http://pr.indymedia.org/news/2005/09/9966.php http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10405.htm http://www.nydailynews.com/11-08-2002/news/col/aruiz/story/350801p-299121c.html The fact that they went in and killed somebody like this in secret shows just how much the US respects Puerto Rico (I still can't understand why they're not independent). I didn't hear about this until yesterday, and I'd bet not too many others have heard of this either.
You left off murderer and thief from the thread title. Other than that, yes there should be an investigation.
Yeah this guy was a saint. Can't understand why the FBI went after him: For the links, I took this quote from the 3rd one, the first was in Spanish, the second was a joke at best, the third is the only one to show any journalistic integrity. As for PR, they do not want to be a state, I say let them become their own country. Enjoy independence. The US should pull up stakes and move out completely and let them become an independent nation.
It wasn't in secret. It was widely reported. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that only 2.5% of Puerto Ricans voted for independence in the last referendum on the subject (1998). Try reading more often. It does a reactionary big-mouth good.
It was widely reported? I read the newspaper and watch the news everyday. I don't know where you live, but around here, it wasn't, buried underneath hurricane stories, John Roberts, etc.
Had Puerto Rico been an independent country during the Cold War and the United States not given a damn about it, Castro would have waltzed in there and that would have been the end of their "independence." Puerto Rico should be greatful that it's part of the U.S.
It's time for puerto rico and the US to piss or get off the pot. Either P.R. becomes a state or it goes it's own way. The current situation is not good for either party in the long run.
How is it not good for either party? Puerto Ricans have a pretty slick arrangement; they are all citizens, can move freely to and from the US, or can re-locate permanently and legally -- without the hazardous boat ride -- to any state in the union.
Yeah thanks a lot for your generosity. Keep killing our countrymen especially on the anniversary of the Grito de Lares. It will be our Aztec sacrificing to the gods. Then again I can't be mad at a fellow UNAM supporter but still.
The majority of Puerto Ricans don't want independence. By a lot. Statehood has a lot of support but it also isn't the majority who just want to remain how it is right now. A lot of people think he is a crook, the independist movement think he is a hero. Still the FBI killed him on the day of the anniversary of the independist revolt in Lares. Basically the thing most resembling a independence day for the movement. They went in, cut the light to the town, shot him, led him to bleed to death and then left. They didn't tell the local authorities anything and just basically told the government to screw themselves. Thus they created a martyr and united the independent movement, that had been fractured in squabbling and local grudges. They also may have revitalized the Macheteros and Ejerctio Popular Boricua, who were basically dead and only symbolical. Maybe that is what they wanted.
Think of it as a couple living together, unmarried and unsure of whether or not they really want to get married to each other and unsure if they really want to leave each other. In the long run it's not a healthy relationship for either the USA nor Puerto Rico.
The Puerto Rican people are capable of making this decision for themselves. Popular votes run evenly between statehood & the current commonwealth status, with independence a small third choice. While some political activists want their own country, the vast majority wish to maintain ties with the US, especially when they compare their situation to the rest of the Caribbean. The Macheteros are in the same junkpile at the Weatherman & the SLA.
A lot of people "think" he was a crook? LOL. Yeah, armed robbery can have that affect on one's reputation. You forgot the part about him shooting one of the agents first and how his wife failed to let the FBI know it was safe to come in, but, yeah, other than that it's all the FBI's fault. So, now all 2.5% of the Puerto Rican population who want independence are united? Whoop-de-fukcing-do. He got what was coming to him.
Except for the minor factual detail of neither party wanting to leave each other, you might have a point. A small majority want the status quo, and a large minority want closer ties.