Active 1974–1983 Area of operations United States | Leaders Filiberto Ojeda Ríos † | |
Ideology Puerto Rican independence, Marxism–Leninism Became Boricua Popular Army (Macheteros) Opponents Government of the United States | ||
The Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional (English: Armed Forces of National Liberation, FALN) was a Puerto Rican clandestine paramilitary organization that, through direct action, advocated complete independence for Puerto Rico. At the time of its dissolution, the FALN was responsible for more than 120 bomb attacks on United States targets between 1974 and 1983 that killed 5 people and injured several others.
Contents
The FALN was led by Filiberto Ojeda Ríos, who was one of the FBI's most wanted criminals. The group served as the predecessor of the Boricua Popular Army. Several of the organization's members were arrested and convicted for conspiracy to commit robbery and for firearms and explosives violations. On August 11, 1999 then United States President Bill Clinton offered clemency to sixteen of the convicted militants under the condition that they renounce any kind of violent manifestation. This decision drew criticism towards the Clinton administration from figures that include the Office of the United States Attorney, the FBI, and the United States Congress.
Philosophy
The group was a 1970s Marxist–Leninist militant group which fought to transform Puerto Rico into a communist state. The organization's ideological basis consisted of five reforms that they expected to implement, these were:
- Directing the armed and political struggle in accordance with the Marxist-Leninist principle of a broad front including a popular sectors willing to [ join ] the armed struggle right away
- Agglutination of all forces based upon the principle of coordination between political work and military work under the leadership of a party composed of combatants assigned to different tasks
- Application of the principle of internal ideological debate, a study of Marxist-Leninist ideology and the use of criticism and self-criticism
- Implementation of the Stalinist ideological position on the concept of "nation" with regard to American reality
- Application of the principle of the priority of the struggle for independence of Puerto Rico over any question of internal solidarity, demanding concrete support for our armed struggle as a priority matter in the international struggle against colonialism
History
The Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional was founded in the 1960s under the leadership of Filiberto Ojeda Rios. They were one of several organizations established during this decade that promoted "clandestine armed struggles" against the United States government that the movement described as the "colonial forces of the United States". The group was founded following decades of alleged harassment, attacks, illegal imprisonments and assassination against members of the Puerto Rican independence movement. The group was part of a movement that included other clandestine organizations, including the Movimiento Independentista Revolucionario Armado, Organización de Voluntarios por la Revolución Puertorriqueña and Los Comandos Armados de Liberación, and served as predecessor for what would become the Boricua Popular Army. The organization's intention was to draw attention to what they described as the "colonial condition" of Puerto Rico through armed action against the United States government and military.
The modus operandi of the FALN was to perform bombing and incendiary actions and then admit responsibility through press releases. The first of these news releases announced the group's intention; in this document they admitted responsibility for attacks on several locations in New York to weaken the "Yanki capitalist monopoly", and demanded the release of five political prisoners, these were: Lolita Lebrón, Oscar Collazo, Rafael Cancel Miranda, Andres Figueroa and Irvin Flores. In this communique the organization warns that they had opened two fronts, in Puerto Rico and the United States respectively, the goal of these were to organize a People's Revolutionary Army which they expected would "rid Puerto Rico of Yanki colonialism". Both fronts were supported and maintained by allies within Puerto Rico and North America.
The group openly expressed their opposition towards any government that was guided by any other system besides the Marxist–Leninist principles and rejected any kind of support or solidarity towards the Puerto Rican independence coming from the government of these countries. Of these countries they accused the governments of Mexico and Venezuela directly, expressing that the actions taken by these governments were hypocritical in origin, citing that while the Venezuelan government supported the independence of Puerto Rico they also supported the regime led by José Napoleón Duarte in El Salvador. The group went further and claimed that the Venezuelan government was a "protector and enforcer of the Yankee imperialist plans to expand their grip in the Caribbean and Central America" and claimed that Venezuelan Army was receiving modern weapons in exchange. In their fifth communique the FALN expressed their dislike for several agencies of the United States government, they mentioned the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of Immigration. They claimed that the Department of Immigration was trying to blame the use of a failing economic system on the Chicano population, and that it was responsible for massive deportation and repressive action against Chicano and Mexican workers. In the communique the organization also expresses their confidence on the ability of the group's mobile guerrilla units to attack any location within the continental United States. Regardless of their activism against the American government the FALN extended friendship and solidarity towards the United States working class, whom they described as "allies in the struggle against Yanki fascism". They said that the reason for this was that the American working class was being pushed out of work forced to unemployment while the nation's corporations were gaining billions of dollars in profits. The FALN used some of their communiques to advertise other causes that they felt were fair, including support towards the government of Panama when this country wanted the control of the Panama Canal.
FALN Pardons of 1999
On August 11, 1999, President Bill Clinton offered conditional clemency to sixteen members of the FALN convicted for conspiracy to commit robbery, conspiracy to bomb-making, and sedition, as well as for firearms and explosives violations. None of the sixteen were convicted of bombings or any crime which injured another person, and all of the sixteen had served nineteen years or longer in prison, which was a longer sentence than such crimes typically received, according to the White House. Clinton offered clemency, on condition that the prisoners renounce violence, at the appeal of 10 Nobel Peace Prize laureates, President Jimmy Carter, the Archbishop of New York, and the Archbishop of Puerto Rico. The commutation was opposed by U.S. Attorney's Office, the FBI, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons and criticised by many including former victims of FALN terrorist activities, the Fraternal Order of Police, and members of Congress. Hillary Clinton in her campaign for Senator also criticised the commutation, although she had earlier been supportive.
The former New York City police officer Richard Pascarella, who was blinded and lost five fingers on his right hand in an FALN bombing, also publicly opposed clemency to FALN members, claiming: "They will again voice their ideology on the American public with a bomb and with a gun."