by JUAN A. OCASIO RIVERA and ELMA BEATRIZ ROSADO
PHOTO/The Raw Blog
Few incidents have galvanized the Puerto Rican nation as much as the FBI’s extra-judicial killing of independence leader Filiberto Ojeda Ríos in September 2005. Indeed, the politically divided country exploded in outrage over the incident, and Ojeda Ríos’s funeral procession was the largest ever attended in the island’s history. Since then, his image and his message have been repeatedly projected by supporters of independence. Indeed, striking student activists across the island who have shut down the public university system protesting increases in tuition are revisiting his speeches, communiqués, writings, and interviews to inform their developing activism. As the U.S. Congress reviews legislation this month proposing a change in the island’s status, independence supporting organizations continue to grapple with the revolutionary’s final call for unity as the necessary ingredient to move their agenda forward. To an increasing number of Puerto Ricans, the image of the fallen martyr and his message is never far off.