Santiago (Chagui) Mari Pesquera (1952–1975) is the eldest son of Juan Mari Brás and Paquita Pesquera Cantellops.
Juan Mari Brás, a lawyer by profession, was a political leader from his youth and dedicated to the struggle for Puerto Rico’s independence from the United States, which had taken control of the country through a military invasion on July 25, 1898. At the time of his son’s death in March 1976, Mari Brás was leading the Puerto Rican Socialist Party, a vigorous and growing, openly revolutionary movement that had gained strength and influence within the labor movement and community struggles and was making inroads in the country’s electoral contests.
Paquita Pesquera, who was a university professor, had been an activist since her student days and played a prominent role in the party. At the time of her son’s death, she was teaching at a university in New York and was active in the New York chapter of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party.
Chagui—the nickname by which Santiago Mari Pesquera was known— was a young man who, at the age of 23, was emerging as a great talent with remarkable abilities. A brief overview gives us an idea.
He was always a good student. He attended high school at the Escuela Libre de Música, where he specialized in clarinet and trombone. He graduated in 1970 with excellent grades. He enrolled at the University of Puerto Rico, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree in Social Sciences.
He had an entrepreneurial and adventurous spirit. At age 16, he learned to drive cars, and from there he went on to obtain licenses for heavy equipment and commercial vehicles, which allowed him to work as a driver while continuing his studies. His desire to learn, to discover things through hands-on experience, his physical strength, and his exceptional manual skills led him to win motocross championships, sailing regattas, and a 24-hour rally around the entire island, where he took first place in both time and precision, competing in his own vehicle with very limited resources against experts sponsored by large commercial companies to drive cars, and from there he went on to obtain licenses for heavy equipment and commercial vehicles, which allowed him to work as a driver while continuing his studies. His desire to learn, to discover things through hands-on experience, his physical strength, and his exceptional manual skills led him to win motocross championships, sailing regattas, and a 24-hour rally around the entire island, where he took first place in both time and precision, competing in his own vehicle with very limited resources against experts sponsored by large commercial companies.
He enjoyed scuba diving and fishing, as well as bird hunting and basketball.
At age 18, he and two cousins of the same age bought an 80-cuerda farm in the Toro Negro neighborhood of Ciales with money the three of them were able to raise by selling some of their belongings and working hard.
Politically, Chagui remained active and participated in the activities of the independence and student movements. In the fight against mandatory military service, he refused to serve because he believed he had no reason to enlist in an army that was not his own, to fight in the war of aggression in Vietnam.
He played an active role in the 1973 student strike that kept the university closed for several months, forcing university authorities to meet with student leaders and reach agreements.
He always attended protests against mining and environmental destruction, as well as the September 23 events in Lares commemorating the 1868 Cry of Independence, to which he also rallied his friends and cousins.
That is how he grew up—mastering all modes of transportation, playing outdoor sports, participating in political events, overcoming obstacles, and devising solutions—until his own challenge led him to learn the science of flying airplanes.
To pay for his commercial pilot training, at age 22, after graduating from college, he sold his share of the Ciales farm and moved to Oklahoma, from where he returned with his license to begin his career as a commercial pilot.
He returned in January 1976 and found a job by February. He had been working as a pilot for a small cargo airline for several weeks when he was murdered.
On the morning of March 24, 1976, Chagui left for work as usual, and that afternoon, when he was supposed to pick up his nephew and his sister, he didn’t show up. The next morning, his body was found inside his sister’s car, parked on the side of Highway #1—which runs from Río Piedras to Caguas—across from the General Foods offices.
At a time when the Puerto Rican Socialist Party was growing and developing—when the newspaper *Claridad* was being published and circulated in Puerto Rico and the United States, and massive political rallies were being held—the U.S. government and the FBI, which operates in Puerto Rico by virtue of the colonial status of the local government, used the Puerto Rican Police to carry out various forms of repression, harassment, and persecution against independence activists.
From the very beginning, when news of Chagui’s death broke, the general suspicion was that this was not a common crime but a political assassination. The country was going through a historic moment amid the atmosphere of institutional persecution of the independence movement typical of the Cold War; Mari Brás was a prominent figure in the movement, and he and his family had been the targets of multiple threats and attacks, including the planting of explosive devices in their homes and cars. This, combined with the fact that at that time the police were controlled by a gang of corrupt and repressive officers under the influence of the FBI, and that the Department of Justice committed a series of irregularities in the investigation and prosecution of the only official suspect in the crime, left the family and the independence movement dissatisfied with the outcome of the investigation and the trial, in which Henry Walter Coira Story was convicted.
The Department of Justice reopened the case in 1984 after concluding beyond a reasonable doubt that Henry Walter Coira Story did not act alone and that others were involved in the murder. The FBI is in possession of documents containing information about the assassination plot and its execution. The Puerto Rico Department of Justice and Chagui’s family have requested these documents on several occasions, but the FBI refuses to acknowledge that it has them or to declassify them so they can be used to solve the case. The investigation has always fallen short and has never been completed.
