The announcement came just days before the January 13 start of month-long maneuvers there involving the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt and its battle group. The latter includes nine ships, two submarines, fighter jets and 8,000 personnel.

"We are not surrendering or stopping our protests with the Navy’s announcement," said Guadalupe in a phone interview with the Militant on January 15. Three days earlier hundreds had marched in San Juan. On January 14 U.S. forces fired tear gas at demonstrators on Vieques.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Vernon Clark wrote in January to Navy Secretary Gordon England that such ongoing "civil unrest" was a key reason for the announcement. The "level of protests, attempted incursions, and isolated successful incursions generally remain high when Battle Group training occurs," he wrote.

Despite the "significant resources" allocated to "maintain range security and safety," lamented the admiral, "our sailors are continually subjected to an unsatisfactory environment in Puerto Rico. The support of the local police organization has been unable to provide the kind of safety we would demand at any other site in the United States. [The] Navy’s departure from Vieques will liberate us from this burden."

For many years officers of the Navy and Marine Corps have contended that Vieques had no satisfactory alternatives as a site for naval, air, and amphibious exercises. They did not mention its chief advantage to them--Puerto Rico’s status as a U.S. colony.

Now Navy Secretary England has certified as "equivalent or superior" a series of bombing ranges in Florida and elsewhere on the mainland United States.

Since World War II, Washington has occupied two-thirds of the small island off the eastern coast of Puerto Rico, using it for bombing and live-ammunition exercises. For nearly 60 years fishermen and other residents have protested the Navy’s presence and the environmental destruction it causes. Vieques has been used to prepare for U.S. military interventions from Grenada and Nicaragua to Yugoslavia and now Iraq--the probable destination of the Roosevelt.

The April 1999 killing of civilian security guard David Sanes by a 500-pound bomb--described as "errant" by the Navy--sparked an upsurge in which thousands took to the streets in Puerto Rico and several U.S. cities with large Puerto Rican communities. Following protests, the exercises were suspended. A deal between U.S. president William Clinton and Puerto Rican governor Pedro Rosselló to reopen the range sparked a demonstration of 80,000 people in San Juan in February 2000.  
 
Majority vote for end of Navy bombing
A big majority voted for immediate Navy withdrawal in a July 2001 nonbinding referendum organized by the Puerto Rican administration of Sila Calderón, whose declared opposition to the exercises help ensure her election.

On October 9, 2002, after complaints of ill health by 55 U.S. veterans, the Pentagon admitted to using chemical weapons on Vieques. Among other experiments, Washington had ordered jets to spray a chemical simulating nerve gas over land and water to assess the efficiency of chemical weapons and its soldiers’ response to them. It was recently revealed that a Navy destroyer sunk about 900 feet off the Vieques shore had been used as a target ship for nuclear tests in the Pacific.

Opponents of the live-fire practices are not letting down their guard in face of the withdrawal statements. "The Navy has lied to this town so many times over the years, nobody believes them," Nilda Medina told the Washington Post, speaking from one of the protest camps set up in front of the Navy’s Camp Garcia military reservation.

While U.S. military officials have stated that the maneuvers begun in January 13 will be the last, a spokesperson for the Atlantic Fleet left open the option for another round before May. "We prefer not to talk about future movements of our ships and the placement of our forces," he said.

Reaffirming the colonial status of Puerto Rico in the eyes of the U.S. government and military brass, the Pentagon has announced that it will turn over the eastern third of the island to the U.S. Department of the Interior for use as a wildlife refuge.

Stating that "without Vieques, there is no way I need the Navy facilities at Roosevelt Roads," Adm. Robert Natter, commander of the Atlantic Fleet, implied that the end of military maneuvers would be a staggering blow to the Puerto Rican economy. The naval station on the Puerto Rican mainland is the largest employer in Puerto Rico with a workforce of 4,800 employees. It is home to the commander of the U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command, a Navy hospital, and other facilities.

Ismael Guadalupe said that while the ending of Navy training would be a victory, "if they shut down Roosevelt Roads that would be the big prize. We will not die of hunger, or lose our arms and legs and ability to work. The Roosevelt Roads area would make an excellent port for use in our economic development."

Meanwhile, opponents of the continued U.S. presence have continued their protests against the current military exercises. On January 14 three individuals were detained for entering Navy grounds, bringing to eight the number arrested since the Navy training began the day before. Up to 1,500 protesters have been arrested for "trespassing" and other charges in three-and-a-half years of heightened protests.

Protesters emphasize that the termination of the war games will not resolve the issues of sovereignty and development on the island. "We will continue our protests: caravans with horses, marches, civil disobedience," said Guadalupe. "The Navy has not responded to our principal demands. Are the people no longer going to get sick after the exercises end? There is still contamination. We will win the war when we get back our land, the Navy has paid to clean it up, and there is no more Navy repression."  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home