BY RON RICHARDS
CEIBA, Puerto Rico - In a sea of Puerto Rican flags, 50,000
people marched here July 4 to demand the U.S. Navy leave the
island of Vieques. The protesters rallied in front of the main
gate of Roosevelt Roads Naval Base, many of them chanting
"Criminal, criminal, the Navy is criminal!"
The demonstration, initiated by pro-independence groups, attracted an unprecedented spectrum of political forces.
Vieques, located about 10 miles east of the main island of Puerto Rico, has a population of 9,300. At the beginning of World War II, the U.S. Navy took over two-thirds of the island and has remained there ever since, with devastating effects on the livelihoods of the residents, many of whom are fishermen. The U.S. military uses the western end to store ammunition and the eastern end as a bombing range. Successive generations of Vieques residents have fought stubbornly to get the Navy off of their island, acquiring the image among many Puerto Ricans of a brave David going up against the U.S. Navy's Goliath.
Protests sparked by fatal bombing
The renewed groundswell of protests against the U.S.
military in Vieques was precipitated when a U.S. Navy warplane
dropped two bombs off course and killed David Sanes, a Vieques
resident employed by the Navy as a security guard. Repeated
demonstrations have taken place since April both in Vieques and
on the main island. Anti-Navy protesters, including some of the
top leaders of the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP), have
been camped out on the restricted area of the bombing range
since the end of April.
The deep outrage among working people in Puerto Rico over the U.S. military's trampling of Vieques, galvanized by the death of Sanes, marks a resurgence of nationalist sentiment that was evident last year in the widespread working-class support for the telephone workers strike. That battle, opposing the eventually successful efforts of the Puerto Rican government to sell the state-owned phone company to the U.S. company GTE, culminated in a general strike of half a million workers, July 7-8, 1998.
The protest was organized by the ad hoc coalition All Puerto Rico is with Vieques. The coalition was initiated by pro- independence forces, which have gained moral authority among Puerto Ricans well beyond their ranks because of their efforts at the forefront of this 50-year-long battle.
The public storm over Vieques sparked a crisis in the colonial government headed by Gov. Pedro Rosselló and his pro- statehood New Progressive Party (PNP). At this point it has become difficult for politicians from either of the two colonial parties - the PNP and the pro-Commonwealth Popular Democratic Party (PPD) - to take a public stance other than calling for the withdrawal of the U.S. Navy from Vieques.
A commission appointed by Rosselló in response to the controversy issued a report June 25 that calls for the U.S. Navy to leave Vieques. Rosselló adopted the conclusions of the commission, which was headed by Puerto Rican secretary of state Norma Burgos.
Seeking to head off deeper anger, capitalist politicians of all stripes decided to jump on the bandwagon and endorsed the July 4 demonstration in Ceiba, including Rosselló himself. PPD vice president Aníbal Acevedo attended, as did Democratic congressman Luis Gutiérrez from Chicago.
Caravan of fishermen
The heroes of the day, however, were the residents of
Vieques. Carlos "Prieto" Ventura, president of the Association
of Fishermen of the South, commanded a group of fishermen from
Vieques, who were joined by fishermen from all over Puerto
Rico. The caravan of 45 boats, with Puerto Rican and Vieques
flags of all sizes flapping in the wind, cruised through the
waters near the U.S. base at Roosevelt Roads and arrived in
formation at the Ceiba docks, where the fishermen were greeted
by dozens of supporters. They then marched into the crowd.
At the rally, Ismael Guadalupe, a well-known pro- independence activist in Vieques and spokesperson of the Committee for the Development and Rescue of Vieques, placed a basket of ammunition in front of a sign that read: "U.S. Navy Property - Authorized Personnel Only." The shells had been collected over the last several months in the restricted area of the target range.
Guadalupe declared, "We want to return to them what is theirs. With this, we are symbolically beginning the collection of bullets to indicate that the time has come for the Navy to leave Vieques."
Report details effects of Navy presence
The report of the governor's special commission on Vieques
confirms facts that residents of the island have been
explaining for years. Vieques has the highest mortality rate of
any municipality in Puerto Rico - 10.8 deaths per 1,000
residents compared to 7.7 for Puerto Rico as a whole. The
infant mortality rate in Vieques is 24.5 per 1,000 live births
versus 13.4 for the other 77 municipalities. Between 1985 and
1989, the cancer rate in Vieques was 26.9 percent higher than
the rest of Puerto Rico.
After earlier denials, U.S. officials recently admitted the Navy fired uranium-tipped shells in Vieques. They claimed it was "by mistake."
The commission report documents the fact that the U.S. Navy has not lived up to a 1983 agreement - signed by U.S. military officials during an earlier upsurge in protests over Vieques - that committed it to creating jobs. Vieques has an official poverty rate of 73.3 percent compared to 58.9 percent on the main island. Viequenses have finished high school at a rate of 35.4 percent and only 6.7 percent have graduated from college. The comparable figures for the rest of Puerto Rico are 49.7 and 14.3 percent, respectively.
Pro-independence, environmental, and other groups have said they will press for the withdrawal of U.S. military forces not only from Vieques but from all of Puerto Rico.
Ron Richards is a member of the American Federation of Government Employees in San Juan, Puerto Rico.