Cerro Maravilla murders

The Cerro Maravilla murders, also known as the Cerro Maravilla massacre, occurred on July 25, 1978, at Cerro Maravilla, a mountain in Ponce, Puerto Rico, wherein two young Puerto Rican pro-independence activists, Carlos Enrique Soto Arriví (born December 8, 1959) and Arnaldo Darío Rosado Torres (born November 23, 1953), were murdered in a Puerto Rico Police ambush after being entrapped. The event sparked a series of political controversies where, in the end, the police officers were found guilty of murder and several high-ranking local government officials were accused of planning and/or covering up the incident.

Originally declared a police intervention against terrorists, the local media quickly questioned the officers' testimonies as well as the only surviving witness for inconsistencies. Carlos Romero Barceló (PNP), then Governor of Puerto Rico, ordered the local Justice Department to launch various investigations, and asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the US Justice Department to aid in the investigations, which concluded that there was no wrongdoing on the officers' part. However, after the main local opposing political party (PPD) launched its own inquiries, new evidence and witness testimonies surfaced which uncovered gross negligence and murder on the officers' part, as well as the possibility of a local and federal cover-up. Trials were held and a total of 10 officers were convicted of various crimes.

The incident and subsequent events have become one of the most controversial events in Puerto Rico's political history, frequently called "the worst political cover-up in the history of the island". The event is often used by Puerto Rican independence activists as an example of political repression against the independence movement. Joy James commented that "the Cerro Maravilla massacre clearly demonstrated why colonialism was declared a crime against humanity."

Background

Puerto Rico was discovered by Christopher Columbus on November 19, 1493; it was first colonized by Juan Ponce de León in 1508. Despite being welcomed by the indigenous Taíno people, the Spanish settlers began to exploit the Taíno as labor for gold mining and crop growing. After failed revolts, the Taíno accepted Spanish rule as less harsh than the British Empire. Spanish colonists began to have children with the Taíno, creating a culture, while the indigenous culture disappeared due to hard labor, European diseases, and tough Spanish rule.

Spain imposed tough trade policies upon its colonies, prohibiting the trade of most goods with other countries and colonies. In the 16th century, sugarcane was found to be a profitable crop; when the Taíno failed to harvest it effectively, slaves were imported from Africa. While other crops were introduced over the next two centuries, sugar remained the most profitable. Spanish trade policies caused smugglers to begin a black market, which traded with the British, Dutch, and nearby islands.

Entrenched in war, Spain failed to enforce its trade policies, which caused Spanish ships to be targeted by the Spanish and British. When Spain allowed neutral countries to use Spanish ports, the United States used its ships to transport goods from Spain to its colonies but desired greater influence over the colonies. In 1868, a small group of Puerto Ricans staged a rebellion against Spanish rule, the , which seized the mountain town of Lares, but was quickly shut down by Spanish authorities.

In the aftermath of the Ten Years' War for Cuban independence, slavery was outlawed in Puerto Rico in 1873; in an 1896 agreement brokered by autonomist Luis Muñoz Rivera, Puerto Rico was given an autonomous local government as well as representation in the Spanish government. After the sinking of the USS Maine on February 15, 1898, the U.S. launched the Spanish–American War on May 1; the U.S. Army landed on the town of Guánica during the Puerto Rico campaign on July 25. The U.S. seized control of the island after three days, with only 26 fatalities: 17 Spanish soldiers, five American soldiers, and four civilians. Spain signed the Treaty of Paris on December 10, where it agreed to an independent Cuba, selling the Philippines to the U.S. for ( in ), and ceding Guam and Puerto Rico.

Victims

thumb|Arnaldo Rosado

Carlos Enrique Soto Arriví was born on December 8, 1959, in San Juan. His parents were Pedro Juan Soto (one of the most admired Puerto Rican novelists in the 20th century) and Rosa Arriví. He had an older brother (Roberto Alfonso) and a younger brother (Juan Manuel).

As a student he enjoyed literature. He also wrote stories and went on to win second place in a competition held by the Puerto Rico Department of Education. When his parents went to Europe to finish their doctoral studies, he learned to speak French in a year. Upon returning from Europe, he enrolled at the Escuela Superior República de Colombia, a high school in Río Piedras, although in a lower grade, because the school officials did not want to credit his years of overseas study. Although Soto Arriví was interested in social issues from a very young age, his political activism started when he joined a pro-independence group in high school.

Arnaldo Darío Rosado Torres was born on November 23, 1953, in Old San Juan. His parents were Pablo Rosado and Juana Torres Aymat. Rosado finished his high school studies and went to work at a cracker factory. Dario Rosado was married to Angela Rivera, and had a son called Manuel Lenín Rosado Rivera.

From a very young age, Rosado identified with the cause of Puerto Rico's independence. He joined the socialist league with which he participated in several activities. Rosado was an autodidact and an avid reader of various kinds of literature, especially those related to the political processes of Puerto Rico and Latin America. He also wrote poems, essays, and had several pen-pals throughout Latin America. State police officers were alerted of their plan prior to their arrival and the activists were ambushed and shot. The undercover agent received a minor bullet wound during the shooting, while the taxi driver was left relatively unharmed.

Initial statements

The morning after the shootings, the officers argued that they acted in self defense, stating that they ordered the activists to surrender, at which time the activists started shooting at them and they returned fire. Initially, the taxi driver said he was under the dashboard of his cab when the shooting started and could not see who shot first, He saw "10 heavily armed men" approaching, later identified as police agents,

Second investigations

In the November 1980 general elections, Governor Romero Barceló was re-elected by a margin of 3,503 votes (one of the closest in Puerto Rico history), though his party lost control of the state legislature to the main opposition party, the PPD. This loss was attributed by The New York Times to the surrounding controversy regarding the investigations at the time. Cartagena, who was offered immunity for his testimony, added that several hours before the shooting, he and other officers were told by Col. Angel Perez Casillas, commander of the Intelligence Division, that “these terrorists should not come down (from the mountain) alive.” On November 29, 1983, three prosecutors were relieved of their duties after a report by the state Senate Investigations Committee found they had failed to properly investigate the Cerro Maravilla shootings, citing 101 specific deficiencies in two investigations. During their trial, the officer insisted that they had been fighting for democracy against communism. The convicted officers, who were no longer on active duty, were:

Col. Ángel Pérez Casillas (head of the Puerto Rico Police Department Intelligence Division during the incident; suspended): 20 years
Lieut. Nelson González Pérez (resigned): 24 years
Lieut. Jaime Quíles Hernández (suspended): 12 years
Officer Juan Bruno González (suspended): 16 years
Officer William Colón Berríos (suspended): 12 years; overturned on appeal
Officer Nazario Mateo Espada (suspended): 6 years
Officer Rafael Moreno Morales (suspended): 30 years
Officer Luis Reverón Martínez (on disability leave): 25 years
Officer Jose Ríos Polanco (suspended): 10 years
Officer Rafael Torres Marrero (on disability leave): 20 years

Eight of the officers were then tried for first degree murder in state court. In 1987, Jaime Quíles Hernández, Nelson González Pérez, Rafael Torres Marrero, Nazario Mateo Espada, and Juan Bruno Gonzalez all pleaded guilty to lesser charges of second degree murder and perjury. Quíles Hernández, González Pérez, Torres Marrero, and Mateo Espada were each sentenced to 30 years in prison. The sentence of Mateo Espada was ordered to run concurrently to his federal sentence, while the sentences of the other three were ordered to run consecutively. Juan Bruno González was sentenced to a maximum of 13 years in prison, but consecutively to his federal sentence. The last two officers, Angel Luis Pérez Casillas and Rafael Moreno Morales, went to trial. Pérez Casillas was acquitted, while Moreno Morales was found guilty of second degree murder in the death of Carlos Soto Arriví and sentenced to 22 to 30 years in prison.

Jose Ríos Polanco was paroled on March 20, 1989. Ángel Pérez Casillas was paroled on November 26, 1991. Luis Reverón Martínez was paroled on July 28, 1993.

Quíles Hernandez and Torres Marrero were both paroled in 1993, Bruno González was paroled in 1995, and González Pérez was paroled in 1997. When Moreno Morales came up for parole in 2000, officials noticed that the there had been a mistake, and that the sentences of the officers were supposed to run consecutively with their federal sentences. In March 2001, a judge in Puerto had all four men sent back to prison, ruling that they had been mistakenly paroled early and would have to serve at least another six to eight years in prison. González Pérez and Torres Marrero were both paroled again on August 26, 2008. Moreno Morales was paroled for his federal conviction on January 31, 2003. His minimum term was set to expire on June 14, 2015, and his maximum term was set to expire on December 16, 2019. However, in February 2015, it was discovered that Moreno Morales had already been paroled early on July 19, 2013, without the Parole Board notifying the relatives of those killed. He was the last person still serving time for the murders.

That same year, in the general elections held in November, Romero Barceló lost his gubernatorial seat against former governor and opposing party rival Rafael Hernández Colón (PPD). It is widely accepted that Romero Barceló lost the elections because of this case, since his public opinion rating had deteriorated substantially during late 1984 as the investigations progressed, and since his political rivals used his defense of the officers as an indication of a possible conspiracy.

On the evening of April 29, 1986, just two months after his acquittal, Gonzalez was assassinated in front of his mother's house in Bayamón. He sustained three gunshot wounds and his mother was slightly injured. A few hours later, a group identifying itself as the “Volunteer Organization for the Revolution” called local news agencies claiming responsibility. In their statements they swore to kill, "one by one," all the policemen involved in the deaths in Cerro Maravilla. The FBI considered it one of the most dangerous terrorist organizations in the United States at the time, given that it was the same organization that claimed responsibility for an attack on a Navy bus in Puerto Rico on December 3, 1979, in which two Navy men were killed and 10 people injured, and the attack on a U.S. National Guard base on January 12, 1981, in which six fighter-jet planes were destroyed.

Every year on July 25, Puerto Rican Nationalists, independence activists and other sympathizers, gather atop Cerro Maravilla to honor Carlos Enrique Soto Arriví and Arnaldo Darío Rosado, as well as to defend and celebrate the Puerto Rican independence ideology. The mountain has also been christened as “El Cerro de los Mártires” (The Mountain of the Martyrs).
() is a song and video by Grammy Award-winner iLe which sings about and recreates the events of that day-which she hopes will help promote and foster understanding.

Notes

References

Works cited

External links

Cerro Maravilla Archive (2000), Ewin Martinez Torre, ed.
Fallece el veterano periodista Luis Varela: El cronista, nacido en Cuba y radicado en Ponce, tuvo una destacada carrera de casi seis décadas en el periodismo deportivo y sobresalió por sus escritos sobre los asesinatos del Cerro Maravilla. (Veteran journalist Luis Valera passes away: the chronicler, born in Cuba and resident of Ponce, had an outstanding career spanning almost six decades in sports journalism and stood out for his writings about the Cerro Maravilla murders.) 23 June 2020. Accessed 25 June 2020.