the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Virginia, said in a telephone interview. “The travel will help the economy, the sales from the private sector will help.”

Venezuela Sanctions

The U.S. Congress last week cleared legislation imposing sanctions including the cancellation of visas on Venezuelans deemed responsible for human-rights violations against anti-government protesters, which White House spokesman Josh Earnest said President Obama would sign.

“It’s a lack of respect to sanction us! They can take their visas and shove them where they need to be shoved! Insolent, imperialist Yankees,” Maduro said Dec. 15 during a march he convened in Caracas to protest the measures.

He said today that Obama’s move to relax restrictions on Cuba was a victory for the Cuban people.

Maduro’s approval rating fell to 24.5 percent in November, Bank of America said in a note to clients on Dec. 15, citing a poll from Caracas-based polling company Datanalisis.

The South American country has seen the price it receives for its oil exports, which account for 95 percent of its foreign currency earnings, fall 40 percent this year to $57.53 a barrel last week.

“In a sustained lower oil price scenario, Maduro’s menu of policy options are all potentially destabilizing,” Eurasia Group analyst Risa Grais-Targow said in a note to clients today. The country faces a 60 percent chance of defaulting on its foreign debt in the second half of next year if oil pricesdo not recover, she said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ezra Fieser in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic at

efieser@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Bill Faries at wfaries@bloomberg.net; Philip Sanders at psanders@bloomberg.net Philip Sanders

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Puerto Rico Debt Sets Record Low After Utility Meets Investors
Thursday December 18th, 2014 at 12:40 AM

Prices on Puerto Rico bonds fell to a record low after a meeting between investors and officials of the commonwealth’s power utility, which may restructure $8.6 billion of debt in coming months.

Commonwealth general obligations maturing in July 2035 traded today at an average of 84.17 cents on the dollar, the lowest since the securities were first sold March 11 at 93 cents, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Debt of the junk-rated U.S. territory is tax-free nationwide.

Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority officials told investors yesterday that they would seek more time to work on restructuring the agency, according to a person with knowledge of the meeting inManhattan, who requested anonymity because the talks were private. Reuters reported on the gathering earlier.

Utility representatives also submitted an incomplete business plan, according to the person. The agency was required to file a five-year strategy by Dec. 15, according to an August agreement with creditors that put off payment of bank loans. Prepa plans to request an extension of that agreement, which expires March 31, and will discuss a timeframe in January, the person said.

Abimael Lisboa Felix, a spokesman for Prepa in San Juan, didn’t respond to an e-mail and phone message requesting comment on the plans.

Only investors and creditors who signed the August accord received yesterday’s report, as it’s a work in progress, Lisa Donahue, Prepa’s chief restructuring officer, said in a statement.

“These initiatives will be important as we continue to develop our turnaround and restructuring plan to ensure Prepa’s future, for the benefit of all stakeholders, including our employees, customers, creditors, and stakeholders,” Donahue said.

The limited distribution of the business plan hurt bond prices today, said Dan Toboja, senior vice president of municipal-bond trading at Ziegler, a broker-dealer in Chicago.

“The market prefers information,” Toboja said. “Any lack of disclosure or appearance of a lack of disclosure is going to spook investors a little bit.”

Prepa signed the August agreement after it tapped reserves and capital-fund cash to pay bondholders this year.

For Related News and Information: Puerto Rico Utility Needs to Move to Natural Gas, Official Says Puerto Rico Electric Utility’s Late Accounts Surge 219% From ’12 Puerto Rico Rally at Risk With Rising Debt Expenses: Muni Credit

To contact the reporter on this story: Michelle Kaske in New York at mkaske@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Stephen Merelman at smerelman@bloomberg.netMark Tannenbaum, Alan Goldstein

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Puerto Rico: U.S. shift on Cuba will have impact on Caribbean trade, tourism
Thursday December 18th, 2014 at 12:36 AM

Puerto Rico's secretary of state said Wednesday that the United States' plans to restore full diplomatic relations with Cuba - and potentially lift its longstanding economic embargo on the Communist-ruled island - will have a major impact on the Caribbean trade and tourism sectors.

"This decision is not only important for Cuba and the U.S., but also for the Caribbean region, because there is now a major player that, once fully open to the U.S., will have a significant impact on all trade and tourism," David Bernier told Efe.

This move by the U.S. and Cuban governments will present the Caribbean countries with a "slew of opportunities and challenges," he said, adding that they "need to be prepared to respond appropriately."

"It will create many opportunities for Puerto Rican entrepreneurs. Puerto Rico has carved out a unique role in tourism, and once Cuba begins the process of opening to the U.S. a search for growth opportunities must begin," Bernier said.

He made those remarks after U.S. President Barack Obama and his Cuban counterpart, Raul Castro, announced they will start the process of restoring full bilateral relations, which were severed in January 1961.

As part of the process of rapprochement, Havana released American contractor Alan Gross, who had been imprisoned on the island for five years after being convicted of subversion.

The United States also freed three Cuban spies from the so-called "Group of Five" in exchange for a U.S. intelligence agent imprisoned in Cuba for nearly 20 years.

Obama acknowledged in his address on Wednesday that Gross' imprisonment was a major obstacle in the way of his plans to restore relations with Cuba.

"I completely agree with Obama's decision," Bernier said, adding that it will "ultimately benefit both countries."

The decision to free the Cuban spies also has raised hopes in the U.S. commonwealth that Obama will heed local calls for the release of Puerto Rican pro-independence activist Oscar Lopez Rivera, who was convicted in 1981 of seditious conspiracy and has been imprisoned for 33 years.

"Obama is starting to take, at this stage of his presidency, a more sensible approach in his decisions and that's why we all demand the freedom of Oscar as we are convinced that this is a fair and righteous demand," Bernier said.

Lopez Rivera, 71, was sentenced to 55 years in prison and in 1987 an additional 15 years were added to his sentence for conspiracy to escape from prison. EFE