Revisiting a Classic: Los Macheteros by Ronald Fernandez

Rally in San Juan in honor of Filiberto.

Los Macheteros is an exemplary work of journalism. Ronald Fernandez immersed himself in investigating what was to become the largest bank robbery in the U.S. In doing so, Fernandez unknowingly discovered the radicals behind the bank robbery, the illegal battle being waged by the FBI against them, and the historical, political and culture battle at the center of the struggle for Puerto Rican independence. The book isn’t just about how a poor, low paid Well’s Fargo security guard, Victor Manuel Gerena Ortiz, expertly stole $7 million, but how Victor’s act was part of a larger guerrilla battle being waged in Puerto Rico against American colonialism. Fernandez’ quest to understand the guerrilla movement led him to the jungles of Puerto Rico. By doing this he was able to prove his credentials and was later introduced to militants of Los Macheteros, but not in Puerto Rico, instead right in his hometown of Hartford, CT, in the belly of the beast. Los Macheteros captures the instant when the struggle for Puerto Rican independence was forced into the national political discussion. More telling, however, Los Macheteros encapsulates the struggle being waged for a free Puerto Rico and its abilty to withstand the test of time and repression.

            On September 12^th, 1983 Well’s Fargo employee, Victor Gerena, forced his coworkers to put hoods over their heads and bound them together. “To oversee $30 million in West Hartford, the company paid $4.75 an hour.” (p. 3). What followed would lead FBI detectives into a three-decade long chase for the conspirers. Fernandez captures how the FBI refused to believe that a 25 year old Puerto Rican could successfully pull off a bank robbery. In fact, according to attorney Michael Graham, the FBI had nothing else to do but to “declare war on an innocent family” who in reality did not know anything about Victor’s whereabouts, even less, about the secretly planned robbery (41). September 12^th happens to also be the birthday of the founder of the Puerto Rican independence movement, Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos, a fact that would later become an integral part to linking Los Macheteros to the robbery. But who were Los Macheteros? And why were they targeting a bank in Hartford, Connecticut? Los Macheteros, also known as Ejercito Popular Boricua, were the successors to the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional Puertorriquenas (FALN), a paramilitary group founded by the late Filiberto Ojeda Rios, whose strategy for independence was to attack symbols of American dominance in Puerto Rico. Fernandez sums up the struggle the militant group faced:

Los Macheteros were up against eighty-eight years of American dominance and, as if that wasn’t a challenge enough, they were seeking to establish a sense of pride in youngsters who had never been to the island…what the group offered was self-esteem via participation in a meaningful movement. And to kids exposed to prejudice, kids called “spics”, Los Macheteros offered a way to fight back. (p107)

West Hartford was home to a large population of Puerto Ricans, the majority of which migrated from New York City to work in the Tabaco Industry. However, after the collapse of that industry in the early 1970’s, the living situation for most Puerto Ricans declined, most either returned to New York City or took up low paying and unstable jobs in West Hartford’s service sector. This fact would prove to make the initial investigation on Victor’s whereabouts difficult, as the majority of Puerto Rican’s in West Hartford overwhelmingly supported his actions. In fact, it wasn’t until Victor Gerena began writing letters to the local papers that the police began to broaden the scope of their investigation and reach out to the FBI in Puerto Rico.

Student's of the UPR protesting against attempts to raise tuition and police presence on campus.

Fernandez chronicles the battles between the FBI and Los Macheteros in Puerto Rico prior to the 1983 bank robbery. In fact, Los Macheteros had already robbed a smaller amount of money from Well’s Fargo several years earlier in the island.  The confrontation between the police and Los Macheteros were cemented after the massacre of Cerro Maravilla in July 25^th, 1978. The massacre took place after two independistas surrendered during an attempt to blow up a communications tower. This further proved to militant independistas the need to have an efficient and disciplined revolutionary military unit. The main act of violence carried out by Los Macheteros, which started the hunt against them was the December 17^th, 1979 ambush of a Navy bus in Sebana Seca, which resulted in the killing of two U.S. sailors. The battle between the U.S. and the Puerto Rican government took the conventional form of arms fighting, but also entailed a super active counterintelligence operation against Los Macheteros and anyone who was deemed to be “too radical”, as was the case with Carlos Noya Murati. Carlos was a prominent member of the leftwing Puerto Rican Socialist League, and after being wrongly subpoenaed, he twice refused to take an oath of allegiance to a country he did not recognize, resulting in jail time. Los Macheteros, like other Latin American guerrilla movements have a Maoist ideological background. However, they’re to be differentiated from guerrilla groups like Colombia’s Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) whose origins arise from that country’s lack of an agrarian reform and whose founders were firm Marxist believers.  In the case of Los Macheteros, the struggle is less about an economic model, and more about the struggle for an independent nation in an “occupied” country. Thus, Los Macheteros also fought to preserve a Puerto Rican identity and culture, a fact that Fernandez’ paints elegantly. In West Hartford, several months after the robbery the group sent hundreds of toys to be distributed to children in the Puerto Rican communities during the celebration of Los Reyes Magos, usually a week after the new year. Not only were Los Macheteros trying to win sympathy, but also they were invigorating their claims to be an organization fighting to protect a Puerto Rican identity. An identity they felt has always been under attack. Under this same light, Victor Genera began sending teasing letters to Hartford detectives, under the more Latin American name, Victor Manuel Gerena Ortiz. His letters included messages of solidarity to the Puerto Rican community and to the Latino community in general. 

Victor Gerena received a decent share of support in Hartford after his daring robbery. Nonetheless, Los Macheteros as an organization did not share the same similar support. Fernandez argues part of the problem, historically, has been the inability of the independistas to connect the two issues of an impoverished state and the islands status as a colony. In other words, economic issues like unemployment or crime were not treated as part of the broad problem of being a colony whose identity culturally and economically speaking has been tied to interests from the north. In a survey quoted by Fernandez, 51% of Puerto Ricans viewed Los Macheteros as a terrorist organization whose goals and actions are unacceptable (p236).  This is part of the reason why Los Macheteros remain such a clandestine organization. Another reason why they also remain marginalized is the ferocity for which the U.S. has pursued nationalists. Fernandez outlines head of the CIA J. Edgar Hoover view in the 1960’s:

Hoover suggested that, to undermine the dangerous current of nationalism, the following tactics be employed: the use of informants to disrupt the movement and create dissension within the groups…the use of handwritten letters to plant the seeds of suspicion between various factions…the use of anonymous mailings concerning Puerto Rico’s relationship with the U.S. to be sent to subjects within the independence movement who might be psychologically affect by such information…(157).

The U.S. has always been wary of nationalist figures; especially those that seek to organize in the states. Which is why the fact that Victor Gerena still remains at large, (presumably in Cuba) is an alarming one for the authority’s image. Since the killing of Filiberto Ojeda Rios in 2005, and the 1999 pardoning by President Bill Clinton of various machetero militants Los Macheteros as an organization have been virtually silent.

            The struggle for a free Puerto Rico has taken up several of fronts, from political parties, to mass militant parties and to underground guerrilla organizations. The ideas of freedom, that is, to be identified as a Puerto Rican, and to make decisions for Puerto Rico, based on the will of its citizens, will forever foment the idea of independence. In the last decade we have seen Puerto Rico in deep class struggle, in the front lines are the Puerto Rican Teacher’s Federation (FMPR) and the students of the University of Puerto Rico (UPR). Sadly, Ronald Fernandez is no longer here with us to be able to chronicle the ongoing struggles being waged in Puerto Rico and it’s consequences and actions of solidarity here in the states.  

Bibliography:

Fernandez, Ronald. Los Macheteros: The Wells Fargo Robbery and the Violent Struggle for Puerto Rican Independence. New York: Prentice Hall Press, 1987, Print.