In August of 1985, Avelino González, along with other Puerto Ricans and 2 North Americans, were accused of having participated in the planning and authorization of an operation to secure $7,117,000.00 from a Wells Fargo armored truck in Hartford, Connecticut on September 12, 1983.  That operation was carried out by the then PRTP-Macheteros.  They are accused of being part of the Central Committee and Political Commission of the PRTP-Macheteros.  Avelino, his brother Norberto and Victor Gerena, the main person accused, could not be arrested at that time.  Norberto and Victor remain underground to this day.

The charges against those arrested that year ended in a trial of a group of the accused (Carlos Ayes, Filiberto Ojeda, Juan Segarra, Norman Ramirez and Roberto Maldonado) in 1989 and finally led to a political-legal agreement in 1992 with the accused Orlando González, Hilton Fernández Diamante, Jorge A. Farinacci, Isaac Camacho, Elías Castro and Angel Días Ruiz and later led to another trial of the accused Ivone Meléndez Carrión.  The legal agreement reached recognized the Macheteros as a political organization that fights for the independence of their homeland.

Avelino was born in the town of Vega Baja on October 8, 1942.  Since his days as a student in the public schools of his country he established himself as a fighter for the freedom of his homeland.  Upon entering the University of Puerto Rico he became a member of the Pro-Independence University Federation (Federación Universitaria Pro Independencia –FUPI), a student organization founded in 1956 that has stood out for its struggle for university reforms to improve conditions at the university for our people.  Avelino became its vice-president.  Avelino stood out as one of its best militants and as a person for whom no task was too small or too big to take on.

Since becoming a student he embraced socialist ideas as his own, becoming a constant student of the history of our working people and their struggles, as well as, studying the socialist ideological classics.  He always stood out for his knowledge of the history of the workers’ international struggles and their revolutions.

He married in the mid-1960’s and had 4 children who today are part of the professional classes of our country.  At that time he moved to New York City where he lived until the beginning of the 1970’s.  He worked in Wall Street in that city while he carried out political work with the Puerto Rican community and organized part of the resistance of the revolutionary forces that were beginning to organize themselves in “the belly of the Yankee beast” and had begun to stand out by the end of the 1960’s.  Avelino became part of the leadership of the Vito Marco Antonio Mission of the Movemento Pro-Independence (MPI) in New York.

Avelino returned to his homeland to integrate into the political work where he stands out as one of its most capable and disciplined leaders.  At the time of the arrests in 1985 he was known for his role in the administration of the operations of the political magazine Pensamiento Crítico (Critical Thought).  It is at that time that he becomes one of the Puerto Ricans most sought by the enemy and he transforms himself into the citizen José Ortega.

Upon getting to know Avelino as one of the leaders most committed with his ideas of freedom for our homeland and the program of struggle of his organization, we do not doubt that he has been in the heart of our people, struggling alongside them for their civil rights to freedom and social justice for its working classes.  Many have been the trenches of struggle of this well-known leader and militant of the revolutionary struggles of our people and its movement for national liberation for the past 50 years.

Following the arrests of August 30, 1985, Avelino became part of the struggles of our people as “José Ortega”.  For the past 22 years he alluded the enemy and was able to participate not only in the struggle for our peoples liberation but also as a worker and computer teacher where he realized work for the improvement of the services provided by the Department of Education of Puerto Rico.

Avelino is known for his calm tolerant manner but at the same time for his firmness in the expression of his positions and political ideas.  For him there is no room for hypocrisy when it’s time to combat ideas that he considers incorrect.  His personality, his demeanor and his ideas regarding the necessity for unity in the liberation movement led him to always espouse that differences should not be a motive for divisions. He has never been heard to make mean-spirited or derogatory accusations of those he has political differences, either in his organization or toward those outside it with whom he has differences because of their political practice or strategy.  He said in his first communication after his arrest, “ . . . Pandora left desperation out of her box and because of this they may chain and imprison my body, but never my spirit and my ideas”

Avelino today finds himself incarcerated in a state prison in the city of Hartford in conditions of “maximum security”.  23 hours in isolation in a jail cell, with one hour to get fresh air, with no access to his family and denied communication by telephone with his family members, his lawyers or friends.  They propose to judge him, as they have his comrades in struggle, faraway from his Puerto Rican homeland.

The U.S. government must recognize Avelino’s status as a fighter for independence and a political prisoner, as he demanded in its imperial courts!

We know that Avelino is man in very good health at the time of his arrest and we hope that he remains so.  Any change in his health condition will be the responsibility of his enemy jailers.

Let Us Support The Defense of Avelino!

Comité familiares y Amigos de Avelino González Claudio

Friends and Family of Avelino González Claudio

apartado postal #22282

San Juan. P.R.00931-2282