Chapter 5 — Cerro Maravilla and State Terrorism
You must always reckon with human wickedness, ignorance and stupidity.
Atty. Marcos A. Ramírez Irizarry (1917–2001)
Repression under the U.S. regime has been constant: the repression and even criminalization against those who advocate or fight for independence; the Ponce Massacre of 1937; the kidnapping, torture and murder of young people such as Santiago Mari Pesquera, who died at the age of 23, and Carlos Muñiz Varela; the so-called carpetas (the practice of surveilling, and keeping dossiers, of alleged “subversives”); and the entrapment and murders in 1978 in Cerro Maravilla, are not only instances of repression, but of state terrorism. [1]
Truth is inconvenient for rulers and ruled. From their platform of power, the former make use of the weapons of publicity and demagoguery to spread plausible lies or half-truths. The governed try to believe them, and thus maintain the illusion that “all is well.”
Misrepresenting the facts, presenting events dishonestly, resorting to the use of advertising techniques to create images in order to hide or ignore the substance, resorting to demagoguery, taking the dark path and then justifying it “until hell freezes over”: many politicians and public officials choose all that and worse. The first of those entities who showed my generation that perfidious side of humanity and public life was the governor of Puerto Rico between 1977 and 1985.
On Tuesday, July 25, 1978, my fourteen-year-old self was in Bayamón, a city located west of San Juan, participating in the government parade commemorating “constitution day”, that of the commonwealth of Puerto Rico (the Estado Libre Asociado, or E.L.A.). Three weeks earlier I had participated in the July 4 parade in San Juan as a member of the Cidra School Band. That was a tense day, due to an incident at the Chilean consulate involving the taking of hostages by supposed pro-independence activists.
It wasn’t until we returned from Bayamón that we learned of “pro-statehood” governor Carlos Romero Barceló’s announcement of a “terrorist attack” on some communications towers, and the “feat” of the police officers who, according to Romero, were heroes for their role in preventing the alleged sabotage. In the incident, the governor announced with satisfaction that the police fatally wounded two “terrorists.” In Puerto Rico’s colonial history, that July 25 would overshadow the previous July 4th.
Two years later, I was with my family watching on television Carmen Jovet’s interviews with Julio Ortiz Molina and governor Romero Barceló. Those interviews shocked me, because my instinct told me that the inhabitant of La Fortaleza was mendacious and demagogic, and that the taxi driver was honest, a man who insisted on a truth that had only brought him anguish. That night, in front of the television, I mourned the deaths of Arnaldo Darío Rosado Torres and Carlos Enrique Soto Arriví, at ages 24 and 18 respectively.
Seldom can one specify an event, a single moment in which innocence is suddenly lost; when you first realize that the world is a much more uncertain and dangerous place than it has seemed to you in your short life. That night in 1980 was the beginning in me of a realism that has been put to the test ever since with propaganda bombardments and with new temptations to believe that all is well.
The taxi driver told Carmen Jovet that, when he was taken out of the scene, he left the two young men alive, unarmed and unharmed; and then, joined by police officer Jesús Quiñones, they heard additional gunshots. Those were the shots with which several agents of the Puerto Rico Police took the lives of the “terrorists.” In the interview with Jovet, and on previous and subsequent occasions, Romero Barceló called Julio Ortiz Molina a liar –“those who can least speak always do,” we Puerto Ricans say– but the driver was truthful, and Romero risked a lot if what happened was seriously investigated. (It hasn’t been emphasized enough that the expert evidence –the ballistics test, the autopsies– contradicted the cops’ fantastic and absurd version of the events).
In the elections of dubious legitimacy of 1980, Romero Barceló was the winner, but his party lost control of the legislature. The legislative investigation into what happened at Cerro Maravilla, which began in early 1981, was possible because the opposition party controlled the Senate, under the presidency of Miguel Hernández Agosto, a shrewd and articulate politician. During Romero Barceló’s first four-year term as governor, the majority in the legislature was made up of members of his New Progressive Party (PNP, its Spanish acronym). The Senate, then presided by former Governor Luis A. Ferré (1969–1973), did not investigate what happened; nor did the House of Representatives, then presided by Angel Viera Martínez, a lawyer.
Had the chief executive in 1978 been Rafael Hernández Colón (PPD governor from 1973 to1977, and 1985 to 1993), and had a cover-up been also the response of the federal and Puerto Rico governments, the PPD-controlled Senate would have likely failed to investigate. Of course, that doesn’t change the fact that the probe was a legitimate exercise of the Senate’s legislative powers. But, it is no less true that this investigation was made possible by the fortuitous outcome of the 1980 elections. Both realities, the benefits of the probe and partisan tribalism –which includes providing unconditional support and impunity “to one’s own”– must be taken into account when studying this chapter of our history.
Regarding the murders of Soto Arriví and Rosado Torres, I would like to emphasize one aspect that has not been stressed enough. I am referring to certain episodes of the Maravilla drama as they were staged in the federal courts –the District of Puerto Rico and the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit– including the unusual and suspicious fact that Carlos Romero Barceló’s lawyers also represented many of the police officers who were present at Cerro Maravilla on July 25, 1978, with the purpose of hindering the Senate investigation.
The Facts of Maravilla
First, it is appropriate to summarize what happened at Cerro Maravilla, as it emerged not only from the Senate investigation, but from criminal and civil litigation in Puerto Rico and United States courts. The leader of the group that kidnapped the taxi driver was undercover agent Alejandro Gonzalez Malavé (1957–1986). The plan Gonzalez Malavé presented to Soto and Rosado consisted in taking control of Channel 7’s TV transmission tower and broadcast a message on the 80th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Puerto Rico. When they arrived near the area of the towers, police officers were waiting for them. Several of them fired. In the confusion, they wounded the undercover agent in one of the hands.
Soto and Rosado were not wounded in that first shootout. Both surrendered and were on their knees in police custody when, minutes later, some of the cops shot them in what amounted as two executions: Rosado with a shotgun; Soto was shot four times, the last in the chest, which proved fatal. The cops later claimed that they had killed the “terrorists” in an act of self-defense. But the youths never fired a shot and surrendered at the end of the first burst of gunfire, all fired by the police. After several minutes, they were killed in cold blood. Several minutes after the first burst of gunfire, the taxi driver (Julio Ortiz Molina), police officer Jesús Quiñones and Channel 7 security guard Miguel Marte heard additional gunshots (the fatal ones).
The ballistic and forensic evidence always contradicted the version of the police, who lied about everything that happened, including the position from which they fired. For instance, the photograph of Rosado’s corpse (taken by the police where he fell, minutes after his assassination) eplice indicated that he had been killed by a shotgun shot, fired at very close range and downward, while the police testified that they fired from the ground and upwards, while taking cover.
Soto Arriví was shot in the leg and, when he tried to cover himself from another shot, he was wounded in the arm. The teenager asked them to shoot him in the head, “so as not to suffer.” The last shot was to the chest, leaving the young man moribund. He died a few minutes later, in a police car.
Governor Carlos Romero Barceló was in Bayamón, presiding over the commemoration of the founding of the E.L.A. According to the senatorial investigation, the message sent to Romero Barceló from Cerro Maravilla was “Mission Accomplished.” Upon receiving it, the governor announced that “terrorists” had been killed, and that the policemen were “heroes.”
The drama moves to the judicial forum
The killings at Cerro Maravilla were followed by two “investigations” by Puerto Rican government authorities, both designed to exonerate the police officers of any transgression to their duties and Puerto Rico’s criminal laws. The investigation by the F.B.I. and the U.S. Attorney’s Office was also flawed and pro forma. The U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division also failed to investigate and unearth what really happened The then head of that Division, famed Drew Days III, apologized years later for that dereliction of duty.
By the time the Puerto Rican Senate investigation began in 1981, relatives of those killed had filed a civil rights action in federal court against Governor Romero Barceló and several police officers and agents. Carlos Romero Barcelo’s lead attorney in that litigation was Richard L. Cys of Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard & McPherson (a Washington, D.C.-based law firm). The lawyer for Angel Luis Perez Casillas –the highest ranking officer at Maravilla and head of the “mission”– and the rest of the police officers (except Gonzalez Malavé) was Hector M. Laffitte (who, later in the 1980s, was appointed federal judge).
The confrontation between the Senate and the Romero administration began early in 1981. The then E.L.A. Secretary of Justice (or “Attorney General”), Miguel Giménez Muñoz, refused to hand over documents requested by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Giménez Muñoz relied on an order by federal district judge Juan M. Pérez Giménez, which he had issued in the litigation of the relatives against the governor and the police. That order limited the public disclosure of the documents and the deposition testimonies that were part of the discovery proceedings. The judge forced Senate President Miguel Hernandez Agosto to appear in court to inquire about the Senate’s motivations for conducting the Maravilla investigation. For the judge, the occasion would provide him a chance to intimidate the senate president and to derail the then fledgling investigation
The problem with the judge’s pretension was that legislative immunity prevents forums outside the legislative branches from inquiring into the motivations of legislators. The applicable legal principle is that, if the legislature is carrying out a legislative activity, it is not proper to inquire about “its reasons” for engaging in such activity –much less for the judicial or executive forum to inquire about or question them. Relying on this legal principle, and instructed by his lawyers, Hernández Agosto refused to answer the judge why the investigation was being carried out (besides the contention that the probe was a legitimate legislative activity, which pretended to answer many questions left unanswered by the investigations of Romero Barceló’s administration).
In the face of Hernández Agosto’s refusal, the judge –who was tempted to find in the Senate President in contempt– agreed with the Puerto Rico Attorney General, and quashed the Senatorial committee’s requests for documents. However, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit reversed Pérez Giménez’s order. [2] That was the first victory of the Senate and its Puerto Rican lawyers against Romero Barcelo and his very expensive lawyers, Richard L. Cys, et al. But, in 1983, the Senate’s public hearings were interrupted as a result of an order by Judge Pérez Giménez at the request of a group of police officers.
Many of the policer officers summoned to appear in the public hearings then being held by the investigating committee, filed an action in federal court to be excused from appearing and testifying. The policemen’s lawyer was none other than Romero Barcelo’s lawyer, Richard L. Cys, of the very expensive Washington law firm, the same one the cops couldn’t afford. Who paid those attorney’s fees? Good question. It seems to be a sure bet that the poor cops didn’t pay for them.
Promptly issuing a preliminary injunction order, Judge Pérez Giménez not only banned the Senate from forcing the plaintiffs to testify in public hearings, but also prohibited the release of documents obtained from Justice Secretary Giménez Muñoz. Again, the First Circuit reversed the judge. [3]
As a result of this second defeat of the obstructionists and cover-up artists, the investigation was resumed and, under pressure and in the face of the contradictions between the forensic evidence and their absurd version of “self-defense,” several of the police officers who didn’t pull the triggers admitted to the murders. That happened in the evening, during an executive session of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Two senators from the governor’s party, members of the Committee, left the Capitol for the La Fortaleza (the executive mansion, originally built in the 16th century and located in Old San Juan) to inform Romero Barceló of what had happened.
The next day, Romero Barceló put on his media show, which included the demagoguery of saying that his administration’s probes did not have the benefit of the police telling the truth. Imagine if, in order to solve crimes, we had to depend on the confession of the wrongdoers. That was another of Romero’s smokescreens, in order to hide the fact that his Justice Department had engaged from the outset in a flagrant cover-up; and that the cover up began in Bayamón on July 25th, 1978, when Romero himself was waiting for a “mission accomplished” message and, after getting it, declared that the cops were “heroes”.
The Puerto Rico Department of Justice did not want to know what had happened, so its investigations were pro forma and flawed. Despite the obvious contradictions between the forensic evidence and the policemen’s version, and despite the testimonies of Julio Ortiz Molina and Jesús Quiñones, they closed the investigations with the conclusion that the policemen had acted in self-defense. After judicial proceedings both in the Puerto Rico and U.S. courts, most of them served time in prison for the crimes of perjury, obstruction of justice and murder. [4]
The masterminds of the ambush and murders were never charged. There were many indications, and testimonies, pointing to the fact that their plan was for the youngsters not to leave Cerro Maravilla alive.
A pro-statehood federal judge called them as they were
Like governor Romero, Jaime Pieras, the late U.S. District Judge, believed that Puerto Rico should be a U.S. state. On several occasions he gave way to the civil actions filed before him by the pro-statehood lawyer Gregory Igartúa, to whom he granted the request that he be allowed to exercise the presidential ballot –to vote for the candidate of his preference for the position of president of the United States of America. Every time, the First Circuit reversed him.
In early October 1992, I had been practicing law for two years and 10 months when one of my bosses, the supersmart Marcos A. Ramírez Lavandero, handed me a copy of a lawsuit filed by Carlos Romero Barceló. The defendants included the then president of the Senate and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Miguel Hernández Agosto and Marco A. Rigau, respectively; and the Commission’s chief counsel and investigator, the late attorney Edgardo Pérez Viera. Those were our clients, and my task was to draft a motion to dismiss as soon as possible.
It was not until 1995 that Pieras decided on and granted my motion, dismissing Romero Barceló’s lawsuit, explaining his judgment in a lengthy and well-thought-out opinion. [5] The merits of Pieras’ opinion include a truthful and fairly complete summary of Maravilla’s drama. It is appropriate to include the salient points of that summary, which culminate in the criminal proceedings which took place between 1985 and 1988:
In the summer of 1978, while Romero Barceló was serving his first term as governor, two young men, members of a pro-independence group, were killed in a shootout with police officers on a mountain known as Cerro Maravilla. Police said the two young men died while resisting arrest. However, as evidence came to light suggesting that Rosado and Soto were killed after they turned themselves in, the incident took on considerable political significance and was the subject of intense media coverage.
Carlos Soto Arriví and Arnaldo Darío Rosado were ambushed and killed by Puerto Rico police officers. Seeking to protect themselves, the cops created a conspiracy to hide the truth about the murders. During their investigations, prosecutors willfully ignored the available evidence, which at the very least suggested that police officers murdered Rosado and Soto. That behavior by prosecutors allowed the cops to have initial success in their conspiracy to conceal the truth.
The legislative hearings on the Cerro Maravilla incident, conducted by the Puerto Rico Senate Judiciary Committee, were undoubtedly the catalytic force that unmasked the truth of the murders. In 1984, a federal grand jury returned a 44-count indictment against 9 members of the Puerto Rico Police for conspiracy to: (1) obstruct justice in a criminal investigation; (2) lying in their testimony before federal grand juries; and (3) urging other witnesses to commit perjury.
The defendants were charged with orchestrating a conspiracy to prevent citizens in Puerto Rico and law enforcement authorities in Puerto Rico and the United States from knowing that Rosado and Soto Arriví had been brutalized and killed illegally by Puerto Rico police officers. All of the defendants were police officers who were present during the Cerro Maravilla events.
In 1985, a federal jury found the defendants guilty on 36 of the 44 counts. The defendants received different sentences, ranging from 6 to 30 years. Finally, and most importantly, in 1985 several police officers who were at Cerro Maravilla that day were indicted in Puerto Rican courts, among other charges, with first-degree murder for the deaths of Arnaldo Darío Rosado and Carlos Soto Arriví.
Shortly after those indictments, Nelson González Cruz, Juan Bruno González, Nazario Mateo Espada, Jaime Quiles Hernández, and Rafael Torres Marrero pleaded guilty to the crimes of second-degree murder and perjury. William Colón Berríos pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder and two counts of perjury.
The other two defendants went to trial. In 1988, a jury found Angel Luis Pérez Casillas not guilty; and Rafael Moreno Morales guilty of second-degree murder for the death of Carlos Soto Arriví. The court sentenced Moreno Morales to a prison term of between 22 and 30 years. After Moreno Morales’ sentence was upheld on appeal, the last chapter of this saga finally concluded.
That factual picture, however, raises more questions than it answers. The accused and convicted police officers obeyed orders, the most significant of which was that the young men should not leave Cerro Maravilla alive. That is, the ambush and the assassinations were planned by people of higher rank than those unfortunate police officers.
The meeting, or meetings, in La Fortaleza days before the Maravilla events; the cryptic message of “mission accomplished” that Romero Barceló received in Bayamón; the “disappearance” of the video from the television broadcast (by Channel 6, the public TV Station) of the events taking place in Bayamón; Romero Barceló’s message giving details based on a two-word message: All this and more points to the fact that, contrary to the expressions of Judge Pieras, the last chapter of this saga has never been paraded in front of us.
The relevance of Cerro Maravilla
Cerro Maravilla is relevant because it encapsulated with intensity, in a few years (1978–1988) socio-political and institutional conditions that existed and still exist, which still determine much of our lives as individuals and social beings; conditions that have deteriorated. Maravilla is about the legitimate, and illegitimate, use of governmental powers; of the blindness caused by ideologies; of the danger of having a police department that uses ideologies and hatred to give its members a sense of mission and that they are on the side of “the good guys.”
Maravilla is about demagoguery and the use of public relation techniques to manipulate the population; to articulate, and repeat, lies, and to conceal the degree of corruption of the rulers. Maravilla is about the importance of preventing power from being concentrated in a few hands; on the importance of independent and upright judges.
Maravilla is about all of that, and more. That “we have to turn the page” is a nonsense that is parroted by those who do not want to face realities such as the need for eternal vigilance. Ignorance and apathy contribute to the disappearance of the little likelihood that we will ever have freedom.
[1] See, e.g., José Atiles Osoria, Colonial State Terror in Puerto Rico: A Research Agenda, 5 State Criminal Journal 220 (2016).
[2] In Re San Juan Star, 662 F. 2d 108 (1st Cir. 1981).
[3] Colón Berríos v. Hernandez Agosto, 716 F. 2d 85 (1st Cir. 1983).
[4] A lawyer close to the Senate investigation stated: “Maravilla is a monstrous crime, accompanied by a monstrous cover-up. … If the government’s criminal investigation and prosecution agencies, both local and federal, had acted effectively and honestly, the truth of what happened would have been immediately revealed and those guilty of the crime would have been prosecuted. It was the failure or deliberate failure on the part of the officials of the executive branch called upon to enforce the laws, which offered the historic opportunity to the legislative branch for the discovery of the truth of the crime.” Marcos A. Ramírez Irizarry, El poder investigativo del Senado de Puerto Rico, en Senado de Puerto Rico: Ensayos de Historia Institucional 299 (1992) (my translation).
[5] Romero Barceló v. Hernández Agosto, 876 F. Supp. 1332 (D.P.R. 1995). The First Circuit upheld the dismissal. Romero Barceló v. Hernández Agosto, 75 F.3d 23 (1st Cir. 1996).
