Early actions The EPB was founded by
Filiberto Ojeda Ríos,
Juan Enrique Segarra-Palmer and Orlando González Claudio on July 26, 1976, with the date being symbolically used as a reminder of the United States invasion during the
Spanish–American War. Their first communiqué was published on August 25, 1978, following an attack on two policemen that concluded with officer Julio Rodríguez Rivera dead in retaliation for the
Cerro Maravilla murders. The federal government claimed the incident was an attempt to steal his
police car. On October 2, 1978, the EPB and Volunteers infiltrated an armory and took 500 pounds of ammonium nitrate, dynamite cartridges, 988 blasting caps and 17,500 feet of primacord. In September 1979, the EPB revealed that it was working in conjunction with the Volunteers, FARP and FALN. On October 17, 1979, the groups executed eight bombings against federal buildings. On December 3, 1979, a bus carrying 18 American Navy sailors to Naval Security Group Activity Sabana Seca, was forced to stop by a delivery truck. Shortly afterwards, four men appeared from within another vehicle and
opened fire, killing CTO1 John R. Ball and RM3 Emil E. White, as well as wounding nine others. On March 13, 1980, the EPB took responsibility for attacking an ROTC vehicle that was moving three soldiers to the UPR.
Pitirre II In the morning of January 12, 1981, a group of eleven commandos, seven guards and four explosive specialists, set explosives at
Muñiz Air National Guard Base, located on the northeastern corner of the
Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in San Juan. The ensuing explosion destroyed nine aircraft (several operational
A-7 Corsair II light attack aircraft and a single
F-104 Starfighter supersonic fighter-interceptor aircraft being retained for a static display) and two trucks and damaged two ships on loan from the U.S. Air Force, with the authors leaving a machete behind. The destruction of the military equipment ascended to $45–50 million USD. The FBI responded by receiving permission for a full investigation, which allowed them to employ otherwise forbidden practices to track the group. The EPB in turn expressed pride that the attack represented the most damaging to take place in American soil since Pearl Harbor and expressed satisfaction that it would attract attention to their cause, with some members even considering it a parallel to the
Gaspee Affair. The group also sent a video to the media where they explained the composition of the cell in charge of the attack without revealing any identities. The security at the base was criticized in media pieces. The attack later served as the basis for upgrading base security, emphasizing flight line security, at all
Air National Guard installations on civilian airports in the United States to the same level as active duty
U.S. Air Force installations. On April 21, 1981, four EPB commandos were able to extract $348,000 from a Wells Fargo armored car, with the group later noting that it would be spent in their cause. In November 1981, the EPB detonated explosives in AEE substations in Santurce, a district of San Juan. When 350 families that occupied a makeshift village in
Carolina, Puerto Rico, were removed by the police, the EPB warned the governor that they would retaliate. Afterwards, they made an offensive against the police that resulted in twelve injured and one dead policeman. On May 16, 1982, EPB members fired rifles at four sailors of the U.S.S.
Pensacola, killing one of them. The group later took responsibility for the attack and expressed that it was retaliation for a large-scale amphibious attack training named "Ocean Venture '82" held at Vieques and other military facilities in Puerto Rico. Four days later, On May 20, 1982, the FBI held the EPB responsible for the placement of four defective bombs at the Caribe Hilton Hotel, with the organization denying responsibility. On September 1, 1982, a group of commandos presumed by the FBI to be Macheteros and outfitted with suppressed weapons and wearing military gear and masks, intercepted a Wells Fargo truck in a route between San Juan and Naranjito, but were unable to acquire the cargo. On November 16, 1982, four commandos feigned a heist in a supermarket to redirect those present to its warehouse until their main target, a Wells Fargo truck, arrived.Supported by more armed commandos that arrived in a van, those inside the building gained control of the armored car keys and took $300,000 from it.
Águila Blanca On September 12, 1983, in an operation entitled ("White Eagle", the nickname of
José Maldonado Román) an EPB agent part of the
Los Taínos cell named
Víctor Manuel Gerena took over the
Wells Fargo depot located in
West Hartford, Connecticut, stealing a total of seven million dollars. In 1984, Carlos Rodríguez Rodríguez was convicted on bank fraud charges and became an FBI informant in exchange for a lower sentence. However, due to the EPB's policies of anonymity, most of the information was hampered by the use of codenames and useless for the investigation. During this time, there were internal issues between Segarra and group leaders Ojeda and Avelino González, with the first being considered inefficient by the others and general concern arising from his reputation as an unfaithful husband. On January 25, 1985, the EPB detonated a bomb in an empty United States Courthouse, later noting that it was a tribute to Juan Antonio Corretjer. Strategically, the group experienced internal divisions between a faction that argued for more offensive and another that wanted to tread lightly in order to avoid justifying the classification of terrorism. While the pacifist faction carried damage control and held two toy giveaways for Three Kings Day in Puerto Rico, Ojeda was removed from the political branch on June 4, 1985, due to these conflicts, being only left in charge of his unit. Besides the boldness of the action, the EPB strategists were also unsatisfied when Ramírez failed to account for food expenses in his report.
Bombings of federal buildings Following the indictments against 19 members for the
Águila Blanca heist, the EPB continued operations. On October 28, 1986, they joined the FARP and the Volunteers in planting eight bombs in militarily sites across Puerto Rico. Two of the bombs exploded, one outside a recruiting station in
Fajardo and another outside
Fort Buchanan, a partly deactivated Army base in
San Juan. The EPB indicated that the explosions were a protest against the use Puerto Rico as a training center for the
Contras of Nicaragua and plans to introduce a commercial logging at
El Yunque National Forest park. The attacks followed the bombing of a post office in
Guánica and
Cidra by the Volunteers, who targeted post offices and Army recruiting stations on January 6, 1986. The Guerrilla Forces of Liberation also carried out bomb explosions in post offices, recruiting centers, and a department store to protest against the "colonial situation" of Puerto Rico during the visit of
King Juan Carlos of Spain to the archipelago and island on May 25, 1987.
Killing of Ojeda Ríos On September 23, 2005, the anniversary of ("The Cry of Lares") members of the FBI San Juan field office surrounded a modest home in the outskirts of the town of
Hormigueros, Puerto Rico, where Ojeda Ríos was believed to be living in. The FBI claims that it was performing surveillance of the area because of reports that Ojeda Ríos had been seen in the home. In their press release, the FBI stated their surveillance team was detected, and proceeded to serve an arrest warrant against Ojeda Ríos. The FBI claims that as the agents approached the home, shots were fired from inside and outside the house wounding an FBI agent. The FBI alleges it then returned fire fatally wounding Ojeda Ríos. A subsequent autopsy of Ojeda's body determined that he bled to death over the course of 15 to 30 minutes. The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico Civil Rights Commission started an investigation of the incident shortly after Ojeda Rios' death that lasted 7 years. The 227-page report issued on 22 September 2011 stated that Ojeda Rios's killing was "an illegal killing" by the FBI.
Change in guard; Comandante Guasábara Following the confrontation that concluded in the death of its former leader, the command of the Boricua Popular Army was inherited by an anonymous figure known as "Comandante Guasábara", named after the Taíno word for "war". Under his leadership, the group appears to have shifted its focus towards intelligence. For example, the group has not recorded a single military action. Instead, Guasábara has generally used the media to publish classified information. Under Guasábara, the
Macheteros took an emphasis on publishing pieces regarding the use of
Culebra and
Vieques as bombing targets for the U.S. Navy; what they perceive as a disproportionate number of military bases on the island (compared to states in the Union); the proportion of deaths within the ranks of the Independence and Nationalist leadership, including the alleged experimentation with radiation on Nationalist leader Pedro Albizu Campos while he was incarcerated; the secret testing of
Agent Orange on Puerto Rican soil; and cancer "experiments" administered by
Cornelius P. Rhoads, in which he claimed to have killed Puerto Rican patients and injected cancer cells to others, while working as part of a medical investigation conducted in San Juan's Presbyterian Hospital for the
Rockefeller Institute.
Opposition to the Fortuño administration (2009–2012) The Boricua Popular Army took credit for denouncing what was called "paramilitary training" that private corporation Triangle Experience Group was carrying on in the mountains of the municipality of
Utuado. The media later revealed that these exercises were being done illegally, in covert fashion and lacking the required permits.
Opposition to the García administration (2013–2017) On March 9, 2015, Commander Guasábara issued a press release where it attacked the Value Added Tax proposal (better known by its Spanish acronyms "IVA") supported by the Garcia Padilla administration as part of its response to the
Puerto Rican debt crisis. Later that month, the EPB issued a statement where they expressed the belief that a joint drill organized by Garcia Padilla's administration in collaboration with the federal government was in fact a military exercise that was organized to advance the Obama administration's campaign against the socialist
government of Venezuela. Known as Operación Respuesta Borinqueña (literally "Operation Puerto Rican Response") and held March 16–21, the training was officially described as a first response practice in an emergency involving tsunamis or a chemical attack. Through its spokesman, the group anticipated that "[in its] ineptitude and impotency" the government would exploit the crisis to privatize profits and socialize losses, citing the privatization of the turnpike system,
Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport, the
Puerto Rico Telephone Company and the
Teodoro Moscoso Bridge as previous examples of this tendency. The EBP expressed dissatisfaction in what they perceived as "an environment of indifference" within sectors of local society that "still expect magic solutions" from those responsible for the crisis, which serves as a hindrance to the militant action that they pursue. Commander Guasábara then offers an alliance that oversees previous differences. In asking the rhetoric question "What would you do for yourself, your children and your country?" the Macheteros urged the public to hold an investigation and "judge those responsible" for what they consider an "irresponsible and unnecessary debt [caused by] the corrupt administrations that we have tolerated for 50 years". The EPB concluded this press release by urging the public to "take the streets and manifest their anger in the way that they prefer", but not before stating that the time for marches was gone and that it is "time to take action". == Classification ==