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The Office of ALANA Affairs, Boricuas Unidos, and the Latin American Cultural Center will be hosting a panel discussion on the recent assassination of Filiberto Ojeda Rios by FBI agents. Ojeda Rios was the Commander of the Boricua Popular Army, better known as Los Macheteros and had been living clandestinely since 1990. Speaking about the assassination and the status of the independence movement will be an extensive panel featuring: Rafael Cancel Miranda, an ex-political prisoner who was jailed after an attack upon the U.S. Congress in 1954 in the name of Puerto Rican independence. He was later pardoned by President Carter and continues the struggle for independence from imperial rule; Roxana Badillo, a member of the Commission for Civil Law and a lawyer for the wife of Filiberto Ojeda Rios. Attorney Badillo currently is part of a committee pushing for the clarification of the death of Ojeda Rios; Edwin Cortez, a former political prisoner of 19 years and a founder of the Union of Puerto Rican Students. Cortez is currently a member of the Committee to Release Political Prisoners; Raquel Delgado Valentin, an activist who was jailed in April of 2001 for civil disobedience in opposing the U.S. Navy's presence in Vieques. Ms. Delgado Valentin holds a Master's degree in Social Work and works on the issue of violence against women; Dr. Roberto Alejandro, a professor in the Political Science department at UMass Amherst. Dr. Alejandro is the author of Hermeneutics, Citizenship, and the Public Sphere and the co-author of Las Vallas Rotas.
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