message of solidarity from Vieques, Puerto Rico
Dear friends.
Warm and fraternal greetings from the Island of Vieques, Puerto Rico. We are together in a struggle to end US military activity in our communities.
Our struggles are mutually beneficial as they raise world consciousness about the violations committed by the US military against our peoples.
We stand firm in our use of non violent civil disobedience. Hundreds of our brothers and sisters have been camped out in the bombing area on the east end o Vieques since 19 April past when Navy bombing killed a civilian Viequense security guard. Our community has stopped the bombing and we now demand Presidente Clinton order the permanent cesation of all military activity here and the return of lands to our people.
Much solidarity and hope for peace in Okinawa and in Vieques
Robert Rabin
Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques
Vieques, Puerto Rico - Paradise Invaded
Robert L. Rabin Siegal*
Around 7:00 PM (EST) on April 19, 1999, a U.S. Navy pilot launched two five hundred pound live bombs from his FA-18 jet that missed their target at the bombing range in Vieques, Puerto Rico, destroying the Navy's observation post, killing David Sanes, a civilian security and injuring several others.
David Sanes' death was the chronicle of a death foretold. For decades Viequenses have been clamoring for an end to the bombings and shelling on our Island and for an end to the military presence. As The Washington Post well put it in its editorial "Island Casualty" on Monday, May 3, David's death "is more than an isolated accident. It is the latest instance of predictable harm to the people of Vieques that goes back through decades of military neglect of island interests." The Post editorial correctly added that the military could find another site, as there simply should be no bombing on a small-inhabited island. Leaders and representatives of all sectors of Puerto Rican society, have spoken out firmly and consistently since the killing of David Sanes, demanding an immediate end to the bombing and the end of the military presence on Vieques.
This was not the first time that the Navy missed its target. Fishermen generally complain about the great number of unexploded bombs in the coastal waters of Vieques and the destruction caused to coral reefs and other elements of the marine environment from the bombing. In October of 1993, another FA-18 fighter jet missed its target by about ten miles, dropping five 500 hundred pound live bombs about a mile from the main town of Vieques. Luckily, no one was killed in that incident. Last year, during maneuvers involving Navy and Puerto Rican National Guard troops, bullets broke windows in the Public School Buses parked at the Public Works area of the Municipal Government in the Santa Marú} sector. Several government employees in the area at the time had to take cover until the shooting stopped. The Mayor of Vieques has not received an explanation from the Navy about either of these recent "accidents", and probably will never receive much information about the killing of David Sanes.
Vieques is an island municipality of Puerto Rico, six miles southeast of the main island. 72% of its population of approximately 9,000 live below the poverty level. The Municipal Government reports over 50% unemployment.
Studies by the University of Puerto Rico School of Public Health indicate that Vieques suffers a 27% higher cancer case rate than the rest of Puerto Rico. The Puerto Rico Legislature approved legislation ordering an epidemiological study to determine the causes of the higher cancer rate.
People on Vieques, environmental and health experts throughout Puerto Rico, relate the abnormally high cancer rate to the environmental degradation caused by U.S. Navy and NATO bombing (the Navy "rents" Vieques To NATO and other countries for bombing practice) on this small Caribbean Island.
Since the 1940's, the U.S. Navy controls 3/4 of Vieques' 33,000 acres. The western end is used as an ammunition depot while the eastern third is a bombing and maneuver area. Military expropriations in the 40's caused a social and economic crisis that lasts to this day. The Navy controls the shortest connecting point between Vieques and the main island (the Puerto Rico Ports Authority must use an 18 nautical mile route instead of the six-mile route controlled by the military). The Navy controls the highest points on the island, the best aquifers and most fertile lands, extensive white sand beaches, and hundreds of archaeological sites.
Large-scale ecological destruction is the result of over half a century of bombing and experimentation with new weapons systems. In his study titled "Vieques: The Ecology of an Island Under Siege", Professor JosESeguinot Barbosa, Director of the Geography Department of the University of Puerto Rico in RúŒ Piedras, explains that "the eastern tip of the island constitutes a region with more craters per kilometer than the moon."
Professor Seguinot Barbosa adds "the destruction of the natural and human resources of Vieques violates the basic norms of international law and human rights. At the state and federal level the laws pertaining to the coastal zone, water and noise quality, underwater resources, archaeological resources and land use, among others, are violated."
Chemical engineer Rafael Cruz Pérez, in an article titled "Contamination Produced by Explosives and Residuals of Explosives in Vieques, Puerto Rico" (published in Dimensión, Magazine of the Association of Engineers and Surveyors of Puerto Rico, Year 2, Vol. 8, Jan. 1988) points out that " . . .chemicals from the bombing (TNT, NO3, NO2, RDX and Tetryl) are transported by diverse mechanisms toward the civilian area. . .We find that the effective concentration of particles over the civilian area of Vieques exceeds 197 micrograms per cubic meter and therefore exceeds the legal federal criteria for clean air."
Fishermen have for decades struggled to get the Navy to stop bombing and leave the island. Giant military ships destroy fish traps and bombing and other maneuvers impose severe restrictions on fishermen's entry into some of the best fishing areas around the island. On numerous occasions fishing boats have been damaged by naval gunfire and fishermen have been severely hurt by exploding bombs close to their fishing activities.
Since the April 19th killing of David Sanes, groups of Viequenses and supporters from the main island of Puerto Rico have been occupying several areas inside the bombing zone to block the possibility of renewed bombing and-or maneuvers. Close to the site where Sanes was killed, a giant cross was placed by members of the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques (CPRDV), fishermen and others on 22 April. Since that day, a group of young Viequense men and women together with university students from Puerto Rico, have maintained a permanent vigil at the site of the cross.
The area has been renamed Mt. David.
The Puerto Rico Independence Party (PIP) maintains a permanent protest camp about a mile from Mt. David, also in the bombing range since the 8th of May. On the North coast of Vieques (both Mt. David and the PIP camp are on the South coast of the island) a group of fishermen and other residents of Vieques have now occupied the Yayi Key while a group of Vieques teachers, with support from the CPRDV and the Congreso Nacional Hostosiano have erected a chapel and hold a position on the beach directly across from the Yayi Key. All of the protest camps are within Navy restricted zones and make up part of the impact area and eastern maneuver area.
During the past four months, several actions of civil disobedience have taken place inside Navy controlled territory. On May 16th, over one hundred protesters spent the night at a site the Navy calls, "Blue Beach", and renamed by the community, Angel Rodrú„uez Cristóbal beach, in honor of one of 21 people arrested there in 1979. Rodrú„uez Cristóbal was jailed in Tallahassee, Florida federal facility where he was murdered on 11 November, 1979. The protesters went by boat to the restricted area, used by the Navy for amphibious landing maneuvers, held a discussion that night with several of those arrested twenty years ago and the following day marched out of the base through the main gate of the Navy facility known as Camp Garcú}. The following week several hundred workers from varios Puerto Rico union groups, fishermen from Vieques, the Archbishop of San Juan and the Bishop of the Catholic Church for the Vieques region, among others, forced there way into the entrance area of Camp Garcú} to hold a lively demonstration.
Marches, vigils, press conferences, radio and television reports about Vieques have gone on continuously since 19 April. On the main island, a national coordinating committee - "Todo Puerto Rico por Vieques" (All Puerto Rico for Vieques) has been set up to work with the community organizations. On July 4th, this group gathered fifty thousand in a march and demonstration at the main entrance to Roosevelt Roads Naval Station in the town of Ceiba - the largest US Naval station outside the continental United States. A Presidential Panel appointed to investigate the military presence on Vieques came to the island on July 24th to listen to community representatives. Over five hundred people protested in the town square, adjacent to City Hall where the hearings took place. This panel is scheduled to hand its findings and recommendations to President Clinton early in September.
On the 1st of August, over one hundred Viequenses and supporters from the main island marched up to the Navy´s observation post inside the bombing range and handed to the officer in charge an Ultimatum, approved the night before in the Public Square by over twenty five community groups. The document summarizes the basic demands of the people for the Navy withdrawal and the return of the lands. This was the first time in the history of the struggle that an organized protest was taken to this most strategic point of Navy operations on Vieques.
Jesse Jackson came to Vieques on August 13 to visit the protesters inside the Navy restricted area. Jackson made a commitment to return with other church leaders and participate in civil disobedience actions if the President does not order the Navy to leave Vieques. The following day, over five thousand people attended a benefit concert for the ComitEPro Rescate y Desarrollo de Vieques organized by the United Front in Defense of the Valley of Lajas. The Lajas group has worked with the Vieques committee since 1994, when that municipality was threatened by the Navy with the possible installation of a gigantic military radar system.
Representatives of the CPRDV participated in the United Nations deliberations on the decolonization of Puerto Rico in July and were able to have a clear statement on Vieques included in the final resolution of UN committee. During the visit to the UN, Ismael Guadalupe from the CPRDV, together with supporters from "Todo Puerto Rico con Vieques" and the Puerto Rican Bar Association, spoke with officials at the embassies of several Latin American countries who participate in US directed military maneuvers on Vieques. On behalf of the ComitE a protest letter was recently drafted and sent by a team from the Puerto Rican Lawyers Guild to the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the UN at Geneva and a complaint was filed with the Organization of American States.
As a result of the killing of David Sanes and the clear and firm consensus across all ideological and religious lines in favor of putting and end to the military presence on Vieques, the Governor of Puerto Rico appointed a Special Commission on Vieques with members from the three major political parties, the Catholic Church, Vieques fisherman and the Mayor of Vieques. Four public hearings have been held in addition to numerous visits to Navy facilities and meetings with military officials and members of the civilian sector. On 25 June, the Commission submitted its report to the Governor, in which it supports the position of the community - total demilitarization, decontamination, devolution (return of all lands to the people) and development.
The Navy was recently forced to admit that 263 Depleted Uranium projectiles were fired from a Harrier Jet into the impact area at Vieques during training for the war in Yugoslavia in February of this year. Documents from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission indicate that only 56 DU rounds were retrieved and because of the danger of unexploded conventional ordnance in the area, the search for the rest of the DU was postponed until August.
Depleted Uranium is linked to the Gulf War Syndrome that affects many veterans of that conflict and poses a serious threat to the health of the people of Vieques who suffer an already alarmingly high cancer case rate.
The Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques (ComitEPro Rescate y Desarrollo de Vieques - CPRDV) has begun to articulate, with the assistance of experts from Puerto Rican universities and international organizations, a vision for the future social and economic development of a Vieques freed from the Navy. Our Committee recommends the creation of a land trust to keep and maintain the lands rescued from the Navy in the hands of the community of Vieques. Our Committee also recommends the establishment of a continuing education and training program in order to adequately empower the community of Vieques to manage its own resources, including but not limited to, its hotels, restaurants, agricultural projects, small factories, and scientific and environmental projects. The goal is to ensure the sustainable development of Vieques by Viequenses, for the benefit of Viequenses and those who visit our beautiful island.
With the help of the Puerto Rico Lawyers Guild (Colegio de Abogados) and professionals in the area of social-economic development from Puerto Rico and the US, the ComitEcoordinates the formation of a multidisciplinary technical team to assist the community in the struggle to create a new social and economic order based on peace and justice instead of war. A group of highly respected professionals, including architects, planners, economists, sociologists, among others, met recently with members of the CPRDV to formally begin the creation of the technical team.
The CPRDV is a non-partisan grass-roots organization dedicated to ending all U.S. military activity on Vieques and to promoting the sustainable development of the island. Community and civic leaders in Vieques of all political ideologies founded the Committee in 1993. The CPRDV works together with Vieques fishermen and other sectors of the community, including recently formed organizations of Vieques women and young people.
The people of Vieques need your support in this historic moment. We ask environmental, ecumenical, peace and trade union organizations and individuals to show solidarity by bringing up the issue of Vieques at the workplace, in schools, at community and religious meetings. Help us enter the 21st century clearly on the road to peace and justice for Vieques, a paradise invaded.
Donations for this struggle can be sent to the CPRDV at Box 1424, Vieques, PR 00765.
* The author is member of the ComitEPro Rescate y Desarrollo de Vieques and Director of the Vieques Historic Archives
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