Let the truth be known and impunity end

An editorial in Claridad/Puerto Rico

Barely one week ago, we observed four Days Against Impunity, a commemoration of the 35th anniversary of the assassination of young Cuban-Puerto Rican Carlos Muñiz Varela. On March 24 we marked the 38th anniversary of the assassination of Santiago (“Chagui”) Mari Pesquera.

Although both have spent decades resting in the peace of those who die with a clean conscience, for their families and the patriotic Puerto Rican people there is no end to the pain of injustice and the uncertainty of not knowing who their assassins were.

Chagui and Carlos were two healthy and struggling young men who had not committed any crime, yet were murdered for their political activism. Their deaths, violent and cruel, still have not been solved, despite the colossal efforts made by their families throughout these years.

Santiago (Chagui) Mari Pesquera was assassinated on March 24, 1976, at age 23. Carlos Muñiz Varela was assassinated on April 28, 1979, at age 25.

The former was the oldest son of Juan Mari Brás, Secretary General of the Socialist Party of Puerto Rico (PSP), at the time of the slaying. Chagui was an activist in the student movement at the University of Puerto Rico and a militant advocate of independence. For that reason, when his body was found riddled with bullets inside his car, nobody in Puerto Rico doubted that it was a political assassination. The trial and conviction of a deranged man for this assassination never silenced the argument that he had been just the tool for a greater conspiracy.

The PSP was at the time the most active and combative pro-independence and pro-workers’ rights organization in Puerto Rico. Because of its frontal opposition to the colonial presence of the United States in Puerto Rico, because of its work organizing and mobilizing workers and communities, and because of its supportive relationship with the Cuban revolutionary government, the PSP was the target of a ferocious campaign of persecution and repression by extremist elements of the political right and organs of intelligence in Puerto Rico and the United States, coordinated by an office in Puerto Rico of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Carlos Muñiz Varela also was an outstanding student leader at the University of Puerto Rico and a militant in the PSP. At the moment of his death, he was working hard for the reunification of Cuban families in Puerto Rico and Cuba through the Varadero Travel Agency, which he founded with his friend and comrade Raúl Alzaga.

He was gunned down while traveling to his mother’s house. Two days later, a right-wing terrorist organization, Omega 7, founded by Cuban exiles in Puerto Rico, took responsibility for the slaying, confirming that it was a political vendetta by the enemies of the Cuban government.

The names of the true assassins, the men who planned and organized the killings, the men who obtained the weapons and pulled the triggers, remain secret by design of the U.S. Justice Department.

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) has allowed the relatives of Mari Pesquera and Muñiz Varela to confirm their theory that the FBI knew then and knows now the identity of the assassins. Documents declassified by the FBI itself have revealed details of the plans made to assassinate the pro-independence leader Juan Mari Bras, Mari Pesquera’s father.

Also of the activities planned against anyone considered to be sympathetic to the Cuban government. The fact that the convicted assassin of Mari Pesquera did not act alone has been acknowledged by the Puerto Rican Department of Justice itself.

But until now the efforts made by the relatives to learn the truth and find justice for their loved ones have fallen into deaf ears. Neither letters nor petitions of intervention nor public complaints nor requests by the Puerto Rican Justice Department have softened the federal authorities into revealing the names of the murderers.

This stubborn and brazen attitude confirms the constant persecution of the Puerto Rican independence movement throughout history and the harshness of the federal authorities in the face of the relatives’ grief.

The newly confirmed Secretary of Justice of Puerto Rico, César Miranda, has publicly committed himself to creating an investigation team that, within six months, will begin to lift the veil on these vile crimes, which have gone unpunished for more than 30 years.

We at Claridad, the Newspaper of the Puerto Rican Nation, are hopefully awaiting the result of Mr. Miranda’s efforts so that the truth may finally be known and the impunity of the assassins of Santiago Mari Pesquera and Carlos Muñiz Varela may come to an end.