BY HIS death at the hands of the FBI on September 23, Filiberto Ojeda Ríos was turned into a martyr for the cause of Puerto Rican independence — a cause that only a tiny minority of Puerto Ricans support.

Ojeda Ríos had been a fugitive since he cut an electronic tag from his wrist in 1990 and disappeared from view. He was finally tracked down by FBI agents to a farmhouse on the outskirts of the small town of Hormigueros, in western Puerto Rico, and shot dead. His widow, who was with him until just before he was killed, claimed that he was murdered in cold blood. Followers swore at his funeral that they would avenge his death.

As a young man, Ojeda Ríos was a musician with a traditional Puerto Rican band. But in the 1960s he became involved in pro-independence politics, and established links with the intelligence services of revolutionary Cuba. Puerto Rico, like Cuba, was occupied by US troops during the Spanish-American War of 1898. But, unlike Cuba, Puerto Rico did not become an independent republic. Instead, the Americans stayed on, and in 1917 Puerto Ricans became US citizens. In 1952 they were granted their own constitution and internal self-government, under an elected governor.

But as a “commonwealth” of the US, Puerto Rico remained subordinate to Congress, even though it had no elected representative in the US legislature, and Puerto Ricans were not allowed to vote in US presidential elections. Most of the islanders wanted, and still want, either greater autonomy within the framework of a special relationship — “free association” — with the US, or full statehood within the union. A minority demand complete independence, and a small number are determined to achieve it by force. Ojeda Ríos was one of their most charismatic leaders.

Ojeda Ríos founded his first, shortlived guerrilla movement in 1967. Its more formidable successor, the Boricua People’s Army (EPB), also known as Los Macheteros (Cane-Cutters), attacked a Puerto Rico National Guard air base in 1981, destroying nine military aircraft and killing two servicemen. Two years later the EPB carried out a spectacular raid on a Wells Fargo depot in Hartford, Connecticut, stealing $7.2 million from a security vehicle. Little of the money was recovered, though Ojeda Ríos was eventually captured. After three years in detention he was released on bail, pending trial, in 1988. Two years later he went underground. He was subsequently sentenced in absentia to 55 years in prison, and the FBI offered $500,000, later raised to $1 million, for anyone with information leading to his capture.

Filiberto Ojeda Ríos, guerrilla commander, was born in 1933. He died on September 23, 2005, aged 72.