Opinion letters

Author: Various Authors

Update of July 9, 2000

Since the last posting, the U.S. Navy has taken steps to utilize its practice bombing range on the Island of Vieques. It has stood guard on the perimeter while Federal Marshalls removed several hundred protest campers from the 11 or 12 camps that more or less independently existed on different parts of the bombing range at the East end of the island of Vieques for part or all of the year before the Navy won a determination that it should reclaim its land from the trespassers.

About 250 were removed and let go in May. Many found ways to come back, although the most to be willing to be arrested turned out to be the more militant members of the Independentista or Independence party. From the story below, one can see that some refused to post bond and these have been mostly picked-up and imprisoned. In time they will pay fines and be released.

Of course, others came to the prison to protest on the occasion of the American July 4 holiday. Unlike the American revolutionaries, these few people of P.R. seem to enjoy little support among the 4,000,000 other people of the island or the 2,500,000 that live on the mainland of the U.S. It appears that they have run their course with the events that followed the unfortunate and accidental death of David Sanes, a citizen of Vieques who, while employed as a civilian guard, managed to disobey his orders and found himself exposed to the errant bombs that landed fifty feet on either side of his perch atop the shelter in which he was supposed to be inside.

Some interim conclusions are still worth noting, even though it is not likely that the U.S. Navy will be denied use of its range with inert ordinance until a referendum is conducted on Vieques within the next months.

Supporters of the protesters included groups of environmentalists, religious opponents to military arms, and a few convinced that the Navy has caused cancer and other diseases among the 9,400 people who apparently live on Vieques. It is not clear how many of them will be qualified to vote in the future referendum, but polls conducted by the protestors claim something like 88% support among these future voters. It would be unusual for anyone on the island to respond at this time as a friend of the U.S. Navy. In fact, it may be possible that the vote will eventually look far different than any poll as the people are not likely to want any attention cast at them as would be friends of the U.S. Navy or worse, opposed to the Puertoricans anxious to move the Navy out.

In fact, however, it will be interesting to see how well the $40,000,000 now ready to be spent for improving the island will work to change anyone’s mind in a secret vote. The government of P.R. has never been generous with the budget process to help Vieques and little political reason has existed to encourage it. Vieques as a result is a popular place for only a few people who like getting away to a place that is very quiet and remote. It is not a noisy island full of densely populated neighborhoods with lots of noise and confusion.

Meanwhile, the talks in Washington have shown that the Congress and the president are not really going to spend any serious time or make any great effort to bring the status question to a head before the November election. It is not at all clear that either really wants to do so.

It is more likely that the Populares or Popular party will continue to show more support of the protest than will be the case from the NPP or Statehood party now in power and expected to lose in November. Candidate Silá Calderón is a polished professional and she is running against an amateur, who is a fine man with noble ideas. If he wins, it will be an upset!

If the Navy manages to install a new harbor and road to shorten the ferry ride to the mainland by 2/3 it will have some impact on the attitudes of the islanders on Vieques because that will be the single largest infrastructure improvement since the water line was provided from the mainland many years ago. With the airport runway improvement, it is conceivable that the Navy might, with its 50% lower profile in terms of use of the range, convince a majority that another $50 million contribution from Uncle Sam would be better than doing away with the minor annoyance of bomb noises from a range ten miles away (further than that from such other military bases as Eglin AFB in Florida where people live just 4 miles away).

Of course, the militants will sell fear- that somehow there really is a higher cancer rate on Vieques for some type of cancer that has a link to long term exposure to wind blown contaminated dust. Who knows cancer from smoking may be minor as compared to some thing like this. But, no evidence really exists today to show such linkage. In truth, it is probably very difficult if not impossible to show any such link and even the raw total case load may fail to show any problem anyway. But, it is fairly easy to get people, who have no right to vote, to think that others will take advantage of them because of it. Never mind what the demographics, family history, or other factors may show- if you want to believe that the Navy is causing cancer, you are free to think so!

The matter of ecological damage is just political window dressing. If you practice war games and drop live bombs, something is likely to get destroyed. Whether old rock or new living coral, explosives do change things! Just how seriously as compared to other risks in life, if you do not prepare to defend human life, is a matter for individual judgment. So far this group has enjoyed no real success and far worse evidences of ecological damage are found on the man island of PR.

The next update may show that more changes are in the wind. For now, this story may lay quietly for a few months.

Now here is the story that helped frame the update.


July 3, 2000
Copyright © 2000 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- U.S. marshals fanned out across Puerto Rico on Sunday, arresting
dozens of anti-Navy activists at home for refusing to post bail on federal trespassing charges.

Marshals had arrested more than 50 of 122 activists by Sunday afternoon, protest organizers said.

Those arrested were among 183 people originally detained last week as they scrambled under
fences or sneaked onto remote beaches in an attempt to stop military exercises on the outlying
Puerto Rican island of Vieques.

The unrest renewed a 14-month-old dispute on Vieques, a 21-mile-long Puerto Rican island of
9,400 people that is also the site of the U.S. Navy's prime Atlantic Fleet training ground. Activists
committed to ousting the Navy say bombing at the site destroys fishing grounds and endangers
residents. The Navy maintains the bombing is safe and provides crucial training for American
sailors and airmen.

The protesters arrested last week had been freed temporarily and given until Friday to post $1,000
bail, but the group of 122 refused to pay.

``We do not recognize any moral authority nor the legitimacy of the U.S. court in this matter,'' Sen.
Manuel Rodriguez Orellana of the Puerto Rican Independence Party said Sunday. The arrests
``unmask the repressive and intimidating character of the process,'' he said.

The arresting marshals would not talk to reporters. Herman Wirshing, chief of the U.S. Marshals
Service in Puerto Rico, could not be reached for comment.

About 600 people have been detained since May 4, when marshals removed protesters who had
camped out on the Vieques bombing range for a year to thwart exercises there.

Most of the 183 arrested last week were members of the Puerto Rican Independence Party. The
party planned a rally on Tuesday -- the Fourth of July -- in front of the federal prison in San Juan
where the arrested protesters are being held.

Resentment over the Navy's presence in Vieques boiled over in April 1999 when a U.S. Marine
Corps jet dropped a bomb off target, killing a civilian security guard in the bombing range. The latest
Navy exercises have used non-explosive bombs, but the protests have continued.