Posted on 10/18/2005 12:45:01 PM PDT by doug from upland
Puerto Rican nationalist's death opens old wounds
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
By MIGUEL PEREZ STAFF WRITER
He fakes a smile to try to hide it, but the pain of having lost his father is still written on Joe Connor's face.
It happened 30 years ago, when Connor was only 9. Yet the way his father was killed keeps haunting him.
Connor felt it again recently, when he heard that Puerto Rican nationalist Filiberto Ojeda Rios was given a hero's funeral and eulogized as a martyr following a shootout with FBI agents.
"I was absolutely disgusted when I heard people comparing him to George Washington and Jesus Christ," Connor said. "How can they do that? He was the quintessential terrorist. He could have been the one who masterminded my father's murder."
Frank Connor, of Fair Lawn, was killed in the Jan. 24, 1975, bombing of Fraunces Tavern in lower Manhattan. Father to two young boys, the 33-year-old bank employee was a frequent visitor to the historic tavern, where George Washington bade farewell to his officers after the end of the Revolutionary War.
The Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional Puertoriqueña (FALN) - seeking independence for Puerto Rico - claimed responsibility for the blast, which killed four people and injured more than 50. It was one of more than 100 bombings attributed to the FALN in New York, Chicago and Puerto Rico during the 1970s, killing six people and maiming more than 70.
Ojeda Rios, 72, was a leader of the Puerto Rican independence movement. Although no one has ever drawn a direct link, "there has always been speculation that Ojeda Rios may have been not only a founding member of the FALN, but that he may have engineered the [Fraunces Tavern] attack," said former FBI agent Rick Hahn, who investigated Puerto Rican terrorism for 12 years.
That suspicion is enough for Connor, who is flabbergasted to see Ojeda Rios remembered as a freedom fighter instead of a terrorist.
Federal authorities considered Ojeda Rios the leader of another domestic terrorist group, Los Macheteros - "machete wielders" - which also took responsibility for terrorist attacks, some of them jointly with the FALN.
Wanted for his role in the $7.2 million heist of a Wells Fargo armored truck depot in West Hartford, Conn., in 1983, Ojeda Rios was a fugitive before being killed in a Sept. 23 standoff with FBI agents at his hideout farmhouse in the southwestern Puerto Rican town of Hormigueros.
"I thought that he got exactly what he deserved," Joe Connor said. "He lived by the sword and died by it."
Although the FALN bombings may have faded from many people's memory, every incident of domestic terrorism reopens old wounds for the Connor family - but with a sadly ironic twist: Frank Connor's godson, Steven Schlag of Franklin Lakes, was killed at the World Trade Center on 9/11.
Connor's family is looking forward to a memorial being built near the municipal building in Fair Lawn to honor local victims of terrorism, including his father. They hope it will remind people that many Americans have been killed by domestic terrorism over the years.
"You hear that 9/11 was the first time terrorism hit America, and it's just not true," Connor said. "It makes me sick when they ignore the things that happened to us in 1975. My father's life was as valuable as anyone else's."
Connor has been an anti-terrorism activist for many years. He often writes letters to newspapers and politicians and even testified before Congress in 1999, when President Bill Clinton offered clemency to a group of Puerto Rican nationalists who had been imprisoned for various crimes.
"That was unbelievable," he said. "It threw us back into the same stuff again. No only had our father been killed, but then ... his memory was disregarded for political gain."
The nationalists were given 30 days to accept the clemency - and the Connor family spent that entire time fighting it, to no avail.
"Now all I hear is that the FBI assassinated this poor man," Connor said. "It's preposterous. We are in the middle of a war on terror. You would think that this would be looked upon somewhat favorably as a continuation of our war on terror. But it's not."
While some might view 9/11 differently from acts committed by the FALN and Los Macheteros, Connor said "it's still terrorism."
"And Puerto Rican terrorism was foreign-financed," he added. "Everyone knows these people were trained in Cuba and financed by [Fidel] Castro. They were agents of a foreign state. They were no different than [9/11 hijacking leader] Mohamed Atta."
Many Puerto Ricans view Ojeda Rios differently. For those on both the island and the mainland, he gained even more sympathy because of the way he was killed. Thousands attended his funeral, one of the largest in the island's history.
Authorities in Puerto Rico said an autopsy revealed Ojeda Rios probably bled to death after federal agents, fearing he had explosives, waited nearly a full day to enter the farmhouse following the gunfight. Because of that delay, many Puerto Ricans insist the FBI had no intention of arresting him. They are calling his death an assassination.
They also are offended because the shooting took place on Sept. 23, the anniversary of El Grito de Lares, the 1868 Puerto Rican "cry" for independence from Spain.
The Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General is investigating the incident. The FBI, meanwhile, has stood by its agents.
"The FBI turned him into a martyr," said the Rev. Miguel Rivera of Hasbrouck Heights. "By killing him the way they did, without giving him an opportunity to give up, and by letting him bleed to death, they got many Puerto Ricans who don't even agree with his cause to sympathize with him."
Rivera, president of the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, said that while he could never condone terrorism, and certainly feels the pain of its victims, Ojeda Rios will be remembered as a great Puerto Rican patriot who fought and died for his homeland's independence from the United States.
"The question is not what he did when he was alive," said New Brunswick attorney and community activist Martin Perez. "The question is whether we are going to follow due process and give people a fair day in court, or whether we are going to follow the law of the jungle. And in this case, the FBI followed the law of the jungle."
Fidel Castro and other senior Cuban officials held a rally in Ojeda Rios' honor this month in Havana, where Ojeda Rios had launched his violent crusade. During the event, Ojeda Rios' son, Edgardo Ojeda Serrano, declared his father's death "an act of terrorism of state" by the U.S. government.
Such statements make Joe Connor's blood boil when he considers what happened to his father 30 years ago.
"If it was put in the right context of what this guy was all about, the things that he did and the way he had resisted arrest in the past, there would be no doubt as to why these agents shot him," Connor said. "And why they probably didn't rush in to save him after they shot him."
Because no one was ever arrested for the Fraunces Tavern killings, there has been no closure for the Connor family.
"When I heard that Ojeda was killed, it was an odd feeling," Joe Connor said. "I'm not a vindictive person. That's not going to bring my father back. But I'm glad he is no longer a threat to people."
E-mail: perez@northjersey.com
He's a very good guy. I have never met him, but my best friend is a coworker of his and says he is the real deal. He's a victim who refuses to let himself be victimized.
They can do that because they deem terrorists to be heros.
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/02/08/faln.pardon/
Pinging you to the story, Joe. Thanks for the email.
Fallout from Clinton pardons for FALN prompts reform measure, renewed debate
By Terry Frieden
CNN
February 8, 2000
Web posted at: 6:08 p.m. EST (2308 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Fallout from President Clinton's controversial pardons of 16 members of a Puerto Rican nationalist group last summer prompted Republicans Tuesday to introduce a measure to reform the pardon process and require input from victims and their families.
At a Capitol Hill news conference, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Rep. Vito Fossella (R-New York) announced the introduction of a measure requiring the Office of Pardon Attorney in the Justice Department to notify victims or their families of key events in the clemency process and allowing them to voice their views. It would also require law enforcement agencies to provide information on the potential impact from a grant of clemency.
President Clinton was widely criticized after he granted clemency to the FALN members over the objections of law enforcement officials, and after the Justice Department consulted representatives of the FALN prisoners, but not the victims.
Hatch and Fossella were flanked by the widow of one victim and the son of a second victim killed in the 1975 FALN bombing of a New York restaurant.
Justice Department officials say the proposed measure is unconstitutional because it would restrict powers granted exclusively to the president.
The sponsors insist the changes would not interfere with the chief executive's decision making.
"The president will still be able to disregard the Pardon Attorney's reports, use another agency, ask anyone in the world for advice, or exercise the 'pardon power' without anyone's counsel, Hatch said.
Hatch said he expects the Justice Department to oppose the measure, but hopes to gain support from Democratic lawmakers.
Fossella rejected the notion the legislation is being introduced to embarrass Hillary Clinton's bid for a Senate seat from New York.
"As far as Mrs. Clinton is concerned, this has nothing to do in my opinion with her candidacy for the Senate. This has everything to do with the privilege and power vested with the president of the United States that will long survive this campaign for the Senate," Fossella said.
Joseph Connor, son of Frank Connor who died in the New York bombing, said he hopes something good finally comes from his father's death.
"We're hoping that we have made a difference here, and I believe we have through this bill. And maybe it can be a part of his legacy," Connor said.
Diana Berger Ettenson whose husband was killed in the blast said she too hoped the measure would gain bipartisan support.
"I would urge people on both sides of the aisle to come together to do the right thing, and I would also urge future candidates for the office of president to think very carefully regarding this awesome power that is placed in their hands. This power of clemency is like no other power," she said.
Was Ojeda Rios one of those pardoned by then-President Slick Willie?
He was the fugitive founder of the organization. I don't remember reading about him being associated with a pardon.
Horsecrap. That's exactly the issue-- Ojeda was a killer and got what was coming to him.
Maybe Puerto Rico should become an independent country, then they won't have to be outraged from the FBI taking out their trash. They can let it pile up chin-deep if they wish.
When Filiberto Ojeda-Rios, who founded Los Macheteros, was arrested for his part in the Wells Fargo robbery, he fired on FBI agents, hitting one agent in the head and costing him the sight in one eye.
Ojeda-Rios is not among those included in Clinton's clemency offer Wednesday. He jumped bail in the 1980s and is still a fugitive believed to be traveling between Cuba and Puerto Rico, where he continues the group's bombing attacks.
Of course, the people who do that believe in neither George Washington nor Jesus Christ.
Ojeda Rios, 72, was a leader of the Puerto Rican independence movement.
The Puerto Rican independence movement is strictly a leftist exercise in political masturbation. It is limited mostly to college kids and professors, and even they are unable to demand complete independence; they tell people that they could declare independence and still remain US citizens. Even they don't want to lose their little blue passport.
Which means that Ojeda Rios killed for nothing and died for nothing. And, essentially, lived for nothing. He should have chosen George Washington and Jesus Christ.
No, he was a fugitive at the time but was not on the pardon list.
I thought my long-time tagline seemed appropriate on this thread.
Will the pardon of these terrorists come back and haunt Slickette and her chances to ruin your country?
Like it or not, it is this way because 9-11 is the first time it was nto considered a "law enforcement issue", at least not by those in power at the time.
It is a great tagline.
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