CONFLICT RESOLUTION  
Status of peace for Vieques movement
> BY SELWYN RAAB
Copyright © 2002 by The Earth Times. All rights reserved

Until a few months ago, prospects were bright that the United States would yield to national and international protests for a quick end to extensive military maneuvers on this picture postcard slice of Puerto Rico. For 62 years, Vieques has been the main target range for the US's Atlantic Fleet and a training site for amphibious operations by the Marine Corps. But Vieques is another casualty of Sept. 11‹the date of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and on the Pentagon in Washington. Since Sept. 11, most of Puerto Rico's top political and civic leaders and their international allies have softened their demands for an immediate halt to the bombing and strafing exercises. They now rely on the administration of President George W. Bush to cease the bombardments in May of next year.

"Whatever chance the Peace for Vieques movement had of driving the Navy out of Vieques before May 2003 was buried under the rubble of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon," explained Manny Suarez, a senior political columnist for the San Juan Star, Puerto Rico's English-language newspaper. Noting that Puerto Rico officials fear there would be a violent political backlash in the US if they insisted on evicting the Navy immediately, Suarez said: "If the Navy wanted to build a battleship capable of sailing across the desert sands to get at Osama bin Laden and other terrorists, it would probably get it."

Last summer, political pressure in the form of daily rallies by Puerto Rican, American and international groups for the Navy's ouster, mounted on the US government to pull out of Vieques quickly. The opponents charged that toxic substances from decades of bombardment had created significant health risks for the island's 9,300 residents and that the US was treating Vieques as a colonial outpost. Civil disobedience intrusions into the target range led to mass arrests for trespassing and the jailing of several US politicians. Now, except for Puerto Rico's Independence Party, which wants complete separation from the US, and a bevy of other hard-line dissenters, the protests against the Navy have largely abated. Before Sept. 11 Puerto Rico appeared united for a rapid eviction of the Navy. In cities and in the countryside there were banners, T-shirts and hats emblazoned with the slogan: "Paz Para Vieques" (Peace for Vieques). Today those symbols are rarely seen. Puerto Rico was a Spanish colony for 400 years until it was ceded to the US in 1898 at the end of the Spanish-American War. Since 1952, Puerto Rico has had a "commonwealth" form of government, similar in many ways to a state. Puerto Ricans are US citizens, but they do not elect representatives to Congress and do not vote in presidential and other federal elections. In 1939, the US expropriated 72 percent (36,000 acres) of Vieques for military use, evicting hundreds of families. Military commanders describe Vieques as the "crown jewel" for joint amphibious, naval and air training maneuvers. They maintain that maneuvers with live ammunition are essential for proper training‹especially with the armed forces on wartime alert.

Until 1999, when a private security guard for the Navy was killed in a bombing accident, the use of the island as a shooting gallery attracted little attention outside of Puerto Rico. The death, however, sparked a wave of protests and demands by Puerto Rico's major political parties‹the Popular Democratic Party and the New Progressive Party‹for a halt to the bombings or discontinuing the use of live ammunition. President Bill Clinton agreed in 2000 that the Navy would leave Vieques by May 1, 2003 unless the island's residents voted to let the exercises continue. Puerto Rico's Governor, Sila M. Calderone, had campaigned in 1991 for an immediate halt to military operations but, citing solidarity with the US, she accepted a pledge by President Bush that the Navy would pull out sometime in 2003. "Most thinking people agree that Calderone is taking a pragmatic position based on Sept. 11," Suarez, the columnist, said. "She went to the White House, she kissed the president, and he promised to stick to the 2003 pullout."

The medical consequences of the bombings remain a paramount issue for Puerto Rico health officials, including Dr. Freddie H. Roman Aviles, president of the Puerto Rico College of Physicians and Surgeons, the commonwealth's major medical association. He was instrumental in initiating a current analysis by the World Health Organization into the abnormal cancer rate of Vieques residents. Cancer and heart mortality rates are sharply higher on Vieques than in the rest of Puerto Rico. Studies by Puerto Rican authorities have linked the health problems to the bombardments, but Navy officials have challenged the findings as inconclusive. Dr. Roman and other medical experts are concerned that toxins and metal contaminants deposited in the soil and water from previous exercises can be spread by new bombardments even with inert explosives. "We back the war against terrorism 100 percent," Dr. Roman said, "and realize there may have to be delays in ending the bombings because of national security. ...We are confident that President Bush will keep his word and will remember that the people of Vieques have suffered for 60 years and have carried a larger burden than any other area of the nation for national security."

Military officials disclosed in February that a naval battle group, using inert weapons, is set to resume maneuvers in March or April. When shells screech down again on Vieques, demonstrations on the island will flare up. Aleida Zenon, a longtime Vieques resident, warned that protesters would risk arrest because there is no written guarantee that the US government will cease operations in 2003. "We are sorry about the killings at the World Trade Center," said Mrs. Zenon, whose husband and son are serving jail terms for trespassing in restricted military areas. "We hate the terrorists, but we can't forget our own struggle for civil rights that has been going on for 62 years."