Vol.64/No.17 May 1, 2000
Actions: 'U.S. Navy out of Vieques'
BY RON RICHARDS
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico--A number of events were held here on April 19 to demand that the Navy leave Vieques and to mark the first anniversary of the death of David Sanes by an errant Navy bomb.
"We have suffered contamination, humiliation, mistreatment, violations, forced emigration and hundreds of persons have died of cancer," said Myrta Sanes, sister of the slain security guard. "We can say that since this moment we have lived in a war. Today we say no more!" Sanes spoke to about 100 people who were in the civil disobedience camps in the restricted area of eastern Vieques. She and the others then marched a mile and half from the beach up the mountain to OP1 where her brother was killed.
Eighteen opponents of the Navy entered the historic fortress of El Morro in San Juan the previous afternoon and refused to leave when the Park Service closed the facility for the night. They unfurled banners, lowered the U.S. flag, and spoke with the news media by radio. After spending the night, they voluntarily left the next morning and had a press conference to denounce the Navy.
BY PETE SEIDMAN
WASHINGTON--Waving Puerto Rican flags and colorful banners, more than 600 people chanted, "The Navy is the Criminal! We have to get them out!" at a spirited picket line in front of the White House April 19.
Built as a national day of solidarity with the people of Vieques, Puerto Rico, the action demanded, "Not one more bomb in Vieques." The action also expressed solidarity with the "human shield encampments" put up by activists in Vieques who have blocked the Navy from using its firing ranges there for a year since civilian security guard David Sanes was killed after a U.S. Navy F-18 warplane dropped a 500-pound bomb. Protesters arrived on buses and cars from Chicago; Cleveland; Philadelphia; New York; Newark, New Jersey; Orlando, Florida; and other cities.
The first speaker at the rally was Alicia Rodríguez, one of the 11 Puerto Rican political prisoners released last September after having been imprisoned on frame-up charges for more than 19 years. Rodríguez noted that the rally marked "one year of peace on Vieques, a year of silence without bombs," following Sanes's death. She reaffirmed the solidarity of all the Puerto Rican political prisoners with the just demands of the people of Vieques for the U.S. Navy to stop its bombing. She saluted the people of Vieques "for nourishing the consciousness of Puerto Rico with their solidarity."
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