HORMIGUEROS, Puerto Rico—This year’s September 23 Grito de Lares (Cry of Lares) rally, marking the 1868 pro-independence uprising against Spain launched in the western town of Lares, was a tribute to independence fighter Filiberto Ojeda Ríos, killed on this date a year ago in an FBI assault on his home in Hormigueros. Several thousand independentistas rallied in Lares, and many then joined an evening march in Hormigueros. The Lares event also honored recently deceased Socialist Front leader Jorge Farinacci.

Speakers at the actions condemned the FBI for its persecution of the independence movement. Days earlier FBI agents raided the homes of independence supporters Liliana Laboy and Norberto Cintrón in San Juan, José Morales in Aguadilla, and the shoe shop of Miguel Sánchez in Mayagüez, accusing them of association with the underground Macheteros group previously led by Ojeda.

Longtime pro-independence leader Rafael Cancel Miranda told the crowd, “We will continue fighting. They [the U.S. rulers] may get scared, but not us.”

—RON RICHARDS