The murder of Mapepe: Military violence in cold war Puerto Rico
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T h e m u r d e r o f M a p e p e : Mi l i t a r y violence i n c ol d w a r P ue rto R i co
K a t h e r i n e T . Mc C af f r e y Montclair State University, NJ.
Latino Studies (2015) 13, 280–287. doi:10.1057/lst.2015.15
This essay represents a preliminary effort to make sense of a high profile murder case that took place in 1953 in Vieques, a residential island municipality of Puerto Rico. At the height of the Korean War, thousands of US Navy and Marine Corps personnel participated in large-scale maneuvers on Vieques Island. At night, these men flooded the streets of Vieques, seeking alcohol and sex, overwhelming the small, rural community. One night, after an evening of debauchery, a group of marines instigated a brawl in a local bar and clubbed to death the elderly bar owner, Julián “Mapepe” Felipe Francis. Although general court martial proceedings were initiated against three marines, the defendants were ultimately acquitted of all major charges. In Vieques, the murder is remembered to this day as an example of the brazenness and impunity that characterized the Navy’s 60year occupation of the island. Although the memory of Mapepe’s killing is remarkably vivid in the neighborhood where he lived and among the friends, neighbors and family members who live in the shadow of the bar establishment he once owned, the written record is lacking. Flooding destroyed 1950s era police records from Vieques. Records of an investigation carried out by the Puerto Rican district attorney’s office are missing. Most significantly, the court martial records of the two marines charged with manslaughter in the case were destroyed 25 years after acquittal, standard practice for the judge advocate general’s (JAG) office. © 2015 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3435 Latino Studies www.palgrave-journals.com/lst/
Vol. 13, 2, 280–287
The murder of Mapepe
Newly discovered archival material, however, sheds fresh light on the events of 1953. Bonnie Donohue, a photographer and video artist at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, who has been conducting research on Vieques in the early twentieth century, unearthed the 141 page investigative report the JAG ordered in response to the melee of 4 April. The report contains testimony from all of the participants in the event, eyewitnesses and bystanders. Material was collected within days of the incident and includes testimony of servicemen, civilians, military higher ups and medical professionals. Because of my long term ethnographic work in Vieques, Donohue contacted me and we have been collaborating on investigating the story. Part of this essay draws on research I conducted for a visual exhibition we produced, Killing Mapepe: Sex and Death in Cold War Vieques, which showed in Vieques and San Francisco. Despite the significance of the US Armed Forces on so many levels of Puerto Rican life, the US military’s presence, influence and integration into Puerto Rican society remains relatively unexplored. In particular, the Cold War era in Puerto Rico, a time when Puerto Ricans were increasing
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