The Cerro Maravilla murders, also known as the Cerro Maravilla massacre,Artistas buscan emular a Campeche. Ely Acevedo Denis. Noticel. February 4, 2011. Retrieved July 3, 2012. occurred on July 25, 1978, at Cerro Maravilla, a mountain in Ponce, Puerto Rico, Rafael Torrech San Inocencio. El Sur a la Vista. Ponce, Puerto Rico. 18 October 2010. Retrieved 2 September 2011.Topographic Map of Barrio Anon, Ponce, PR. US Geological Survey. Lat/Long: 18.1523°N 66.5549°W. Elevation: . Drg Name: r18066b5. Drg Source Scale: 1:20,000. Projection: NAD83/WGS84. Retrieved 2 August 2013. 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".Shining Star Pedro Alberto Vera. 2007. Page 77. Retrieved July 3, 2012. 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.""Century of Colonialism" Warfare in the American Homeland: Policing and Prison in a Penal Democracy: Policing and Prison in a Penal Democracy. Pages 185–186. 2007. Duke University Press. Retrieved July 3, 2012.

Background

Puerto Rico (then named Borinquen) 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

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.Nation: Death at Cerro Maravilla from Time May 14, 1979.

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.

Incident

Around noon July 25, 1978, Carlos Enrique Soto Arriví and Arnaldo Darío Rosado, two independence activists of the Armed Revolutionary Movement (), along with undercover police officer Alejandro González Malavé posing as a fellow group member, took taxi driver Julio Ortiz Molina hostage in Villalba and ordered him to drive them to Cerro Maravilla where several communication towers were located. Their original plan was to take control of the towers and read a manifesto protesting the imprisonment of Puerto Rican nationalists convicted of the 1950 assassination attempt on U.S. President Harry S. Truman, the 1954 United States Capitol shooting incident where five members of Congress were injured, the commemoration of the July 25 Constitution Day observance, the day U.S. soldiers landed in Puerto Rico in 1898."Ex-agent Acquitted of Kidnapping in Puerto Rico" , The New York Times, February 22, 1986, retrieved August 2, 2006 State police officers were alerted of their plan prior to their arrival and the activists were ambushed and shot."Romero: Mistake To Call Police 'Heroes' In Cerro Maravilla" by Laura Rivera Melendez (AP) The Puerto Rico Herald, September 15, 2003, retrieved August 2, 2006"Puerto Rican Governor Seen as Hurt by Officers' Arrest" , The New York Times, October 21, 1984, retrieved August 2, 2006"Senators Asked to Study Puerto Rico Killing Inquiry" , The New York Times, August 11, 1980, retrieved August 2, 2006 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, although he contradicted his statement a few days later in an interview with the San Juan Star, a local newspaper, stating that he ducked under the dashboard of the car after the three men (the two activists and the undercover agent) left the car, and that he saw "10 heavily armed men" approaching. When he emerged from the car, he saw the three men alive and two of them were being beaten by the armed men, who were later identified as policemen. Then-Governor of Puerto Rico Carlos Romero Barceló (PNP) praised the officers in a televised address by calling them “heroic”, stating that they acted in self-defense and stopped a terrorist attack.

Two days later, in a follow-up interview by WAPA-TV news reporter Enrique Cruz, the taxi driver stated that when the first shooting occurred, he heard one of his three passengers shout "I'm an agent! Don't shoot me, I'm an agent!" while the others called for help and shouted "I give up! I give up!".Television interview (in Spanish) of Julio Ortiz Molina by WAPA-TV on July 27, 1978 He saw "10 heavily armed men" approaching, later identified as police agents, when the three passengers exited the car, and the taxi driver was ordered at gunpoint to exit the vehicle. He was extracted by an agent, kicked, and taken away from the scene. While being escorted, he saw the two activists directly in front of his vehicle being beaten by the armed men.

First investigations

Facing public pressure due to the taxi driver's conflicting statements, Governor Romero Barceló ordered two separate investigations by the P.R. Justice Department in addition to the ongoing standard Police investigation, all of which concluded that the officers' actions were free of any wrongdoing, despite various inconsistencies in their stories. P.R. District Attorney Pedro Colton informed reporters on July 29, four days after the incident, that the P.R. Justice Department's investigation revealed "no massacre, no beatings, and no aggressions, except for the shootings that occurred in Cerro Maravilla". Opposing political parties, mainly the Popular Democratic Party (PPD), insisted that the investigations were just cover-ups and demanded that a special independent prosecutor be assigned to investigate. Two special investigations by the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division and by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) were performed on separate occasions between 1978 and 1980, which confirmed the conclusions of the P.R. Justice Department that the officers acted in self-defense."Ex-Justice Official Cites 'Coverup' By FBI in '78 Puerto Rico Shootings" by Jim McGee, The Washington Post, May 9, 1992, retrieved August 2, 2006

Second investigations