<nettime> Puerto Rican anti-US Navy action

["nettime's_roving_reporter" <nettime-l@bbs.thing.net>]

Protesters lock main gate into restricted Navy bombing area on Vieques

Ivan Roman
San Juan Bureau

Published in The Orlando Sentinel on Dec 7, 1999.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Angry protesters on Vieques locked the
main gate to the restricted U.S. Navy grounds and hundreds blocked the
gate Monday night to prevent military personnel from going in or out.

The protesters set up a campsite in front of the gate and placed a chain
and lock on it Friday evening, hours after President Clinton's decision
allowing the military to resume exercises on the island for another five
years. But it wasn't until Monday afternoon that U.S. marshals
approached the protesters and asked them to take off the chain.

The protesters refused.

"If you break that chain, you're going to do something that can provoke
a confrontation with the people here," Robert Rabin, a spokesman for
the Peace and Justice for Vieques Coalition, warned one marshal.

Protesters are trying to prevent military personnel and supplies from
entering or leaving Camp Garcia and will let through only people from
Vieques who work as security guards in the camp. This most recent
campsite was set up to complement 10 others already on beaches and
hills on the restricted Navy grounds in which activists, civic leaders and
politicians are camped out, using themselves as shields to prevent
bombing exercises from resuming.

After the initial conversation with the marshals about 3:30 p.m., word
spread quickly. By 6 p.m. almost 300 people were sitting in front of the
gate, with cars parked to block the entrance even more. Marshals were
seen consulting with Navy officials, who insist the gates be opened.

Hoping to avoid a confrontation, Justice Secretary Jose Fuentes
Agostini, Police Superintendent Pedro Toledo and top police brass flew
to Vieques to meet with protesters, but to no avail.

Several attempts to get reaction from the Navy were unsuccessful
Monday night.

The Puerto Rican government and political, religious and civic leaders
have been trying to get the Navy to stop bombing exercises permanently,
clean up and get out of the island/municipality since a wayward bomb
killed security guard David Sanes Rodriguez on April 19.

After months of hearings, Clinton announced Friday that he would
accept a Pentagon recommendation to end bombing on Vieques in five
years, but allow a reduced amount of bombing with inert bombs in the
interim.

Posted Dec 6 1999 8:20PM

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Puerto Ricans hope to boost independence
cause

December 6, 1999 8:51 PM EST

VIEQUES, Puerto Rico (AP) -- Camping out amid half-buried bombs and the
ruins of army tanks, one determined band of Puerto Ricans is aiming for more
than the expulsion of the U.S. Navy from Vieques island. Their goal is to
revive
the cause of Puerto Rican independence.

"This whole standoff with the Navy is part of something larger, we hope,'' said
Independence Party chief Ruben Berrios, who has gathered protesters in a
camp inside the Navy's Vieques bombing range, thwarting U.S. military
exercises.

The protests began in April when stray bombs killed civilian security guard
David Sanes on the range, which the Navy has used for combat training since
the 1940s.

Sanes' death ignited a smoldering resentment of the Navy, long perceived as
an arrogant neighbor by Vieques' 9,300 residents as well as many Puerto
 Ricans on the main island.

By leading a protest against the Navy, Berrios and other independence leaders
hope to parlay that resentment into support for their cause -- though many
fishermen, labor leaders and protesters don't support independence.

"We are trying to take advantage of the time and the circumstances,'' said the
white-bearded Berrios in an interview at the beachfront camp he runs with a
military discipline. ``The fact that we have held the most powerful Navy in the
world at bay for seven months has broken the feeling of impotence among
Puerto Ricans.''

Berrios, who is also a senator in the territory's legislature, argues that
that sense
of powerlessness is why many Puerto Ricans ignore nationalistic feelings when
they vote on the island's political status. Only 3 percent of voters supported
seeking independence in a December 1998 plebiscite.

 Several miles away from Berrios' camp, protesters from another group locked
the gates outside the Navy checkpoint that guards the bombing range. ``We
 now control who goes in and out of that gate,'' said activist Roberto Rabin,
adding that only civilian employees would be allowed to enter.

The U.S. Marshals Service sent officers to the island to convince them to
unlock the gates, said local director Herman Wirshing.

"`We are trying to avoid a confrontation,'' Wirshing said.

He would not say if marshals planned to remove the chains and lock. Puerto
Rican Police Superintendent Pedro Toledo said Monday night local police
would not remove the lock or interfere with protesters because the gate is on
federal land under the jurisdiction of U.S. officials.

Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory with limited local government. Its 4
million people
are U.S. citizens who can serve in the military, but they cannot vote for
president and have a nonvoting delegate in Congress. While they pay no U.S.
taxes, they receive $11 billion a year in federal aid.

``Independentistas'' consider this situation a colonial relic that the U.S.
Congress will eventually remove -- forcing Puerto Ricans to choose between
some form of independence and U.S. statehood.

And while statehood received almost half the vote in last year's plebiscite,
Berrios and others argue that the U.S. government would never accept a
Spanish-speaking 51st state.

With Vieques, independence activists have managed to forge a rare
consensus among advocates for statehood, commonwealth and
independence that the Navy must leave.

A newspaper poll last month showed that a vast majority of Puerto Ricans want
the bombing stopped permanently, and 56 percent support the demand that
the Navy leave Vieques altogether.

That consensus appears to have remained intact even with President Clinton's
offer on Friday to end live bombings on Vieques, use dummy bombs, reduce
the number of days of training and close the range in five years.

Gov. Pedro Rossello, a U.S. statehood advocate, quickly rejected the deal.
Rossello and other statehood supporters say the protesters are simply
asserting their rights as U.S. citizens. However, Rosello and others don't want
to link the protests to the debate over Puerto Rico's status.

The ``demilitarization'' of Puerto Rico has long been a goal of independence
activists, who say the United States held on for strategic reasons to the
territory, which it seized from Spain in 1898.

In the 1970s the huge Ramey Air Force base was closed. The Navy,
 meanwhile, stopped bombing runs on the island of Culebra after protests led
by Berrios and others. One U.S. Army base and three U.S. Navy bases remain
in the territory.

By Chris Hawley

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