Portal:Puerto Rico/Selected articles/12

The Boricua Popular Army &mdash; or Ejército Popular Boricua in Spanish &mdash; is a clandestine organization based on the island of Puerto Rico, with cells throughout the United States. They campaign for and support the independence of Puerto Rico from what they characterize as United States colonial rule. The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) classifies the Boricua Popular Army as a terrorist organization.

Also known as Los Macheteros ("the Machete Wielders") and 'Puerto Rican Popular Army', their active membership consists of Puerto Rican men and women and was calculated by professor Michael González Cruz on his book Nacionalismo Revolucionario Puertorriqueño to be composed by approximately 5,700 members with an unknown number of supporters, sympathizers, collaborators and informants, with cells (usually consisting of between six and ten members) in the United States and other countries. The group has claimed responsibility for numerous bombings, attacks against the U.S. military and armed robberies since 1978, and was led primarily by former FBI Most Wanted Fugitive Filiberto Ojeda Ríos until his death in 2005. (more...)