139 thoughts on “VIEQUES: The People or the Navy?”
Berríos en Vieques
Berríos: Teoria desalojo mas peligrosa
que confrontacion
Berríos dice teoría desalojo es más peligrosa que el confrontamiento jueves, 6 de abril de 2000
Por José Fernández Colón
DE LA AGENCIA EFE
Ponce (EFE) – El presidente del Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño (PIP)
y su candidato a la gobernación, Rubén Berríos Martínez, opinó que la teoría
del desalojo inminente de los desobedientes civiles en la zona de tiro en Vieques es más peligrosa que la ejecución de los arrestos.
Berríos Martínez inició el pasado 8 de mayo su acto de resistencia pacífica
en la zona de tiro de la Marina de Guerra de EEUU en Vieques, luego que los
bombardeos fueran detenidos el 19 de abril tras el accidente que le costó la
vida al guardia civil David Sanes por error de un piloto.
“Creo que la teoría esa del desaolojo sin arrestos es más peligrosa y
confrontacional, tanto para el Presidente de los Estados Unidos como para el Gobernador de Puerto Rico´´, expresó Berríos Martínez en una entrevista por una radioemisora (WPAB) de Ponce.
El veterano dirigente independentista dijo que si es desalojado al igual que
a los demás desobedientes en los otros campamentos “y nos llevan a la isla
grande y nos sueltan van a regresar a Vieques´´.
“Vamos a regresar a Vieques si nos desalojan, pero en los términos nuestros
no tendrán que arrestar a un par de personas, sino que tendrán que arrestar
cientos o miles de personas que vamos a regresar cuando estimos pertinente,
con la presencia de la prensa internacional, norteamericana y puertorriqueña y entonces eso si le presenta un problema político grande a Clinton y al gobernador Rosselló´´, declaró.
Le advirtió a Rosselló que la participación de la Policía en los potenciales arrestos le hará perder adeptos a la ideología anexionista y a su Partido Nuevo Progresista (PNP).
De igual manera, el ex senador dijo que cada día que pasa, en un periodo
eleccionario como el que se avecina, tanto en Puerto Rico como en Estados
Unidos, se hace más difícil de creer que Vieques es necesario para la llamada
“defensa nacional´´.
“Si el Gobernador se cree que utilizando la Policía para ayudar a los federales a arrestar a los que estamos en desobediencia civil ayuda a las
posibilidades electorales el próximo noviembre de su ideología, está viviendo
en otro mundo´´, sostuvo.
Mientras más transcura el tiempo sin que haya pruebas militares, más difícil
será para la Marina prevalecer en este caso porque su argumento básico de que
Vieques es indispensable para la “defensa nacional´´ de Estados Unidos es
“menos creíble´´.
cuando van los arrestos?
Abortado el desalojo por falta de un acuerdo miércoles, 5 de abril de 2000
Por Nilka Estrada Resto
El Nuevo Día
DISCREPANCIAS entre el gobierno estatal y el gobierno federal en cuanto al desalojo de los desobedientes civiles en Vieques hicieron abortar un operativo federal para remover a los manifestantes frente al Campamento García, entre la noche del lunes y la madrugada del pasado martes.
Fuentes bien enteradas dentro del gobierno indicaron a El Nuevo Día
que el gobernador interino, Angel Morey, desautorizó el lunes la participación de la Policía de Puerto Rico en el operativo por un conjunto
de varios factores, entre ellos la preocupación por la participación que le asignaron los federales a la Policía en el plan de desalojo y que los estatales no fueron consultados en la preparación del mencionado operativo.
Las fuentes indicaron también que el gobierno de Puerto Rico prefiere que el operativo de desalojo se extienda a todos los campamentos de desobediencia civil en las playas de Vieques y no sólo al Campamento García “para no pasar por el trago amargo dos veces”.
“Morey se trancó”
El plan fue discutido el pasado lunes con Morey, oficiales de la Marina, el jefe de los alguaciles, Herman Wirshing, y el jefe de la Policía, Pedro
Toledo.
“Morey se trancó. Les dijo háganlo solos, sin la cooperación de la
Policía”, indican las fuentes.
Morey dijo ayer que no podía confirmar la reunión e indicó que tampoco podía contestar preguntas en torno a cuestiones estratégicas. Pero
reiteró su llamado a los desobedientes para que abandonen las zonas
restringidas voluntariamente para así poder cumplir las directrices
presidenciales pre acordadas con el gobernador Pedro Rosselló. En cuanto a
haber desautorizado la participación de la Policía, dijo que eso es
“especulativo”.
De acuerdo con las fuentes de El Nuevo Día, entre la noche del lunes y la madrugada del martes la Marina y los alguaciles federales se proponían mover -y no arrestar- al puñado de manifestantes que pernocta a
la entrada de Camp García hasta la carretera estatal y en ese punto se ocuparían de ellos la Policía Estatal, a la que también le tocaría establecer un perímetro de seguridad, que incluía bloquear los accesos por carretera para evitar la llegada de refuerzos.
La Policía tendría que mantener a raya a los manifestantes al menos por cuatro horas, mientras efectivos de la Marina instalaban una nueva verja en el límite entre la carretera estatal y el terreno federal, según las fuentes, que añaden que la Marina sostiene que necesita despejar el portón porque los manifestantes entorpecen la entrada y salida de vehículos.
Temen acto de violencia
(POR PARTE DE QUIEN???? –DBS)
En la reunión del lunes y siempre de acuerdo con el informante, Toledo
presentó la preocupación que a su vez le han expresado los oficiales de la
Policía que cubren Vieques: que los desobedientes civiles tienen una red
de comunicación suficientemente eficiente como llevar cientos, y quizás
hasta mil personas, en cuestión de una hora, al terreno estatal cerca de
Camp García, jurisdicción donde la Marina no intervendría. Según fuentes,
esto preocupó a Morey porque no quería que las autoridades quedaran mal
ante dicha movilización y que se desatara algún acto de violencia en los
terrenos que iban a ser custodiados por la Policía.
El plan fue informado el pasado viernes por oficiales navales al comandante de área de Fajardo, José Caldero, obviando a Toledo, a Morey y posiblemente al Gobernador, según las fuentes. Agregan que Morey y el Gobernador entendían que los planes de desalojo, sin los cuales no se puede llevar a cabo el acuerdo Clinton-Rosselló, serían discutidos
previamente entre los gobiernos estatal y federal, pero en vez de eso les
comunicaron un plan ya establecido.
Morey, aunque dijo que los informes del operativo del pasado lunes son puras especulaciones, indicó ayer que “cuando se vaya a hacer (la remoción de los manifestantes) va a haber un acuerdo de cómo proceder. No hay ese acuerdo”. Afirmó que se “se trabajará en conjunto” y agregó que “será una acción integrada, siguiendo las directrices presidenciales… Cuando se haga será una acción estructurada”.
A eso de las 7:00 p.m. ya se había cancelado el operativo en Vieques, según las fuentes del gobierno. El pasado martes se celebró otra reunión entre Toledo y Wirshing y en ésta se acordó aplazar el operativo hasta nuevo aviso.
What are we going to do when the arrests start?
What are we going to do when the arrests start?
No arrests, just removal
My understanding is that the U.S. and Rosello will basically order the removal of the protesters–and try as much as possible not to arrest anyone. Having been in PR recently it’s kind of eery to see a lot of business as usual with this impending confrontation. My guess is they’ll do it during holy week while people are distracted. Although this can also backfire. But my guess is that the government (the U.S. and the Rosello administration) expect that people will be distracted and not pay much attention to Vieques.
New Course In U.S.-Puerto Rico Relations
Guest column in Politico Magazine
Vieques Movement Charts New Course In U.S.-Puerto Rico Relations
By Victor M. Rodriguez Dominguez
Over the last century the island of Vieques has represented U.S. colonial
policy at its crudest. As part of the Puerto Rican archipelago, Vieques is
an emblem of both the struggle for democracy in Puerto Rico and the
contradictions of U.S.-Puerto Rico relations.
The death of Viequense David Sanes Rodriguez, a civilian base employee
killed by an errant bomb dropped by a Navy jet last year, has againmbrought Puerto Rico’s colonial profile into sharp relief.
But Vieques has long been at the center of the perennially elusive aspirations of Puerto Ricans for true self-government.
During the late 1950s, the Navy, in a process they disingenuously referred
to as “real estate negotiations,” demanded that the entire population of
Vieques be transferred to the “Big Island.” This transfer would even have
included Vieques’ cemeteries.
Author Ronald Fernandez in “The Disenchanted Island” quotes a letter from then Puerto Rico Gov. Luis Muñoz Marin to President Kennedy on December
28, 1961. The governor wrote that he did not support expelling the residents of Vieques “….unless it is not merely desirable, but clearly critically and urgently necessary for the military defense of the Nation (sic).”
Such exchanges have fed into the mentality that Puerto Rico is of
strategic military importance to the United States, whether Puerto Ricans
want it that way or not.
Vieques has fought for decades to bring attention to its plight, but it was often ignored by Puerto Rican citizens on the main island. Most recently, Gov. Pedro Rossello signed an agreement with President Clinton that provides no immediate relief from Navy bombing exercises, which have terrorized Viequenses for decades.
In making the agreement, Rossello ignored the overwhelming opposition to
the Navy’s presence by diverse political forces in Puerto Rico. The Clinton-Rossello plan even defied the Puerto Rican government’s own stated policy.
The agreement provides for the Viequenses to participate in a referendum on whether they want the Navy to continue the bombings, but the bombings would still continue for at least three years. Clinton has also promised more than $90 million in cash aid to Vieques, $50 of which are contingent on a Viequense vote to let
the Navy stay. Worse yet, the referendum does not allow voters the option of demanding an immediate and permanent end to the bombing. Plus, the Navy gets to decide when it will hold the referendum.
In the meantime, bombings are scheduled to continue with so called inert or “dummy” bombs on a reduced basis-90 days a year-for at least the next three years.
For many islanders, Vieques has become a symbol of what is wrong with U.S.-Puerto Rico relations. The fate of “La Isla Nena” (the Island Girl), as Vieques is known, and the grassroots movement supporting its residents will likely impact the 500-year-long struggle to achieve a greater degree of self-government. But the course might take some unexpected twists given that the participants represent a coalition of forces never before seen in the island’s political history.
In February, the coalition organized what many regarded as the largest
mass political demonstration in Puerto Rico’s history. Estimates of the throng ranged from 85,000 to 150,000 and the march was widely covered by the U.S. and international press. Their cause has fanned the flames of nationalist fervor.
Initially, the pro-statehood forces were caught up in the fervor of the movement to kick the Navy out of Vieques. But now they find themselves puzzled and confused. Is the Vieques movement against the U.S.? If it is, will it affect their aspirations for statehood? Or will Puerto Rico be viewed as a bastion of anti-Americanism?
Flavio Cumpiano, a Washington D.C. spokesman for the Vieques movement,
says “We cannot equate the struggle for Vieques with the pro-independence
struggle or the struggle for increased self- government”-especially since
this is an election year in Puerto Rico, which means everything there is
politicized.
As such, the interests of the big island’s politics threaten to overwhelm
what is, at its core, an issue of justice and morality. Don’t the
Viequenses deserve to live in peace? The statehooders seem to have said,
yes, but only if it does not challenge the Navy’s right to continue bombing the island for at least a while longer.
Most of the major milestones in U.S. policy toward Puerto Rico have not
come as a result of Puerto Rican volition. In 1917, for example, the U.S.
imposed U.S. citizenship on Puerto Ricans over the objections of the
Puerto Rican legislature. In 1952, the U.S. “allowed” Puerto Ricans to draft their own constitution as a reaction to Cold War politics and to burnish the tarnish that having a colonial possession gives to the image of the “Land of the Free.”
Given that historical legacy, the real significance of the Vieques movement is that for the first time Puerto Ricans are making their own history. This time, Puerto Ricans were calling the shots and the White House and Congress were listening-at least until Gov. Rossello broke ranks with the Puerto Rican people.
In the past 12 months, Puerto Ricans have flexed their political muscles,
and they like how it feels. Never before has the Navy faced such stubborn
resistance in the 102-year U.S. occupation of Puerto Rico.
If the coalition holds beyond the local November elections, it will symbolize a major shift in U.S-Puerto Rico relations. Whether the Navy is forced to leave or not, nothing can erase the sense of empowerment the Vieques movement has created. And the event will have opened a new path to ending Puerto Rico’s perennial colonial subjugation.
Rodriguez is a sociology professor at Concordia University in Irvine,
California
United by Their Love Towards Vieques
United by Their Love Towards Vieques
April 12, 2000
by Camile Roldan Soto
El Nuevo Dia
She will be dressed in a simple white dress on Saturday, her head adorned
with a crown, and accompanied by her groom they will board a boat which
will take her to La Yayi cay (Cayo YayÌ), in Vieques, where they swear to
love each other for the rest of their lives around their family and civil
disobedients.
With their union in prohibited territory by the United States Navy, Zoe Lugo Mendoza y Regalado Miro decide to make history and formalize their engagement with the struggle that united them: the demilitarization of Nena island.
“I proposed and she quickly accepted,” says Regalado, who also had the idea of having the wedding coincide with the anniversary of cessation of bombing in Vieques.
Zoe said that it was in New York, participating in activities trying to
bring forth consciousness of what was happening on the island, that she fell in love with the young man from Vieques.
The vieques sky as a roof
But it shall be underneath the sun in Vieques that they will continue to fight for the Navy to retreat.
It has been two months since they abandoned their jobs in the Big Apple to
be in Vieques, where they sleep, many times, in the restricted areas.
“Right now, we are unemployed, but we feel that this our duty as Puerto Ricans,” Regalado says, while his fiancé maintains that they will be in civil disobedience “until the Navy gets out.”
The honeymoon will be in La Yayi cay which will be adorned with gold and
white bows and balloons. Eric Diaz, the pastor, will perform the ceremony midday, and the party will be at Yayi afterwards.
Support for Vieques from Loisaida
Neoyorquinos rumbo a Vieques
sábado, 8 de abril de 2000
Por El Nuevo Día
LA CONCEJAL de Nueva York Margarita López llegó ayer tarde a Puerto Rico acompañada por 80 constituyentes de su distrito en el Bajo Manhattan para visitar hoy la isla de Vieques.
López, junto a los concejales Víctor Robles y José Rivera, sometieron una propuesta para declarar la isla de Vieques ‘ciudad hermana’, del sector del Bajo Manhattan, conocido como ‘Loisaida’, con el propósito de traer recursos económicos y aumentar la atención de los ciudadanos de Nueva York hacia la causa viequense contra la Marina de Estados Unidos.
“Nuestra delegación no viene como turistas, sino como activistas dispuestos a participar en acciones de desobediencia civil para ratificar su deseo de que la Marina salga de Vieques”, dijo López.
“Con su presencia en Vieques, los neoyorquinos que nos acompañan -todos norteamericanos- quieren expresar su desacuerdo con la política del Pentágono. Ellos, al igual que nosotros, consideramos como un abuso, como una falta de consideración con el pueblo de Vieques, las continuas prácticas militares en esa región”.
LA DELEGACION pernoctó en la Iglesia de Cristo Sanador en Santurce y partiría hacia Vieques temprano hoy. Allí visitarán los diversos campamentos de reistencia y participarán en actividades de solidaridad con Vieques. El lunes regresarán a Nueva York.
Depleted uranium related illness in Iraq.
I received a link to a links page favoring the lifting of sanctions on Iraq. I do not insinuate that a supporter of the the struggle in Vieques is in any way in agreement with this cause. But I think there is an area in which the Vieques struggle can gain information from those interested in lifting the sanctions. That is the fact that there has been considerable evidence of cancer due to the use of depleted uranium shells in the war. Check out the site at http://www.concentric.net/~Toria/
Free Vieques
“Borinqueno is a state of REVOLUTION.”
– T.C. Garcia
Once we remove the U.S. military from Vieques we must remove them from all of Puerto Rico, and then remove the U.S. government completely… and then remove all the trash they left behind… including our colonized minds…
Cancelacion de maniobras es triunfo
Martin: “Cancelación de ejercicios es un triunfo de Borinquen ”
jueves, 13 de abril de 2000
POR LA AGENCIA EFE
San Juan (EFE) – El vicepresidente del Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño
(PIP), Fernando Martin, estimó hoy que es un triunfo para Puerto Rico la cancelación de los ejercicios en la isla municipio de Vieques por parte de la
Marina de Guerra de Estados Unidos.
“Es un triunfo para Puerto Rico y una reivindicación para quienes se encuentran en desobediencia civil en Vieques´´, dijo Martin, quien opinó que
esta determinación es el anticipo de la posibilidad de que el presidente Bill
Clinton se vea obligado a reconsiderar las directrices.
Además, Martin comentó que “si en el período que va hasta el 31 de mayo no se
producen los arrestos la Marina se verá maniatada porque no habrá la voluntad
para reiniciar los bombardeos´´.
Sobre las opiniones del Gobernador en relación a que los arrestos no están
ligados a las prácticas militares, el dirigente admitió que “en el sentido
estricto lógico sí, pero sería un precio absurdo para una confrontación que no tendría el beneficio del área de tiro para la Marina´´.
A su vez, señaló que el argumento de que Vieques es indispensable para la Marina “se cae por su propio peso y ahora ellos tienen un método alterno que le es técnicamente satisfactorio. El argumento de que la isla Nena era indispensable resulta fraudulento´´.
RE: No arrests, just removal
I believe it would have a serious backlash effect were the government to attempt to remove demonstrators during Holy Week. Given Puerto Rican’s religious convictions, I believe it would be viewed as sacrilegious to conduct such an operation during this Holiest of times.
Kennedy se suma a la causa de Vieques
Kennedy se suma a la causa
miércoles, 19 de abril de 2000
Por Randy Nieves Ruiz
Agencia EFE
EL ABOGADO ambientalista Robert Kennedy, Jr. visitó el martes los campamentos
de desobediencia civil en Vieques, y buceó en la costa sur de la isla, donde
pudo observar una barcaza hundida con contenedores de alguna sustancia tóxica.
Kennedy afirmó que lo que vio en la zona de tiro de la Marina de Guerra de EE.UU. en Vieques fue la “destrucción ecológica”, y se comprometió a examinar
el caso para buscar algún remedio judicial.
“Sería un gran error que la Marina comience los bombardeos”, aseguró Kennedy antes de abandonar la zona, donde buceó por unos 25 minutos frente a la Roca Alcatraz, ubicada frente a la playa Gilberto Concepción de Gracia.
Además, visitó en el camión militar que los manifestantes restauraron, algunos campamentos y las lagunas muertas en la zona sembradas de balas, misiles, bombas y escombros.
Explicó que aunque por muchos años la Marina pudo argumentar que no sabía la
magnitud de la destrucción que ha ocasionado en Vieques, ahora todo se sabe.
“EL COSTO que la Marina le impone a esta comunidad es catastrófico”, sentenció el prominente abogado miembro del clan Kennedy, vinculado al Partido Demócrata estadounidense. “Claramente es un problema moral”, agregó en referencia al argumento de que el asunto de Vieques es de índole de seguridad nacional.
Aunque no especificó cómo ayudaría a la causa, apuntó que “usaremos todas las
herramientas legales” para paralizar los bombardeos. Kennedy es un exitoso
profesional que ha ganado litigios importantes contra industrias que
contaminan el ambiente. Aclaró que las maniobras de la Armada en la Isla Nena
“son ilegales, están violando las leyes”.
El estadounidense se reunió también con el candidato a la gobernación por el
Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño (PIP), Rubén Berríos, quien se mostró
optimista con su trabajo y aseguró que “cualquier tipo de acción, la gente de
él se pondrá en contacto con la de nosotros.
A principios de la década de 1990, Kennedy reclutó a Rivera para que le
ayudara en su lucha en defensa de las aguas del Río Hudson en Nueva York.
“Ahora es Rivera quien recluta a Kennedy para defender las aguas de Vieques”,
aseguró Rodríguez.
La visita de Kennedy se produjo un día antes del primer aniversario de la muerte del guardia civil David Sanes durante las prácticas militares de la
Marina en Vieques.
ESTE ACCIDENTE mortal provocado por un disparo errático de un piloto de la
Marina el 19 de abril de 1999, en la zona de tiro del Campamento García en
Vieques, incrementó la lucha contra el militarismo en el país lidereada durante décadas por los pescadores viequenses de diferentes ideologías y los inpendentistas.
A Year Of Peace, A Year Of Struggle
A Year Of Peace, A Year Of Struggle
by Fernando Reals Restrepo Molinary
Vieques Support Campaign/Todo NY Con Vieques
Monte David Solidarity and Camp Peace and Justice
Its April 21st, 2000 and as I awoke this morning, a Good Friday, the saddest day in the Christian calendar, I felt a bittersweet mixture of peace and sadness that has overcome my soul and so I weep and I write. Warm inside of my Binghamton apartment I have just finished reading the letter from compañero Robert Rabin down in Vieques about the activities on April 19th in La Isla Nena. As I read his words it sinks in: We have done it; we have brought peace for a year to a small island and perhaps the world with our will to struggle -our will to love.
On Wednesday the 19th, I joined my friends and compañer@s of the Vieques Support Campaign in New York City as we rallied and defied police wishes that we would just shut-up, in an effort to remind the motorists driving up the West Side Highway, in the shadow of the U.S.S. Intrepid, that Vieques must be free of her arrogant invador-the U.S. Navy. Carlito Rovira, now with a megaphone, has not shut up since the ‘60’s, when he walked through the streets of El Barrio with the Young Lords Party, yelling “Despierta Boricua, defiende lo tuyo.”
The bitterness of being a Nuyorican, a proud-rican born in the cold air of a November afternoon… Forget the wrong side of the tracks, I was born on the wrong side of the ocean… becomes intensified as I find myself waving a Puerto Rican flag on the street in Nueva York, reminding motorists, who might be misplaced Puerto Ricans as well, to fight for a Navy-less Vieques. Frankie Velgarra and Carlito have been fighting for a Gringo-less Puerto Rico for years; why are we still yelling on the street, with some pudgy-faced, white cops laughing at our efforts?
The sweetness of the same situation comes from the lips of one Doña Vera. Though she is pushing a century in the eyes of this young man, she is kicking out the navy from her island with every breath expelled… every word pushed into the air… with every “U.S. Navy, Out of Vieques!” spoken in the foreign language of the gringo, so that they may understand. Saulo, Ben, Rosalyn, Chris, Jane, the sisters from the island, the wepa white folks, and I are part of a movement. We are all from different walks in life, generations and experiences apart, but we stand in solidarity with our sister and brothers throughout the diaspora, and especially in Vieques.
Today is April 21st and I am proud to be part of the Monte David community at the rescued zone in Vieques, Puerto Rico. As I write these words/thoughts, I remember that it was a year ago tonight that the Zenon family, with its generations, and Tito Kayak took their position in the Grito de Vieques, and erected the white cross that has stood since and signifies peace. This resistance camp, the first of its kind, lent a terrific example to be duplicated by several groups in solidarity with the movement to stop the bombing in Vieques and end U.S. Imperialism. With the establishment of Camp Yayi, Los Maestros, Los Sindicatos, Los Christianos, Las Ruinas, Hostosianos, Pipiolos, Todo Puertoriqueños, Mapepe, and also Campamento Peace and Jutice, we truly have something to rejoice in this April. Let us continue to struggle so that not one more bomb, not one more bullet be fired in Vieques. Amen.
contact Robert Rabin to make contributions to Camp Peace and Justice at bieke@coqui.net
RFK Jr. Joins Puerto Rican Causes
RFK Jr. Joins Puerto Rican Causes
By RICARDO ZUNIGA, Associated Press
VIEQUES, Puerto Rico (AP) Environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Monday he would sue the Navy for allegedly polluting Vieques island, as he joined the Puerto Rican campaign to shut down a Navy bombing range on the
island.
Kennedy, a senior counsel for the New York-based Natural Resources Defense
Council, accused the Navy of breaking environmental laws in a way it never
would on the mainland.
“I don’t believe that the Navy could behave the way it has been behaving
in Vieques in any of the other 50 states. There would be a revolution,
Kennedy told reporters.
A Navy spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.
Vieques has a wealth of bird and sea life, including sea turtles, manatees, whales and endangered peregrine falcons.
Puerto Rican protesters are preparing vigils to mark the year anniversary
on April 19 of the death of a civilian guard killed by an errant Marine bomb within the Vieques range – one the sparks of popular protests against
the base.
President Clinton has negotiated a deal for the Navy to resume exercises but with only inert bombs until the people of Vieques cane decide in a referendum whether they want the base removed.
Despite the agreement, some protesters are refusing to budge, saying they will not tolerate any more exercises.
¡No a la invasión norteamericana!
¡Atención, atención, atención! Nos estamos dirigiendo a todos ustedes,
porque Puerto Rico, una vez más, está a la puerta de una nueva invasión
simbólica y real por parte del ejército de los Estados Unidos de Norteamérica. Creo que ha llegado el momento de plantearse nuevamente la posibilidad de organizar una Nueva Huelga Nacional que agrupe a todos los sectores progresistas de nuestro país frente a las fuerzas norteamericanas y que atraiga toda la atención internacional que necesitamos en estos momentos. Creo también que hay que pensar en solicitar el apoyo de las organizaciones de todos los trabajadores del país, de los maestros puertorriqueños, de los estudiantes universitarios, de los profesores universitarios, de la Iglesia Protestante y de la Iglesia Católica.
Ha llegado la hora de prepararnos para llenar las cárceles puertorriqueñas
con militantes, de preparar un “staff” de abogados que puedan sacar a los
Libertarios de la desobediencia civil inmediatamente que éstos caigan presos
y de preparar, si no se ha preparado ya, un grupo voluntario de enfermeras y
doctores que estén dispuestos a curar a las personas que puedan surgir heridas de ese intento norteamericano de reanudar el bombardeo contra la isla
de Vieques. Cada compañero que posea un computadora debe reproducir estos
acontecimientos, desde hoy, durante, y mientras dure la nueva invasión
norteamericana, para todos los amigos de la solidaridad internacional pero,
sobre todo, para los periódicos latinoamericanos. Ha llegado la hora de
invertir la información y de arrebatársela a esa cubanidad antipuertorriqueña del exilio. Nos urge reorganizar las listas de correo de Internet para notificar al mundo de todo lo que pase en Puerto Rico, para que los grupos solidarios, revolucionarios y antinorteamericanos nos apoyen. Es por eso, que estamos pidiendo, a través de estos medios, a los grupos de apoyo que
utilicen también sus listas de correo para reproducir los acontecimientos de
esta emergencia que se cierne sobre suelo puertorriqueños. Estamos pidiendo
la solidaridad de aquellos países (México, Cuba, Haití, Granada, Colombia,
República Dominicana, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Panamá, Irak, Serbia, Japón,
VietNam, Corea, etc.) que de forma directa, o indirecta, hayan sufrido la
intervención imperial de las fuerzas armadas yanquis. Si logramos romper la
frivolidad de la “red” a través de este apoyo inmediato a Puerto Rico,
verdaderamente nos estaremos preparando para establecer golpes informativos y
políticos a ese mito de la globalización que Estados Unidos trafica cínicamente contra los países latinoamericanos. Los amigos, las asociaciones y los grupos políticos que reciban este “email” no debe olvidar que en Puerto Rico, en la isla de Vieques, se ensayan todas las técnicas militares y todas las estrategias que luego se usarán y debutarán, con el apoyo de “sus”-oligarq
uías-demokráticas en los países de ustedes. Detener hoy a los Estados Unidos, denunciar internacionalmente a los yanquis en Puerto Rico, es una postura moral que nos resulta ineludible porque, sobre todas las cosas, establecerá un precedente latinoamericano. Defender hoy a Puerto Rico implicará defender mañana a Colombia, a México, a Perú, de una posible intervención militar norteamericana. El conflicto político-económico en su globalización es tal
que lo que hagamos hoy nos servirá para defendernos mañana. ¡No se desmoralice nadie! ¡No nihilice nadie! Si hay alguna democratización en estos momentos, esa somos nosotros, porque “nuestros” parlamentos y “nuestras” legislaturas han dejado de existir. ¡Dile no a las “demokracias” de la traición!
Serrano
Congressman Jose E. Serrano
NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ROSALINDA DEJESUS
April 25, 2000
SERRANO SENDS LETTER TO CLINTON REGARDING VIEQUES
Washington, D.C., April 25
Congressman Jose E. Serrano (D-NY) today sent a letter to President Bill Clinton urging him to act immediately to end the
Navy’s presence on Vieques and to suspend any efforts to remove the peaceful protestors from Navy property.
Serrano’s letter comes after Federal officials announced that they are
planning to remove, by force if necessary, dozens of Puerto Rican protestors on Vieques. Protestors have been on the island since a civilian, David Sanes Rodriguez, was accidentally killed last April during training exercises there.
Text of the April 25 letter follows:
The Honorable William J. Clinton
President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20500-0005
Dear Mr. President:
Recent press accounts indicate that we are facing another decisive
moment in the often rocky relationship between the United States and Puerto
Rico, a moment in which I hope you will exercise the intelligent and independent leadership which has characterized your Presidency. For too long, the history of this relationship has been driven by events extraneous to the core issue of tension: the ambivalent political status of the island vis-a-vis the United States. I fear that proceeding with plans resulting from recent negotiations between the government of Puerto Rico and the Navy will postpone but not resolve problems arising from this core tension.
It is therefore my hope that you will act immediately to end the
presence of the Navy in Vieques. Though, of course, I am fully aware of the recent directive providing for a gradual transition, I write in the hope
that you will act now to proceed to the ultimate objective of the agreement
– the orderly end to an unfortunate Naval presence in Vieques.
Most immediately, I request that you suspend any efforts to remove the peaceful protestors from Navy property. They are exercising their right of political expression in a non-violent way, endangering nobody.
With warm best wishes, I am
Sincerely,
Jose E. Serrano
Member of Congress
Navy delays departures of two ships
April 26, 2000
Navy delays the departures of two ships for Vieques
NORFOLK – A strong Atlantic storm, apparently combined with uncertain
political and bureaucratic currents, has postponed the sailing of two Norfolk-based amphibious ships that were set to head for the disputed Navy bombing range on Vieques Island, Puerto Rico.
The assault ship Bataan and transport dock Nashville remained in port Tuesday, awaiting word from Washington on whether they will sail for Vieques to support a possible federal eviction of protesters who have blocked the use of a Navy bombing range there for more than a year.
Crews of both ships were told earlier in the week to be ready to take Marines and their equipment to Puerto Rico in support of federal law enforcement authorities who would remove the several dozen protesters.
The ships originally were scheduled to sail at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday. That departure time was rescheduled for 10 a.m. because of a nor’easter off the
Virginia and North Carolina coasts, one Navy officer said.
A decision was made later to keep the ships in port for at least the rest
of the day, and defense officials said it is unclear when they might be
dispatched.
Politics might have played a part in the delay, one defense source said.
Justice Department officials met with senators Tuesday to defend the armed
seizure by federal immigration agents of 6-year-old Cuban refugee Elian Gonzalez in a pre-dawn Miami raid on Saturday.
The inquiry and anger the Miami raid created among Cuban-American voters
could postpone any operation in Vieques, the defense source said.
Other officials suggested that tensions between the military and law enforcement agencies may also have been a factor in the delay.
One senior defense official said military and law enforcement planners
appeared to be working largely in isolation from each other and that at
least some uniformed leaders were uncomfortable with what they saw as gaps
in the plan to clear the range.
Yet another official said that news reports Monday night and Tuesday
morning about the impending operation helped keep the ships in port. The
official said that the military and Justice Department don’t want additional protesters to be drawn to Vieques by reports that an eviction is imminent.
At one point last year, Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Rossello warned lawmakers that any attempt to clear the range would trigger the movement of thousands of Puerto Ricans to replace anyone arrested. Rossello has since agreed to a plan to reopen the range to inert bombs and shells, but defense officials remain wary of a mushrooming protest movement.
Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon declined to discuss the issue with
reporters Tuesday, saying he would not talk about any operational plans.
The plan being considered would involve federal marshals as well as FBI agents. Marines aboard ships off the coast would provide perimeter security once the range was cleared.
The range has been closed since an accident on April 19, 1999, in which a
Puerto Rican civilian security guard was killed by bombs from a Marine jet.
Demonstrators who began camping on the range shortly after the accident
claim the bombing has crippled Vieques’ environment and economy.
The Navy says Vieques is the only place in the Atlantic where its forces can “train as we fight,” practicing live bombing, shelling, submarine maneuvers, amphibious assaults and ship-to-ship warfare operations at the same time.
The carrier John F. Kennedy battle group was the last to use the Vieques range. An F/A-18 Hornet from its air wing dropped the errant bombs. Since then, the carrier Eisenhower battle group and the carrier George Washington battle group have had to seek other areas in which to train.
Vieques contaminated
To all recipients: Please broadcast, distribute, publish, and send out to
every web server list that will accept the following comments for the citizens of the world.
Thanks, dr. doug rokke
If, as indicated in the following press report that DOD officials are ready to use force against the residents of Vieques, then the citizens of the world must ban together to help the residents of Vieques.
This started because U.S. Marine Corps pilots willfully fired depleted uranium in violation of laws and regulations, as admitted by U.S. Navy officials, into Vieques and then a Navy pilot dropped a bomb that killed one and injured others. The claim has been that the bomb went off course. Funny thing about physics and Newtonian mechanics, bombs only go where you place them. Therefore the claim that the bomb was errant is pure rubbish. The pilot killed that guard and injured the others because he was wrong and was not careful with the bomb release. That is pure negligence!!!!!
This is also an issue of environmental justice where U.S. Department of Defense representatives refuse to provide medical care for all exposed individuals and also complete environmental remediation. U.S. Forces have contaminated the island of Vieques for too long causing health and environmental damage. It must stop now. In a direct quote from:
031-503-1017 Respond to Depleted Uranium/Low level Radioactive Materials
(DULLRAM) Hazards (new) U.S. Army Manual of Common Tasks the Department
of Defense authors state that:
“NOTE: Contamination will make food and water unsafe for consumption.”
Seems that Navy officials know that the use of DU causes willful harm because it is in the required DU training that all DOD personnel must complete by order and law. Thus disregard of this information probably violates RCRA (42 CFR 901) and is a crime against humanity.
Next: The U.S. Navy cites that Vieques is needed for training our forces, yet, the Navy has advertised to any nation for a fee that Vieques can be used for as quoted “Mission: consistently provide professional customer services, conduct real world anti-submarine warfare training for aircrafts, ships, and submarines of U.S. and foreign navies…Live-fire capability for most non-conventional weapons inventory…to provide airspace, surface, and subsurface water space for developmental and operational testing of new and existing weapons systems.”
In case anyone has missed the most important part of this advertisement it
is that “non-conventional” as cited has historically referred to nuclear,
biological, and chemical weapons. If that has occurred over the years, that is why the residents of Vieques are sick. Conventional weapons residues will also cause health and environmental problems.
It is time for everyone to support the residents of Vieques and demand that the U.S. Navy withdraw and cease all actions on that island. Just remember if the Navy willingly fired DU to prepare for battle in Kosovo then the next preparation with “non-conventional weapons” as advertised may be for use against you!
IFCO/Pastors for Peace sends delegation to Vieques
Media Advisory
A Delegation of Religious Leaders, Physicians and Elected Officials to
Travel to US Military Bombing Range in Vieques, Puerto Rico Despite Government Plans to Forcefully Remove Protestors
As the US government announced plans to forcefully remove protestors from the US military base in Vieques, Puerto Rico, a delegation of religious leaders, physicians and elected officials are scheduled to arrive on the island Saturday, April 29.
The delegation organized by IFCO/Pastors for Peace will join dozens of people staying in peaceful encampments of civil disobedience throughout the bombing range, which began last year when Vieques civilian, David Sanes Rodriguez, was killed by an errant 500-pound bomb dropped by a US Military fighter jet.
US Federal authorities have announced plans to send the National Guard and FBI agents into the bombing range to remove the non-violent protestors. A reported 100 US Marines are preparing to provide perimeter security off the coast of Vieques, while Puerto Rican police will be used to “control” the anticipated popular protest of tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans.
Protestors include clergy, fishermen, political leaders, teachers, and youth, who have been pleading for an end to the bombing and strafing of Vieques for the past five decades.
The IFCO/Pastors for Peace delegation will be staying in the Evangelical
Obedience camp, a faith-based encampment organized by the Puerto Rican Evangelical Council, a ecumenical coalition of Methodists, Baptists,
Presbyterians, Evangelicals and Disciples of Christ.
Religious leaders from various denominations in Puerto Rico and the US,
have called for an end to the US military practice on Vieques, which has
used live ammunition, napalm, and depleted uranium on an island that is
inhabited by nearly 10,000 people. Rev. Lucius Walker, Jr., Executive Director of IFCO/Pastors for Peace, stated “Our faith calls on us to engage in civil disobedience when US policy condones military exercises that kill, contaminate, and cause disease at extraordinary rates. IFCO/Pastors for Peace stands in solidarity with its church partners in Puerto Rico who are standing, in moral obedience, against the US military destruction of their homeland. The people of Vieques have suffered too much, it is time for the US military to stop the madness.”
Pastors for Peace is an ecumenical action/education project of the
Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO). Pastors for
Peace was established in 1988, when an IFCO study delegation to Nicaragua
was ambushed by US trained and funded contra forces while traveling on a
passenger ferryboat. Two people were killed and 29 wounded, including
Rev. Lucius Walker, Jr. Since that time, Pastors for Peace has organized
31 national humanitarian aid caravans, 80 delegations and dozens of construction brigades to Chiapas, Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala,
Honduras, Nicaragua and Cuba. Each faith-based action/education project
demonstrates a people-to-people foreign policy, supported by tens of thousands of people across the US.
The special delegation will hold a press conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico on Friday, April 28, 2000. Location to be announced later today.
Vieques Protesters Face Showdown
Thursday April 27 6:24 AM ET
Vieques Protesters Face Showdown
By JAMES ANDERSON, Associated Press
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) – Any raid to remove protesters from the U.S. Navy’s Vieques bombing range will unleash anti-Americanism in Puerto Rico and antagonize Hispanic voters in the United States, opponents have warned.
With recurring rumors of imminent arrests, critics say forcibly ending the
one-year standoff would strengthen a grass-roots anti-Navy movement and harm Navy plans to regain its prized Atlantic training ground.
“This issue unites Puerto Ricans not only in Puerto Rico but throughout
the 50 states,” said U.S. Rep. Jose Serrano, D-N.Y. “It would definitely
become a campaign issue.”
Jose Rivera, a Puerto Rico-born New York City councilman, said Hispanic-Americans have yet to recover from the way federal agents took Elian Gonzalez from his Miami relatives’ home by gunpoint. “It won’t look good for anyone if they do one thing right after the other,” he said.
That anger, Rivera said, would show at New York’s annual Puerto Rican Day
Parade – an important event for many politicians, including U.S. Senate
candidates Rudolph Giuliani and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Military officials agree Vieques is a potentially explosive issue.
Clearing dozens of U.S. citizens from primitive campsites on a scrubby,
pockmarked wasteland rife with unexploded bombs is a daunting task. And
with arrests, militants have vowed demonstrations at U.S. facilities
throughout Puerto Rico.
The Vieques protesters are blocking a Jan. 31 agreement between President
Clinton and Puerto Rican Gov. Pedro Rossello to resume exercises for at
least three years using “dummy” bombs in exchange for a referendum in Vieques on whether to close the range.
It includes $40 million for economic development on Vieques and the return
of one-third of the island used as a munitions dump.
According to reports Monday, the Justice Department was planning a raid involving federal marshals, FBI agents, Marines and Puerto Rican police. Officials have since refused comment.
While most protesters say they won’t resist arrest, they do say other
demonstrators will replace them. Some vow to scatter into the ordinance-laden hills.
They’ve occupied the range since April 19, 1999, when errant bombs from a
Marine Corps jet killed civilian guard David Sanes Rodriguez.
Hardly a cohesive group, the protesters include fishermen, teachers, two bishops – one Catholic, one Methodist – students, pro-independence politicians, pro-statehood activists and veterans of foreign wars.
Their message: five decades of bombing an island populated by 9,300 U.S.
citizens is enough. Though they live nine miles from the range, Vieques
residents blame bombing for what they say is a high cancer rate, stunted
tourism, unemployment and ecological damage.
The Navy says Vieques is critical to the military’s preparedness, and patriotic Americans shouldn’t put servicemen’s lives in danger by denying them the kind of live-fire training that made the crucial difference in the Middle East, Kosovo and elsewhere.
“This is not a game. This is reality,” said Rear Adm. Kevin P. Green in a recent San Juan Star column commemorating Sanes’ death. “We are serving around the globe to protect your interests, and we must be prepared.”
Many Puerto Ricans, albeit quietly, support that argument. Local polls,
however, suggest most back a firm stand and argue the bombings would stop
immediately if Spanish-speaking Puerto Rico were a U.S. state.
The threat of a Vieques raid should put Puerto Rico’s political status – a
U.S. territory that can’t vote for president or Congress – on the nation’s
political agenda, Serrano said.
“Look at the Cuban issue. You have two Florida senators demanding hearings” into the Elian Gonzalez raid, Serrano said. “If Puerto Rico was a state, it would have two senators filibustering over Vieques.”
Critics say the Navy lied in the past about its use of napalm and depleted
uranium-tipped shells on Vieques and didn’t fulfill a 1983 pledge to promote the economy of Vieques, where most people live in poverty.
While the Roosevelt Roads Naval Station that administers Vieques injects $340 million into Puerto Rico’s economy each year, officials acknowledge their public relations efforts have been less than stellar.
Rossello and others have urged the protesters to abandon the range – then
vote the Navy out.
“I’m urging people to take everything calmly and let them make the arrests,” said Vieques Mayor Manuela Santiago. “It would be painful for blood to run in Vieques.”
Federal Authorities Said to Be Preparing…
New York Times
April 28, 2000
Federal Authorities Said to Be Preparing to Rout Protesters on Vieques
By DAVID JOHNSTON
WASHINGTON, April 27 — Prodded by the Pentagon, federal authorities are
preparing a sea-and-land law enforcement operation next week on Vieques, a small island off Puerto Rico, to clear demonstrators from a Navy bombing range there, government officials said today.
Preparations to move a large number of federal special weapons and tactics teams to Vieques are under way less than a week after armed immigration officers stormed a house in which the Cuban boy Elián González was staying with his great-uncle in Miami.
As the furor over the Miami operation continues, Attorney General Janet Reno
has been planning the much larger and potentially risky operation in Vieques. She has met with the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Louis J. Freeh, whose agents would play a central role in the assault, and with Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, the officials said.
The Vieques protesters have been demonstrating against an agreement reached on Jan. 31 by President Clinton and Gov. Pedro J. Rosello of Puerto Rico. The deal allowed the Navy to conduct limited exercises on Vieques in
exchange for an American promise to abide by a referendum in Puerto Rico on
whether to close the range.
The officials said that most days 50 to 75 protesters are camped on the island in the path of aircraft on bombing runs. Their ranks are expected to swell as knowledge of a pending operation spreads. Protesters are expected to arrive by boat and congregate at entry gates to the base.
Today, a Pentagon spokesman, Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, said that the Pentagon
had been consulting with other government organizations, but would not
discuss the status of the law enforcement operation.
“We’ve been in consultation with the Puerto Rican government, with the
Department of Justice, to work out a way to clear the range of the trespassers,” Admiral Quigley said. “That process continues, and I am just not going to go into any further detail on that process at all.”
Several civilian federal agencies are involved in the law enforcement
operation, the officials said. Among them are the Treasury Department and
the Transportation Department, which has jurisdiction over the Coast Guard, which would help block the flotillas of demonstrators expected to arrive by
sea from Puerto Rico.
The officials said that federal authorities are prepared to clear the
bombing range, but have expressed serious reservations about the operation, which is scheduled for next week if the White House approves it.
They said that Pentagon officials have been insistent that the Navy needed
the bombing range for training exercises, even though Justice Department officials have said that another military-style assault would provoke another avalanche of criticism of the Clinton administration.
The officials said they feared that neither the F.B.I. nor the federal
marshals were adequately prepared for such a large-scale enforcement action
so far from the mainland.
The operation would take place over a large area in which there would be
virtually no chance for a surprise raid, on beaches and open terrain including some areas where live munitions are thought to lie.
Moreover, the officials said, they feared the law enforcement operation
would provoke demonstrations in other parts of Puerto Rico, and that local
authorities were unprepared for large-scale disruptions.
Under the tactical plan, the officials said, marines would arrive aboard ships to provide perimeter security, but only after the operation, and the Puerto Rican police would be responsible for crowd control.
When the arrangement between the White House and Puerto Rico was announced,
Mr. Rossello said he would help federal efforts to stop trespassing at the
bombing range, but little action has been taken against the protesters.
Exercises on Vieques, where the Navy maintains a bombing range that it
considers essential to the training of its Atlantic fleet, were suspended
last spring after a wayward bomb killed a civilian security guard, an accident that intensified longtime protests against the military presence. The Pentagon has been putting pressure on the Justice Department to clear the bombing range of protesters. Earlier this year, an aircraft carrier battle group had to conduct some training exercises in different places, including using a bombing range in Scotland.
The next carrier group, led by the George Washington, is headed to sea in
coming months and the Navy is eager to use the range, which officials say
offers the ideal location for coordinating air-ground-and-sea training
exercises.
Alerta! Llama a Janet Reno/ Call Janet Reno
Alerta! Llama a Janet Reno – Call Janet Reno (202-514-2001)
Please Post and Forward – Favor de Distribuir
Alerta Urgente! Los medios de comunicacion han confirmado que dos buques de guerra partieron ayer (Jueves) de Virginia hacia Carolina del Norte
para recoger 1,000 Infantes de Marina y equipo militar. Se espera que en dos dias llegaron a Vieques para participar, junto al FBI y Alguaciles Federales, en un operativo para desalojar por la fuerza a los que enarbolan los principios de Desobediencia Civil No-Violenta en los campamentos de resistencia.
Favor de llamar DE INMEDIATO a Janet Reno (202-514-2001) para dejarle
saber de que dicho operativo es repudiado por el Pueblo de Puerto Rico.
Dej·le saber que lo mejor para los Estados Unidos sera suspender dicho
plan, pues de lo contrario veran su imagen afectada internacionalmente y
tendr·n que lidiar con masivas demostraciones de protesta tanto en Puerto Rico como en Estados Unidos.
Alert! The media has confirmed that two Navy Warships just left Virginia, will
stop in North Carolina to pick up 1000 Marines and equipment, and will
participate, along the FBI and Federal Marshals, in a military operation to remove by force protesters from the resistance camps on Vieques. The navy says it takes 2-3 days to sail to Vieques.
Now is the moment for all of us to take action and call IMMEDIATLY Janet Reno (202-514-2001) to let her know that the people of Puerto Rico reject any military raid on Vieques. Let her know that the best interest of the U.S. will be served by suspending said plan, since arrests will only bring shame to the U.S. in the eyes of the international community and that massive protests will take place both in Puerto Rico and the U.S.
Now, more than ever;
PEACE FOR VIEQUES!
Not one more bomb!
if they arrest
We’ve been waiting for the arrests for a year now. We’ve forced the Navy to halt their practices in Vieques and we’re ready for the next step. Our struggle has been characterized by non-violent tactics. Both in Puerto Rico and in the US activists are ready to implement several of our defensive plans. We recognize that the U.S. government has the power to mobilize thousands of agents and soldiers and clear the area in a relative short time. However, our strength relies on the moral conviction that our struggle for human rights and freedom is just. They might regain control of the Vieques range for some time but will be condemned by the international community. Furthermore, they will have to work with Puerto Ricans shutting down important federal areas in Puerto Rico and in the United States. If the U.S is not willing to give us our land back, then they will have to face the anger of 3 million Puerto Ricans and millions of allies in the US who are potential active agents in the !
struggle to liberate Vieques and Puerto Rico. We encourage you to start contacting the leaders of this movement to coordinate joint demonstrations around the US. If you don’t find anyone, please plan with whatever people you have. Vieques needs you.
If they carry out the arrests, I say we burn the US flag wherever we see it. Let the burning of the American flag be symbolic of the repudiation to the tyranny of the U.S. governement by all people of consciousness in the United States. This should be considered what it is: a non-violent act. We don’t do this out of hatred or desperation but out of the the understanding that springs from more than a century of U.S. colonialism.
BURN THE U.S. FLAG!!!
Message from Robert Rabin
NOTE: Robert Rabin is one of the main Viequense leaders. He’s in charge of the camp that blocks the entrance to the military post.
Sunday, April 30, 2000
Dear Friends in Solidarity with Vieques
From Vieques with love and great appreciation for the support from all the organizations and individuals in solidarity with the struggle of the people of Vieques.
Before the threat of a violent intervention by the military and police forces of the US Government and their assistants in Puerto Rico, the people of Vieques respond with love and bravery in defense of their human rights and dignity. In the civil disobedience camps the only weapons are justice and peace. The only violent elements in this situation are the military. Our people are commited, more each day, to peaceful civil disobedience in defense of our right to life.
We are attentive to the lies of Carlos Romero Barceló and his diabolic capacity to plant (together with the FBI and the Navy) violence through provocative agents and fabricated evidence.
The men and women in the 14 civil disobedience camps in the bombing area and those of us here in front of the gates to the Navy facility at Camp García, remain firm and tranquill. The Puerto Rico and US press inform about intervention in the coming days. We have been prepared for some time now. Here everyone is committedd to continuing actions of peacefull civil disobedience and with plans for a continued pressure against all attempts by the Navy to resume bombing in Vieques.
Mass mobilizations in important US cities is key to denounce the arrests and to increase pressure against Navy plans for Vieques. We recognize the great efforts of the organizations and individuals in solidarity with Vieques throughout the US and in other areas.
It is crucial not to pay attention to rumors. In these critical moments the only official information is that which comes from the community organiztions on Vieques or from our representatives in Puerto Rico and the US.
In struggle, in solidarity,
Robert Rabin
Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques
Navy Plans Immediate Shelling of Vieques
Navy Plans Immediate Shelling of Vieques
Navy warships will immediately fire non-explosive shells at the target range on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques as soon as federal authorities remove encamped Puerto Rican demonstrators, defense officials said Thursday.
Three defense officials outlined the Navy’s plans for a quick show of force as a Justice Department-led task force prepared to end a year-long occupation of the 899-acre target range that has thwarted Navy training on the range.
The task force, including FBI agents, U.S. Marshals, the Coast Guard, the
Navy and 1,200 Marines, is expected to begin rounding up protestors early
next week, according to a fourth U.S. official who said he is familiar with coordination planning between law enforcement agencies on the U.S. mainland and in Puerto Rico.
Navy warships will begin using the 59-year-old range “as quickly as possible” after the law enforcement operation is complete, said one defense official. A second defense official said the Navy wants to “demonstrate use of the range in a prudent fashion as soon as we can just to get that principle established or restarted.”
A third defense official said the Navy would “be in a hurry to make a
statement by using the range.”
The three officials spoke on background on the condition that their identity not be disclosed.
Attorney General Janet Reno, speaking at a Justice Department news conference, declined to discuss the impending operation.
“I don’t comment on any prospective, or otherwise considered, law enforcement action,” Reno declared.
Navy Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, a Pentagon spokesman, said the Pentagon has been in “consultation with the Puerto Rican government (and) with the Department of Justice to work out a way to clear the range of the trespassers,” adding: “That process continues.”
Rep. Jose Serrano, D-N.Y., the senior Puerto Rico-born lawmaker in Congress, urged Clinton in a letter to halt the plans for a federal round up.
“This is not going to be nice,” warned Serrano. “It’s not too late to call the whole thing off.”
A federal raid to break up peaceful civil disobedience on Vieques would
likely be a hot campaign issue for the 900,000 Puerto Rican voters in New York who could play an influential role in the outcome of the Senate campaign of first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, Serrano said.
“What happens in Vieques affects greatly the largest Hispanic voting bloc in New York,” he said. Many of Puerto Rico’s 3.8 million residents – U.S. citizens by birth – have relatives living in the United States.
The removal of the protestors is designed to clear the way for
implementation of an agreement reached by President Clinton and Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Rossello on Jan. 31 to end a bitter standoff between the Navy and the demonstrators.
Dozens of protestors, led by Puerto Rico Sen. Ruben Berrios, the Puerto Rico Independence Party’s candidate for governor in November, occupied the
beach-front bombing range after a Marine bombing mishap in April 1999 killed a Puerto Rican security guard working for the Navy.
The occupation of the target range prevented the Navy and Marine Corps from conducting the final air, land and sea combat rehearsals on Vieques that have prepared every departing Atlantic-based combat force since World War II.
The Clinton-Rossello agreement calls for the White House and Congress to provide $40 million in immediate economic development assistance to the 9,300 residents of Vieques and reduce noisy military training on Navy-owned land to 90 days a year using only non-explosive shells and bombs. The accord also calls for the island’s residents to vote in a
binding referendum on future Navy use of the island by February, 2002, with $50 million in additional U.S. assistance due to Vieques if the residents vote to permit combat training with explosive ordnance.
The forcible removal of protestors is expected to take place barely 10 days after a Justice Department-led operation broke into a Miami home to take custody of 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez and return him to his Cuban father.
The Navy is poised to resume using the range. Four warships armed with 5-inch guns with ranges of 15 miles will be in the region in coming days as part of a combat exercise with the aircraft carrier USS George Washington and a Marine amphibious task force. The armada is scheduled for deployment in June to the Mediterranean.
Navy Secretary Richard Danzig told Congress in testimony on March 22 that
the Navy is eager for “the resumption of the use of the range and establishing the rhythms of cooperation.”
The shutdown of the target range since April 1999 forced the battle fleet led by the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower to sail for duty in the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf in late February with five of the eight
escorting surface warships still needing to requalify for their naval gunfire support mission by firing roughly 100 shells of 5-inch ammunition at shore targets. The ships broke away from the fleet in transit to requalify at ranges at Cape Wrath, Scotland, or Capoteulado, Sardinia.
dos buques de guerra partieron Virginia
Please Post and Forward – Favor de Distribuir
¡Alerta Urgente!
Los medios de comunicacion han confirmado que dos buques de guerra partieron ayer (Jueves) de Virginia hacia Carolina del Norte para recoger 1,000 Infantes de Marina y equipo militar. Se espera que en dos dias llegar·n a Vieques para participar, junto al FBI y Alguaciles Federales, en un operativo para desalojar por la fuerza a los que enarbolan los principios de Desobediencia Civil No-Violenta en los campamentos de resistencia.
Favor de llamar DE INMEDIATO a Janet Reno (202-514-2001) para dejarle saber de que dicho operativo es repudiado por el Pueblo de Puerto Rico. Dejale saber que lo mejor para los Estados Unidos ser· suspender dicho plan, pues de lo contrario veran su imagen afectada internacionalmente y tendran que lidiar con masivas demostraciones de protesta tanto en Puerto Rico como en Estados Unidos.
Ahora m·s que nunca;
¡PAZ PARA VIEQUES!
¡Ni una bomba m·s!
========================================
Alert! Media has confirmed that two Navy Warships just left Virginia, will stop in North Carolina to pick up 1000 Marines and equipment, and will participate, along the FBI and Federal Marshals, in a military operation
to remove by force protesters from the resistance camps on Vieques. The
navy says it takes 2-3 days to sail to Vieques.
Now is the moment for all of us to take action and call IMMEDIATLY Janet Reno (202-514-2001) to let her know that the people of Puerto Rico reject any military raid on Vieques. Let her know that the best interest of the U.S. will be served by suspending said plan, since arrests will only bring shame to the U.S. in the eyes of the international community and that massive protests will take place both in Puerto Rico and the U.S.
Now, more than ever;
PEACE FOR VIEQUES!
Not one more bomb!
Christian Peacemaker Teams
Christian Peacemaker Teams is Sending an Emergency Delegation to Vieques CPTNet (Christian Peacemaker Teams)
PUERTO RICO ALERT: U.S. Marshals Threaten to Arrest Nonviolent Protesters
on Vieques Island. CPT To Send Emergency Delegation
CPT asks supporters to be especially vigilant in the coming days regarding
the situation on Vieques Island, Puerto Rico. Pentagon sources say a raid on nonviolent protest camps by U.S. Marshals and FBI agents could occur
early next week.
CPT will send an emergency delegation to Puerto Rico on Monday, May 1 in
response to requests from Church leaders involved in the peace encampments who say a presence from the mainland will be very important if authorities attempt to remove the protesters.
CPT invites churches to:
1) Make calls and send e-mails to President Clinton and Jeffrey Farrow,
Clinton’s point person on Puerto Rico, urging them to respect the voice of the Puerto Rican people who say “Not one more bomb. ” Tell both Clinton and Farrow not to authorize the use of force against those engaged in nonviolent witness on Vieques. (Contact info below)
2) Prepare groups from our churches and meetings to gather for special prayer in the offices of Senators and representatives if the arrests are
carried out.
3) Undergird those traveling to Puerto Rico on short notice as part of CPT’s emergency response with prayers and financial support.
BACKGROUND:
Vieques, Puerto Rico, is a small island, two thirds of which is still controlled by the U.S. Navy. A small part of the island has been used by the Navy for bombing and military maneuvers for about 60 years.
One year ago a civilian guard was killed when two 500 pound bombs missed their target. Since then, protest encampments in the restricted zone have prevented any bombing or maneuvers. The people of Vieques are saying, “Not one more bomb; not one more minute.”
The churches of Puerto Rico have been united across denominational lines in support of the struggle to stop the Navy actions on Vieques.
Several times in the last five months the Navy intended to carry out major
military maneuvers on Vieques, but had to move them to other sites because
of the presence of the peace encampments. A huge church-sponsored march in February made it clear that an accord-signed behind closed doors between the Clinton administration and Puerto Rico’s Governor Rosello, calling for the removal of the camps and renewed maneuvers in March-does not have the
support of the Puerto Rican people.
Now, threats of arrest are increasing against the protest encampments. Rumors of guns in the camps are being used to discredit this strong, organized, nonviolent witness.
Jesse Jackson joins PR leaders
PUERTO RICAN LEGAL DEFENSE & EDUCATION FUND
For Immediate Release
Monday, May 1, 2000
Contact:
Juan A. Figueroa 212-219-3360, Ext. 229
JESSE JACKSON JOINS PUERTO RICAN LEADERS
IN CALL FOR URGENT MEETING WITH PRESIDENT CLINTON
ON TENSE SITUATION IN VIEQUES, PUERTO RICO
Key Puerto Rican political and civic leaders in the United States were joined by the Reverend Jesse Jackson in a joint letter calling on President William J. Clinton to avoid the forcible removal of those protesting the US Naval presence in Vieques, Puerto Rico.
They urged the Clinton Administration to “work harder to find a fair resolution to what will otherwise become an even more difficult conflict.”
The situation in Puerto Rico has become tense as reports increasingly circulate that the United States government is
readying itself to forcibly remove the protesters in Vieques. The local media has reported that two ships with assault capabilities, the USS Bataan and USS Nashville, have been sent to Vieques from the base in Norfolk, and that the Tactical Operations Unit of
the local Police, the Marines, FBI and other federal agencies has been meeting to plan the removal of the protesters next week.
These developments, combined with the recent media images of the federal government’s dramatic assault on the Miami home of Elian Gonzalez’s relatives, have joined together to raise the specter of a violent confrontation in Vieques that could spread throughout Puerto Rico.
“This could be the turning point in United States- Puerto Rico relations if it IS not handled correctly,” stated Juan A. Figueroa, President and General Counsel of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund. He is one of the signers of the letter to the
President and spokesperson for the group. “We hope that President Clinton will meet with us before taking any actions that would make a bad situation worse. We believe that this issue can
be resolved in a peaceful and constructive way.”
Citing popular support in Puerto Rico for the removal of the Navy from Vieques, the letter to the President points out that “widespread actions of civil disobedience would seem inevitable.” It states that, “Thousands of people throughout Puerto Rico and the
United States have already pledged to support the protesters should they be arrested and/or forcibly removed.”
The letter recounts the troubled history of the U.S. Navy’s troubled 50-year relationship with Vieques. “Surely,” it states, “the national security of the United States should not come at the expense of a colonized people.”
The letter concludes that “This situation clearly requires delicacy
and tact” and that this is “an extraordinary circumstance.” It ends
by urging a joint meeting between the President and the signatories of the letter.
The letter was signed by: Congresspersons Luis V. Gutierrez (D-
Chicago), JosÈ Serrano (D-Bronx) and Nydia Vel·squez (D-Brooklyn and Manhattan), Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer, New York State Assemblyman and Bronx Democratic
Party Chair Roberto Ramirez, Philadelphia Council Member At-Large Angel Ortiz, New York City Councilmembers Jose Rivera
(Bronx) and Margarita Lopez (Manhattan), the Reverend Jesse
Jackson, 1199 SEIU President Dennis Rivera, and Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund President and General Counsel Juan A. Figueroa.
Religiosos que apoyan salida de la Armada
POR THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
VIEQUES (AP) – A horas de lo que parece un inminente operativo de desalojo,
el reverendo Wilfredo Estrada, uno de los religiosos que se encuentra en
campos de desobediencia civil en terrenos de la Armada en Vieques, dijo que el grupo está preparado para enfrentar los arrestos de producirse por
entender que están desacatando una ley injusta y porque su acción es “un
imperativo moral´´.
El religioso, presidente de la Sociedad Bíblica de Puerto Rico, llegó ayer a
Vieques y se unió a otros religiosos que mantienen un campo de desobediencia
civil en el área de tiro de la Armada en Vieques.
“Sabemos que estamos desafiando una ley injusta e inmoral, desde la perspectiva de la moral, y en este momento estamos con una paz que es indescriptible´´, dijo el religioso. Junto a Estrada se encuentran, entre otros, el Obispo de la Iglesia Metodista de Puerto Rico, reverendo Juan Vera.
Vera dijo que los religiosos que está en Vieques está comprometidos “con que
no se tire una bomba más en Vieques y aquí permanecemos en paz y oración y
aspirando que llegue la plena paz a Vieques´´, dijo.
Efectivos del FBI, de la Guardia Costera, de la Armada, y de la Policía han sido movilizados y se espera que de un momento a otro inicien el desalojo de
los desobedientes civiles que se encuentran en el área de tiro de la Armada desde hace un año. Los desobedientes comenzaron a invadir el área de tiro desde el 19 de abril
del año pasado cuando un guardia civil de la Armada murió cuando erró el tiro
de una bomba, según dijo la propia Armada.
Desde entonces los manifestantes han pedido el cese permanente de los bombardeos y la eventual salida de la Armada de Vieques.
El pasado 31 de enero el presidente Clinton emitió una orden ejecutiva
autorizando el reinicio de las maniobras en Vieques y una consulta en la que
los viequenses expresarán si favorecen que la Armada salga en el 2003 y que
continúe con los bombardeos indefinidamente.
NO A LA INVASION YANQUI!
i have started to write and call people from the united nations asking for there support, telling the usa not to invade vieques i am asking for you to do the same you can look up their phone# fax# and email address at:
please show support and ask your friends and family to do the same.
VIEQUES: Protest The Unjust Arrests
Help us keep the pressure up for peace in Vieques. Make your voice heard in favor of the permanent suspension of the bombings of Vieques.
New York
Manhattan – The Vieques’ Solidarity Network is calling to a massive
mobilization that will take place the next day after the imprisonment at
5:00 P.M. in Times Square (42nd. and Broadway). If the arrests are Friday
or Saturday the protest will be the next day at noon in Times Square.
Sponsored by: Vieques Solidarity Network, Todo El Barrio con Vieques, Todo Nueva York con Vieques, Vieques Support Campaign, Veterans Support Vieques, Women for Peace and Justice in Vieques, David Sanes Rodriguez Brigade, PIP-NY, Lower East Siders for Vieques.
Contacts: “Todo Nueva York con Vieques” at 212-631-4620 and “Todo el
Barrio con Vieques” at 212-348-8004
Washington, D.C.
If the arrests occur before midnight, the next day at noon, there will be
a mobilization in Lafayette Park, in front of the White House. If the
arrests occur after midnight, then the protest will be the following day
at noon. Please, contact the media and call your people.
Contacts: David Santiago 202-223-3915 ext. 308
San Francisco, California
The Vieques Solidarity Coalition is calling to a “Weekday-After” Emergency
Response Rally the day after the arrests at Justin Hermann Square (by
Stewart and Market across from the Ferry Building, near Embarcadero BART)
at 4:00 PM.
Contact: Fellowship of Reconciliation 415-495-6334
Comité 98 510-389-5660
Hartford, Connecticut
In the event of arrests or removal of protesters in Vieques we will
demonstrate in front of the federal courthouse on Main Street in Hartford
a day after the arrests or removal. The demonstration will begin at 5:00 PM
For more information please contact:
Rafael Rodriguez Cruz- home (860)523-4125 or work (860)541-5053.
Latinas & Latinos for Social Change are calling for a protest at 4PM the
next working day after the arrest take place (or Saturday if arrests take place on a Friday). We will meet in front of the JFK Federal Building, in Government Center, Boston (T- BLUE LINE, GOVERNMENT CENTER STOP). Also, we plan to be there for a long time, and have a 24 hour presence in front of the Federal Building. Please contact us if you can help us with our 24 hour civil disobedience camp.
The committee “All of Springfield with Vieques” has called for a demonstration in front of the U.S. Government Building, located at 1550 Main Street, in the event of arrests or removal of protesters in Vieques. If the arrests or removal happens before 4:30PM we will demonstrate the same day at 5:00PM. If the arrest or removal happens after 5:00PM the demonstration will begin at 4:30 PM on the following day.
For more information please contact: Sandra Zenón (413) 736-7323 or Idalí
Torres (413) 746-4338
Tucson, Arizona
Tucson demonstrators have agreed to protest at the Federal Building
(downtown at 300 W. Congress, across from the Holiday Inn), at 4:30 p.m.
on the day the eviction begins and arrests are made. PLEASE TELL PEOPLE… BRING FRIENDS, BRING SIGNS AND BANNERS.
URGENTE-COMIENZAN LOS ARRESTOS EN VIEQUES
[English Version at the Bottom]
URGENTE-COMIENZAN LOS ARRESTOS EN VIEQUES
Hoy Jueves, 4 de mayo de 2000, a las 5:30 de la maÒana comenzaron los arrestos de los Desobedientes Civiles en Vieques. Para m·s detalles favor de accesar y/o sintonizar los medios noticiosos. (http://endi.zonai.com/)
Es el momento de poner en marcha los planes de contingencia tanto en Puerto Rico, como en Estados Unidos. Habran protestas hoy y mañana. Favor de accesar (http://www.micronetix.net/virus/emergency.htm) para sabes en donde ser·n las protestas en tu area.
Today, Thursday, May 4, 2000, at 5:30 A.M. federal authorities began to arrest the people conducting Civil Disobedience in Vieques. For more details, please access news media.
This is the moment to put forward the planned activities. Today and tomorrow protests will take place in U.S. and Puerto Rico, please access (http://www.micronetix.net/virus/emergency.htm) for scheduled protests.
For information: wwww.ViequesLibre.org
democracy
Among the “democratic” things that the U.S. government did was cut off all phone lines, all TV signals, and not allow reporters in with cameras. This is what I call democracy, freedon of speech, and freedom of the press.
The following message is by a former Young Lords leader, Puerto Rican equivalent of the Black Panthers.
— Forwarded Message from Carlos Rovira —
Hola mi hermano Hector,
Please forgive me for not writing any sooner. I was having personal problems as well as being extremely busy with the preparations for the present situation around Vieques.
As for this proposal you are circulating, all I have to say is – VAYA! It was waved in our faces along with bayonets when they first invaded us
in 1898. That’s precisely how we in the Young Lords back in the old days would respond.
Anyone who has the illusion that respect is required for this symbol, is surely not living in the real world. Flag burning has always been through the ages, a form of expressing contempt for an enemy.
Respect is a quality that is earned. And for that matter, so is dispise and disrespect. Boricuas who are colonized have no business viewing the U.S. flag other than with disarespect.
Again, perdoname for not writing sooner.
Fuera La Marina De Vieques!
Que Viva Puerto Rico Libre! Carlito Rovira of the Vieques Support Campaign, (212) 677-0619
— Hector Rosario wrote:
NOTE : I understand this is a very delicate issue and I will procede
carefully. Please, try reading the entire message and process it before
responding to it.
After extensive conversations with political prisioner Antonio Camacho
Negron and my compadre, former political prisioner, Hilton Fernandez Diamante, we’ve come to the conclusion that one of the most effective (albeit old) ways to get attention to the Vieques cause in the United States is the burning of the U.S. flag. This single act fosters anti-U.S. sentiments, which are important to change public opinion about Vieques, and especially, to force a psychological shift in the mind of the colonized. Vieques should be our gate to independence.
I am trying to push this idea forward in the United States. My friend Freddie Marrero has declined my offer to post this message on ViequesLibre.com claiming that his website serves exclusively as a voice to the people in the civil disobedience camps, which is a legitimate reason. We here have the advantage that we could, if need be, technically dissociate ourselves from the tactics employed in Vieques and Puerto Rico and claim that this is one way of showing how we repudiate U.S. policy towards Vieques. Americans don’t care much about a Muslim burning a flag in Iran, but will certainly mind when they see hundreds of flags being burnt inside of the U.S. by U.S. citizens. It would be great to see dozens of U.S. flags burning up 5th Avenue during the Puerto Rican Parade in NYC this summer. I know there are some expert flag burners in NYC and I know they will come forward with courage and pride. Just be careful when you burn it. Make sure you have ample space.
If the idea of burning the flag is not appealing to you, then at least
wear one upside down like the American Indian Movement (AIM) used to do.
For those who are wondering if this is a lack of respect towards the
U.S., think about this:
1) the U.S. flag has 50 stars, one of which comes from Hawai’i, whose indigenous population has been treated with flagrant disrespect, to say the least. Furthermore, the Hawai’ian Kingdom, has never recognized U.S. rule since it never gave up its Archipelago.
2) the U.S. flag does not represent the thousands of indigenous peoples in the Continent. To the contrary, it glorifies the indigeneous blood that was brutally shed in order to serve the interests of the colonizers.
3)under the same flag Dr. King was beaten numerous times simply for being Black. This didn’t happen 200 years ago.
4)under the auspices of the U.S. flag and with the help of the some Puerto Rican collaborators, many independence movement leaders in Puerto Rico were systematically murdered.
5)under that flag, the people of Vieques have suffered for almost 60 years.
If you think that flag still represents you for being Black, Red, White, or Blue, our conversation is over. I urge those of you who understand my message to pass it along.
The arrests started today at 5:30 in the morning!
I want to know when we will be moving back into the camps? And if there are any additional strategies?
I know there have been communications between the Puerto Rican leadership from the island and the U.S. But very little has been reported. I would like to hear from the Puerto Rican leadership individually on this issue. I know of Serrano, Velasquez, Gutierrez, Mendez and Rivera. But I feel that beyond protesting and a lot of rhetoric, there has not been any longterm strategy which is disappointing. If there is, if I am wrong, I would like to hear from someone about this.
RE: URGENTE-COMIENZAN LOS ARRESTOS EN VIEQUES
Emergency Demonstration: To Protest the removal of the Religious, Environmental and political Activist From the Firing Range at Vieques Puerto Rico: Friday may 5thPM 42nd Street & Broadway Manhattan
Peace for the People of Vieques: Todo Nueva York con Vieques
The demonstrators sat in circles and sang.
Vieques Island Protesters Arrested
By Chris Hawley Associated Press Writer Thursday, May 4, 2000; 6:01 a.m. EDT
VIEQUES, Puerto Rico U.S. marshals began arresting protesters at a disputed U.S. Navy bombing range today, including a U.S. congresswoman.
In Washington, the Justice Department issued a statement saying, “this morning federal agents began removing a group of trespassers who have been unlawfully camped out on Vieques.”
In the dark before dawn, masked FBI agents in dark uniforms arrived at the gates of the bombing range on Vieques, and the Navy commander ordered them to move.
“You must leave the property immediately … If you do not leave promptly, we will have to remove you,” Adm. Kevin Green, the training ground commander, said over a megaphone at 5:15 a.m.
Within minutes, four helicopters, one with red lights blinking, swept over the range where dozens of protesters have been camped out for more than a year to block the Navy from bombing.
Demonstrators on the range include religious figures and two Congress members from the U.S. mainland as well as Puerto Rican nuns and independence and labor leaders who have camped on the bomb-littered range for 382 days.
The vast majority of protesters have said they would surrender peacefully. But some militants have threatened to scatter into the bush around unexploded ordnance they have marked out posing a threat to themselves and any pursuers.
Earlier, outside the gates where dozens of other protesters have prevented military personnel from entering the camp, about 40 Puerto Rican anti-riot police in bulletproof vests advanced toward demonstrators and set up a line in front of them.
The demonstrators sat in circles and sang.
The Navy says the Vieques range is vital to national security and is the only place its Atlantic fleet can conduct simultaneous air, sea and amphibious training using live munitions. It has been blocked since stray bombs killed a civilian security guard in April 1999, unleashing pent up frustrations throughout Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory of 4 million Spanish speakers.
A raid to clear the base has been expected since Monday, when three U.S. warships, reportedly carrying 1,000 Marines, arrived in the Vieques area, looming ominously offshore before retreating a little farther to sea. The Marines reportedly would secure the range’s perimeter once protesters are removed.
RALLY IN NYC AND STATESIDE FOR VIEQUES
MOBILIZE FOR VIEQUES TODAY AND TOMORROW
As you probably know by now, the US military began operations to forcibly remove the protestors from Vieques at 5:30am today Thursday. The operation was peaceful to this point, bu the affront to the people of Vieques and Puerto Rico is not.
Attorney General Janet Reno told the media three hours later that she was “pleased that so far the operation has gone very, very smoothly” and that it was done “with the full support of the
government of Puerto Rico and the assistance of the police of Puerto Rico.” At that point 140 demonstrators from 12 campsites were taken to detention site and they estimated that another 20 remained in four remaining campsites.
Puerto Ricans Stateside need to come out in full force today and tomorrow to show our solidarity with the people of Vieques in getting the US Navy off the island. We also need to let President
Clinton know that we plan top hold him accountable for this outrageous action against the US citizens of Puerto Rico.
In New York City, two actions are being held:
TODAY,
THURSDAY, MAY 4, 2000
5:00PM
VIGIL AND NEWS CONFERENCE
US MILITARY RECRUITING STATION
FORDHAM ROAD AND GRAND CONCOURSE
BRONX, NY
Further info: Rosa Escobar 7180409-3595
TOMORROW,
FRIDAY, MAY 5, 2000 (CINCO DE MAYO)
5:00PM
RALLY
TIMES SQUARE – 42ND STREET & 7TH AVENUE
Further info: 212-63104620
For updates and information on demos in other cities, visit:
http:\www.micronetix.netvirusemergency.htm
PAZ PARA VIEQUES
Vieques may be at zero hour–FYI
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Vieques may be at zero hour
By Ivan Roman
San Juan Bureau
Published in The Orlando Sentinel
on May 04, 2000
VIEQUES, Puerto Rico — A flurry of last-ditch efforts Wednesday in Puerto
Rico, New York and Washington to keep federal law-enforcement agents from
arresting dozens of bishops, priests and activists camped on the Vieques target range took on increasing urgency.
The end of the day left many high on resolve, but some were short on hope,
as the operation appeared inevitable — and many speculated it would happen this morning.
Helicopters zoomed overhead as more religious leaders arrived at the target range Wednesday. By the sea, in a packed wooden church with no walls, the top leadership of virtually every denomination on the island promised a broad civil-disobedience campaign if the arrests take place.
Representatives of the coalition of religious leaders heading the civil
disobedience appeared glum as they emerged from a late-afternoon meeting
with Rear Adm. Kevin Green, head of the Navy Southern Command, in charge
of implementing President Clinton’s directives. The controversial
directives, issued Jan. 31, call for the Navy to resume more limited training with dummy bombs for another three years.
Dialogue may continue with Green on a request that bombing not resume until the voter referendum on the Navy’s future based on Clinton’s directives takes place. But they got no answer when they asked that the removal operation — with up to 400 federal law-enforcement agents, who left for Vieques on Wednesday, and 1,000 Marines — be put on hold.
“Only a miracle can save the situation,” said Archbishop Roberto Gonzalez
Nieves, after the meeting at Naval Station Roosevelt Roads in nearby Ceiba
on the main island of Puerto Rico.
Green said he would share the leaders’ ideas with top Navy brass. “I think
there are a lot of aspects to the current situation that we have to work
on and improve,” he said.
But he was mum on the removal operation, which sources in Washington and on the island indicated could take place today.
Meanwhile, Puerto Rican political leaders in New York sent a delegation to
Vieques, including Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., and Rep. Nydia Velazquez,
D-N.Y., to show support and call on Clinton to act. Gutierrez joined
Baptist, Catholic, Evangelical and Methodist leaders in their midday
petition for calm resolve. He was to spend Wednesday night on the bombing
range.
In Washington, officials representing Clinton and Puerto Rican Gov. Pedro
Rossello made it clear they were in no mood to back down from their agreement to arrest protesters at what they consider their premier target range and resume military training there.
Alfonso Aguilar, head of the governor’s office in Washington, dismissed the protesters as people with “marginal” political views — a reference to the fact that some favor having Puerto Rico break away from the United States and become a separate country.
Bishop Alvaro Corrada del Rio of the Caguas Diocese, which includes Vieques, said religious leaders want a dialogue to try to convince the Navy of the “terrible mistake” the United States would be making if the activists, priests and nuns were forcibly removed. He vowed that if that does happen, the country will see more civil disobedience from Vieques all the way to Washington, New York and other cities.
“These people aren’t protesters,” Corrada said with dozens of religious
and lay activists standing behind him. “They are here for human rights and
giving testimony to the Gospel, and that’s what the American struggle for
civil rights is all about.”
In New York, Rep. Jose Serrano, D-N.Y., said 50 members of Congress, including some representatives in key committees, had already signed a letter by 5 p.m. Wednesday urging Clinton to put the brakes on the eviction plans and hold an emergency meeting on the crisis.
The White House rebuffed that notion.
“The president and others of us here have worked on this issue a long time
and developed a solution that fully meets the needs of the people of Vieques,” said a White House official.
The White House is not involved in deciding when to make the arrests, said
the official, who asked not to be identified. “That’s a law-enforcement
decision.”
More groups supporting the protesters held news conferences in New York
City Wednesday night, and a myriad of marches and demonstrations are to be
set into motion in New York City, Washington, San Francisco, Chicago,
Hartford, Orlando and other cities if the marshals and FBI agents move in.
In Central Florida, the Orlando Committee for the International Movement
Peace for Vieques is calling for a protest in front of the Federal
Building at 80 N. Hughey Ave. Demonstrations are to start at 4 p.m. the next working day after arrests take place.
After visiting the target range, Velazquez said the removal and possible
arrests carry serious political repercussions from Puerto Rican voters in the states.
That spells trouble for Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore and for
first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s bid for a Senate seat representing the
state of New York. Hillary Clinton issued a statement Tuesday calling for
peaceful dialogue to put an end to the crisis, for bombing to stop and, at
least, not resume until the referendum is held.
Some Puerto Ricans have been embroiled in a yearlong conflict with Washington and the Navy over the use of the target range for training since a stray bomb killed security guard David Sanes Rodriguez on April 19, 1999. His death blew the lid off much of the resentment and anger against the Navy pent up for almost 60 years, since it displaced thousands and took over three-quarters of the 52-square-mile island in 1941 for the range and Camp Garcia.
After an initial months-long standoff, the Puerto Rican government agreed to Clinton’s directives issued Jan. 31, stating that they were sure voters would decide in the referendum that the Navy will leave in three years. The religious leaders, who reject any more bombing, stepped in to fill the void in the opposition leadership.
Since then, religious leaders and Rossello have engaged in a war of words
over the agreement, and the religious leaders stepped up their civil disobedience efforts on the target range.
The religious coalition had asked weeks ago for a meeting with Green but
didn’t get an invitation until Tuesday when the bishops, priests and ministers were on the target range and the prospect of the fallout of a removal operation became messier and much more complicated.
The plans for that operation call for FBI agents to move in to clear out
the protesters on the target range, which on Wednesday swelled to at least
150. Federal marshals, with the help of local police, would remove or arrest those — including Puerto Rican opposition politicians and the
delegation from New York — keeping vigil at Camp Garcia’s main gate in
the civilian part of town.
The 1,000 Marines brought in on the USS Nashville and the USS Bataan on Monday would then move in to impose a naval blockade with the help of the U.S. Coast Guard and secure the range. Protesters on and off the range have already said that if people are removed, they’ll find ways to get back in constantly and keep blocking the bombing from resuming. Some plan to cut through the 4.5-mile-long fence. One has already chained himself to an bombed-out tank.
Vieques residents are expected to rush to the gate once news of the arrests is known, creating problems for local police. Fearing retaliation, the Puerto Rico Police Department has also stationed officers at most federal installations on Vieques and the main island of Puerto Rico.
Tamara Lytle of the Washington Bureau contributed to this report.
ALERTA ALERTA ALERTA
En la madrugada de hoy dia cuatro de mayo empezo el operativo de las fuerzas
del gobierno de Estados Unidos para remover a los resistentes civiles que se oponen a la continuacion de los bombardeos en la isla de Vieques. Decenas de resistentes civiles, mujeres,pastores,sacerdotes, trabajadores,incluyendo un alcalde
y varios representantes electos fueron arrestados,esposados y subidos a camiones militares, al negarse
a retirarse de las zonas ocupadas. Hasta el momento se desconoce ha donde han sido trasladados aunque
rumores no confirmados afirman que estan siendo llevados a la base naval de Roosvelt Roads, en Ceiba Pueto Rico.
Solidaridad ahora!!!!!!!!!
LLamamos a todos y todas las fuerzas democraticas a manifestar de inmediato su solidaridad con el pueblo de Puerto Rico.
Vieques si Marina NO
Libertad Inmediata de los arrestados del cuatro de mayo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Organiza tu protesta!
A las 9 am frente a Buchanan!
URGENTE: ESCUDOS HUMANOS AUN EN VIEQUES
“AUN HAY VARIAS PERSONAS EN LA ZONA DE TIRO EN VIEQUES”
(“THERE ARE STILL SEVERAL PEOPLE IN THE LIVE IMPACT AREA IN VIEQUES”)
COMUNICADO DE PRENSA/MENSAJE URGENTE
CAMPAMENTO MONTE DAVID
VIEQUES, PUERTO RICO
Contacto: Carlos Zenon (Tel. 787-741-8315)
5 de mayo del 2000-
Carlos Zenon, Presidente de la Asociacion de Pescadores de Vieques y
dirigente del Campamento Monte David en la zona de tiro en Vieques, anuncio
que aun quedan hombres y mujeres en la zona de tiro que continuan actuando
como escudos humanos contra cualquier intento de reanudar bombardeos en
Vieques.
Zenon explico que “La estrategia del Campamento Monte David siempre ha sido
que no ibamos a resistir los arrestos con violencia, pero tampoco le ibamos a
hacer la cosa facil a la Marina y a los alguaciles federales. Cumplimos con
nuestra palabra. Cuando comenzo el operativo contra los manifestantes,
integrantes del Campamento Monte David y el Campamento Mapepe (otro de los
campamentos de desobediencia civil) se internaron en la zona de tiro y se
encuentran en dos campamentos secretos cuya localizacion y existencia nunca
divulgamos.”
Anadio Zenon que en ambos campamentos secretos hay agua y provisiones y que
“la presencia de estas valientes personas en la zona de tiro sirve para
incentivar al pueblo y darle continuidad a nuestra lucha y a la paralizacion
de los bombardeos.” El pescador viequense anadio: “De hecho, mientras quede
si quiera una persona escondida en la zona de tiro, los mismos alguaciles
durante su busqueda estarian actuando tambien como escudos humanos contra los
bombardeos”.
Zenon pudo identificar a por lo menos siete (7) personas que aun permanecen
en el area de tiro. Del Campamento David se encuentran (1) su hijo Pedro
Zenon, (2) su hijo Cacimar Zenon, y (3) Magaly Santos, y del Campamento
Mapepe (4) Miguel Gonzalez, (5) Miguel Velazquez, (6) Carlos Garcia, y (7)
otro joven viequense. Explico Zenon que se cree que hay mas personas
escondidas en la zona de tiro, y dijo que “aunque de la Marina de Guerra de
los Estados Unidos se puede esperar cualquier cosa, la realidad es que
mientras estos manifestantes esten en la zona de tiro, la Marina no puede
reanudar el bombardeo.”
Por ultimo, Zenon expreso: “Yo como padre, y mi esposa como madre, estamos
preocupados por lo que le pueda pasar a nuestros hijos en circunstancias
donde estan solos y en condiciones infrahumanas y peligrosas. Pero hay
tantas familias viequenses que han sufrido por las atrocidades que ha hecho
la Marina aqui en Vieques por tanto tiempo, que estamos dispuestos a pagar
ese precio por contribuir a que el sufrimiento de este pueblo termine ya.”
URGENT: HUMAN SHIELDS STILL IN VIEQUES
“THERE ARE STILL SEVERAL PEOPLE IN THE LIVE IMPACT AREA IN VIEQUES”
PRESS RELEASE/URGENT MESSAGE
CAMP MOUNT DAVID
VIEQUES, PUERTO RICO
Contact: Carlos Zenon (Phone# 787-741-8315)
May 5, 2000-
Carlos Zenon, President of the Vieques Fishermen’s Association and leader of
Camp Mount David in the live impact area in Vieques, announced that there are
still men and women in the live impact area acting as human shields against
any attempt to renew bombing in Vieques.
Zenon explained that “The strategy in Camp Mount David has always been that
we were not going to resist arrests with violence, but we were not going to
make it easy for the U.S. Navy and the federal marshalls. We kept our promise. When the raid against the demonstrators began, members of Camp Mount David and Camp Mapepe (another of the civil disobedience camps) went deep inside the live impact area and are in two secret camps whose location and existence was never revealed.”
Zenon added that there is water and provisions in both secret camps and that
“the presence of these courageuos men and women in the live impact area
serves as an incentive to the people and to provide continuity to our struggle and to stopping the bombings.” The Viequense fisherman added: “In fact, as long as there remains even one person hiding in the live impact area, the federal marshals themselves during their search would also be acting as human shields against the bombings.”
Zenon was able to identify at least seven (7) people who are still in the
live impact area. From Camp David there are: (1) his son Pedro Zenon, (2) his son Cacimar Zenon, and (3) Magaly Santos, and from Camp Mapepe (4) Miguel
Gonzalez, (5) Miguel Velazquez, (6) Carlos Garcia, and (7) another Viequense
youth. Zenon explained that there might be more people hiding in the live impact area, and said that “although one can expect almost anything from the U.S. Navy, the fact is that as long as these demonstratos remain in the live impact area, the Navy cannot resume bombing.”
Finally, Zenon stated: “As a father, and my wife as a mother, we are concerned about what may happen to our sons in circumstances in which they are alone and in subhuman and dangerous conditions. Yet there are so many
Viequense families who have suffered the atrocities committed by the U.S. Navy here in Vieques for so long, that we are willing to pay that price in order to contribute to putting an end to the suffering of our people.”
Reports From Protests at Cornell and San Francisco
MAY 4, 2000
Cornell U. Rallies for Vieques
This afternoon, May 4, almost 150 people gathered in support of Vieques at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. The rally was spearheaded by La Voz Boriken and supported by numerous other student groups and Ithaca community members.
The activity began in front of one of the main academic buildings. Various
speakers from the very diverse group discussed how Vieques was connected
to other issues directly related to colonialism. The protesters then marched to Barton Hall, the ROTC building. The land was claimed for the remainder of the protest as a stake holding the flag of Lares was driven into the ground in front of Barton Hall. Personnel in the ROTC building locked the doors as the chants of “U.S. Navy Out of Vieques” grew stronger.
Under the pouring rain, the activity ended an hour and a half after it had
started as the crowd lifted their fists in the air and sang the revolutionary anthem of Puerto Rico, La Borinquena.
For more information, contact Edgardo Cortes at
Wake-Up Call
Now I ask all Pro-Statehooders: Still want to be part of a country that doesn’t care one iota about our expressed desires, humanity, and pride?!?
If Vieques doesn’t knock some sense into you….I don’t know that anything else ever will.
JBaez
RE: The Domino Theory Revisited
Rememder the Domino Theory? The theory in a nutshell: Once one country goes communist so would the others in a paticular region of the world. Put that in the context of Vieques: once the base on Vieques goes, the others in Puerto Rico could go the same route, out of the island This creates the spectre of a Caribbean and Latin America free of U.S. military installations which threaten greater democracy movements in the region. Remember the domino theory?
White Ribbons
In one of the pictures from Vieques I noticed an elderly woman standing next to a fence covered in white ribbons. In an
article elsewhere I read the ribbons stood for Peace.
In honor of this woman and Vieques, I have placed a white ribbon on the attenae of my car. In addition, I have copied
the Marina Fuera Sign and placed it in my car window.
I encourage all Vieques supporters to do the same.
Everyone, Place a White Ribbon on your car, trees, picket signs, etc to symbolize the fight for Naval freedom in
Vieques.
In the 90’s I was a yellow ribbon supporter of the Troops in Gulf War. I had many college friend and school teachers
called to the war.
While the ribbons themselves did not bring them home, The display of the yellow ribbons everywhere supported our
friends and loved ones as called by the military.
I knew people of all ages, all walks of life and all races supporting and knowing what these ribbons were for.
It is a similiar story with the pink ribbons for breast cancer awareness and other ribbons for causes.
When people do not know what the ribbons mean, they ask questions and we can share the information to spread
awareness of the plight of Vieques.
Please everyone, Find a White Ribbon somewhere and Show the fight for Vieques is not ending with a few
demonstrations here and there.
The large battle is at hand. We must spread the word of Vieques and get more people involved.
I am so happy to see that there are so many cities having demonstatrations, but there should be more.
We need to write letters, send emails, and encourage our representatives to have a bill passed to cease Naval activites
in Vieques.
The time is now. Voting seasons will be coming soon, and we need all the votes and supporters we can muster.
The pictures have helped, but Everyone needs to know.
GODPEACE
Vieques SI
Marina NO
PEACE TO VIEQUES No More BOMBS (concrete or Live!)
RE: White Ribbons
I think this is really a great symbolic gesture and will be putting one on my car!
RE: Wake-Up Call
Clinton, who seems to be really laying low on this issue, basically turned his back to all the Puerto Rican leaders in the U.S. who wanted to halt the removal of the protesters and end the bombings. Congressman Jose Serano, who is the most senior, along with the Reverend Jesse Jackson, had their appeal rebuked.
Comunicado de Profesores de Panama
comunicado de la Asociacion de Profesores de Panama
Date: 05/04/2000 6:16:18PM
Hawaiian Standard Time
ASOCIACION DE PROFESORES DE LA REPUBLICA DE PANAMA
Ave. Peru Final, Edificio Las Camelias, Segundo Piso, Oficina 204
COMUNICADO A LA COMUNIDAD PUERTORRIQUENA E INTERNACIONAL
Hemos recibido con gran indignacion las noticias que dan cuenta de la
provocacion e intimidacion de la marina y la posterior incursion de las
autoridades federales norteamericanas en los campamentos establecidos por
los patriotas puertorriqueños con el fin de impedir las practicas militares y el bombardeo indiscriminado en la Isla Nena.
La Asociacion de Profesores de la Republica de Panama repudia estos hechos
y extiende su solidaridad y apoyo fraterno al pueblo de Puerto Rico, en
especial a todos los viequenses. Asimismo hacemos un llamado a la
comunidad internacional a unir esfuerzos en contra de esta actitud intolerante, hostil y barbara del gobierno estadounidense dirigido por Bill Clinton.
BASTA DEL ATROPELLO A LOS PUEBLOS LATINOAMERICANOS.
VIVA LATINOAMERICA UNIDAD
FUERA LA MARINA YANKEE DE VIEQUES
UN PUEBLO UNIDO, JAM¡S SER¡ VENCIDO
Profr. José Ramon Garcia Jr.
Secretario General
Panama, 4 de mayo de 2000
Hacia el “estado de sitio”…..
En compás de espera los actos de resistencia
sábado, 6 de mayo de 2000
Por Benjamín Torres Gotay
El Nuevo Día
VIEQUES – Líderes de la oposición a la presencia de la Marina de Guerra de
Estados Unidos en Vieques manifestaron ayer su intención de volver a instalar
el Campamento de desobediencia civil Justicia y Paz frente a los portones del
Campamento García, tan pronto sea desactivado el bloqueo policial que impide actualmente la llegada al lugar.
Hasta ayer, los manifestantes no podían acercarse al Campamento García porque
una barricada vigilada por agentes de la Unidad de Operaciones Tácticas (UOT)
de la Policía impedía el paso desde cerca de un cuarto de milla antes, como
parte de la estricta vigilancia a la que están sometidos los viequenses desde
el desalojo de la zona de tiro de la Marina ejecutado por autoridades
federales el jueves.
Por agua, la vigilancia era igualmente estricta, lo que provocó quejas de los pescadores, que no podían acercarse a menos de tres millas de la costa para llevar a cabo sus labores. Carlos Ventura, líder de la Asociación de Pescadores del Sur de Vieques, dijo que las autoridades federales amenazaron con confiscar las embarcaciones de quienes violaran esa directriz.
“LOS PESCADORES están bien afectados, porque mientras dure todo esto no van a
poder ganarse la vida”, dijo Ventura.
La pesca es la actividad económica más importante de Vieques, pero la Guardia
Costera, en un memorando que circuló ayer entre los pescadores, les indicó
que la zona de seguridad de tres millas era necesaria para que la Marina pudiera realizar sus ejercicios sin el riesgo de que manifestantes penetren la zona de tiro.
“Estamos en un estado de sitio no declarado”, dijo Ventura. Ese “estado de sitio” era evidente en la mucha presencia policiaca en las calles de Vieques, en el número de embarcaciones militares que se veía en la costa y en los constantes vuelos de helicópteros por sus aires. El jefe de los alguaciles federales a nivel de Estados Unidos, John Marshall, estuvo ayer en Vieques inspeccionando las zonas. “LA MILITARIZACION de Vieques ha traspasado los portones del Campamento García y ha llegado a las calles”, dijo Robert Rabin, líder del campamento Justicia y Paz. Rabin dijo que la Coordinadora Justicia y Paz para Vieques, que administraba el campamento desmantelado por las autoridades federales en el operativo del jueves, no ha decidido todavía cuándo ni cómo va a ser reinstalada la protesta. Rabin indicó que su “inclinación” es ubicarla donde mismo estaba antes.
El Campamento Justicia y Paz ubicaba en la frontera entre los terrenos federales y estatales, pero en jurisdicción de Estados Unidos. Los que se manifestaban allí impedían la entrada a la instalación a cualquiera que no
fuera viequense, lo que causó grandes fricciones.
“De lo que no debe quedar duda es de que vamos a seguir con actividades de
desobediencia civil”, dijo Rabin. El comandante José Caldero, jefe de la región policiaca de Fajardo, dijo que
la presencia de la UOT en la carretera que da al Campamento García va a
permanecer “hasta que sea necesario” y aseguró que si los opositores a la
Marina intentan retomar los terrenos federales a la entrada de la instalación
Berríos en Vieques
Berríos: Teoria desalojo mas peligrosa
que confrontacion
Berríos dice teoría desalojo es más peligrosa que el confrontamiento jueves, 6 de abril de 2000
Por José Fernández Colón
DE LA AGENCIA EFE
Ponce (EFE) – El presidente del Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño (PIP)
y su candidato a la gobernación, Rubén Berríos Martínez, opinó que la teoría
del desalojo inminente de los desobedientes civiles en la zona de tiro en Vieques es más peligrosa que la ejecución de los arrestos.
Berríos Martínez inició el pasado 8 de mayo su acto de resistencia pacífica
en la zona de tiro de la Marina de Guerra de EEUU en Vieques, luego que los
bombardeos fueran detenidos el 19 de abril tras el accidente que le costó la
vida al guardia civil David Sanes por error de un piloto.
“Creo que la teoría esa del desaolojo sin arrestos es más peligrosa y
confrontacional, tanto para el Presidente de los Estados Unidos como para el Gobernador de Puerto Rico´´, expresó Berríos Martínez en una entrevista por una radioemisora (WPAB) de Ponce.
El veterano dirigente independentista dijo que si es desalojado al igual que
a los demás desobedientes en los otros campamentos “y nos llevan a la isla
grande y nos sueltan van a regresar a Vieques´´.
“Vamos a regresar a Vieques si nos desalojan, pero en los términos nuestros
no tendrán que arrestar a un par de personas, sino que tendrán que arrestar
cientos o miles de personas que vamos a regresar cuando estimos pertinente,
con la presencia de la prensa internacional, norteamericana y puertorriqueña y entonces eso si le presenta un problema político grande a Clinton y al gobernador Rosselló´´, declaró.
Le advirtió a Rosselló que la participación de la Policía en los potenciales arrestos le hará perder adeptos a la ideología anexionista y a su Partido Nuevo Progresista (PNP).
De igual manera, el ex senador dijo que cada día que pasa, en un periodo
eleccionario como el que se avecina, tanto en Puerto Rico como en Estados
Unidos, se hace más difícil de creer que Vieques es necesario para la llamada
“defensa nacional´´.
“Si el Gobernador se cree que utilizando la Policía para ayudar a los federales a arrestar a los que estamos en desobediencia civil ayuda a las
posibilidades electorales el próximo noviembre de su ideología, está viviendo
en otro mundo´´, sostuvo.
Mientras más transcura el tiempo sin que haya pruebas militares, más difícil
será para la Marina prevalecer en este caso porque su argumento básico de que
Vieques es indispensable para la “defensa nacional´´ de Estados Unidos es
“menos creíble´´.
cuando van los arrestos?
Abortado el desalojo por falta de un acuerdo miércoles, 5 de abril de 2000
Por Nilka Estrada Resto
El Nuevo Día
DISCREPANCIAS entre el gobierno estatal y el gobierno federal en cuanto al desalojo de los desobedientes civiles en Vieques hicieron abortar un operativo federal para remover a los manifestantes frente al Campamento García, entre la noche del lunes y la madrugada del pasado martes.
Fuentes bien enteradas dentro del gobierno indicaron a El Nuevo Día
que el gobernador interino, Angel Morey, desautorizó el lunes la participación de la Policía de Puerto Rico en el operativo por un conjunto
de varios factores, entre ellos la preocupación por la participación que le asignaron los federales a la Policía en el plan de desalojo y que los estatales no fueron consultados en la preparación del mencionado operativo.
Las fuentes indicaron también que el gobierno de Puerto Rico prefiere que el operativo de desalojo se extienda a todos los campamentos de desobediencia civil en las playas de Vieques y no sólo al Campamento García “para no pasar por el trago amargo dos veces”.
“Morey se trancó”
El plan fue discutido el pasado lunes con Morey, oficiales de la Marina, el jefe de los alguaciles, Herman Wirshing, y el jefe de la Policía, Pedro
Toledo.
“Morey se trancó. Les dijo háganlo solos, sin la cooperación de la
Policía”, indican las fuentes.
Morey dijo ayer que no podía confirmar la reunión e indicó que tampoco podía contestar preguntas en torno a cuestiones estratégicas. Pero
reiteró su llamado a los desobedientes para que abandonen las zonas
restringidas voluntariamente para así poder cumplir las directrices
presidenciales pre acordadas con el gobernador Pedro Rosselló. En cuanto a
haber desautorizado la participación de la Policía, dijo que eso es
“especulativo”.
De acuerdo con las fuentes de El Nuevo Día, entre la noche del lunes y la madrugada del martes la Marina y los alguaciles federales se proponían mover -y no arrestar- al puñado de manifestantes que pernocta a
la entrada de Camp García hasta la carretera estatal y en ese punto se ocuparían de ellos la Policía Estatal, a la que también le tocaría establecer un perímetro de seguridad, que incluía bloquear los accesos por carretera para evitar la llegada de refuerzos.
La Policía tendría que mantener a raya a los manifestantes al menos por cuatro horas, mientras efectivos de la Marina instalaban una nueva verja en el límite entre la carretera estatal y el terreno federal, según las fuentes, que añaden que la Marina sostiene que necesita despejar el portón porque los manifestantes entorpecen la entrada y salida de vehículos.
Temen acto de violencia
(POR PARTE DE QUIEN???? –DBS)
En la reunión del lunes y siempre de acuerdo con el informante, Toledo
presentó la preocupación que a su vez le han expresado los oficiales de la
Policía que cubren Vieques: que los desobedientes civiles tienen una red
de comunicación suficientemente eficiente como llevar cientos, y quizás
hasta mil personas, en cuestión de una hora, al terreno estatal cerca de
Camp García, jurisdicción donde la Marina no intervendría. Según fuentes,
esto preocupó a Morey porque no quería que las autoridades quedaran mal
ante dicha movilización y que se desatara algún acto de violencia en los
terrenos que iban a ser custodiados por la Policía.
El plan fue informado el pasado viernes por oficiales navales al comandante de área de Fajardo, José Caldero, obviando a Toledo, a Morey y posiblemente al Gobernador, según las fuentes. Agregan que Morey y el Gobernador entendían que los planes de desalojo, sin los cuales no se puede llevar a cabo el acuerdo Clinton-Rosselló, serían discutidos
previamente entre los gobiernos estatal y federal, pero en vez de eso les
comunicaron un plan ya establecido.
Morey, aunque dijo que los informes del operativo del pasado lunes son puras especulaciones, indicó ayer que “cuando se vaya a hacer (la remoción de los manifestantes) va a haber un acuerdo de cómo proceder. No hay ese acuerdo”. Afirmó que se “se trabajará en conjunto” y agregó que “será una acción integrada, siguiendo las directrices presidenciales… Cuando se haga será una acción estructurada”.
A eso de las 7:00 p.m. ya se había cancelado el operativo en Vieques, según las fuentes del gobierno. El pasado martes se celebró otra reunión entre Toledo y Wirshing y en ésta se acordó aplazar el operativo hasta nuevo aviso.
© El Nuevo Día – Derechos Reservados
What are we going to do when the arrests start?
What are we going to do when the arrests start?
No arrests, just removal
My understanding is that the U.S. and Rosello will basically order the removal of the protesters–and try as much as possible not to arrest anyone. Having been in PR recently it’s kind of eery to see a lot of business as usual with this impending confrontation. My guess is they’ll do it during holy week while people are distracted. Although this can also backfire. But my guess is that the government (the U.S. and the Rosello administration) expect that people will be distracted and not pay much attention to Vieques.
New Course In U.S.-Puerto Rico Relations
Guest column in Politico Magazine
V3-22 4/12/00
http://www.politicomagazine.com
Vieques Movement Charts New Course In U.S.-Puerto Rico Relations
By Victor M. Rodriguez Dominguez
Over the last century the island of Vieques has represented U.S. colonial
policy at its crudest. As part of the Puerto Rican archipelago, Vieques is
an emblem of both the struggle for democracy in Puerto Rico and the
contradictions of U.S.-Puerto Rico relations.
The death of Viequense David Sanes Rodriguez, a civilian base employee
killed by an errant bomb dropped by a Navy jet last year, has againmbrought Puerto Rico’s colonial profile into sharp relief.
But Vieques has long been at the center of the perennially elusive aspirations of Puerto Ricans for true self-government.
During the late 1950s, the Navy, in a process they disingenuously referred
to as “real estate negotiations,” demanded that the entire population of
Vieques be transferred to the “Big Island.” This transfer would even have
included Vieques’ cemeteries.
Author Ronald Fernandez in “The Disenchanted Island” quotes a letter from then Puerto Rico Gov. Luis Muñoz Marin to President Kennedy on December
28, 1961. The governor wrote that he did not support expelling the residents of Vieques “….unless it is not merely desirable, but clearly critically and urgently necessary for the military defense of the Nation (sic).”
Such exchanges have fed into the mentality that Puerto Rico is of
strategic military importance to the United States, whether Puerto Ricans
want it that way or not.
Vieques has fought for decades to bring attention to its plight, but it was often ignored by Puerto Rican citizens on the main island. Most recently, Gov. Pedro Rossello signed an agreement with President Clinton that provides no immediate relief from Navy bombing exercises, which have terrorized Viequenses for decades.
In making the agreement, Rossello ignored the overwhelming opposition to
the Navy’s presence by diverse political forces in Puerto Rico. The Clinton-Rossello plan even defied the Puerto Rican government’s own stated policy.
The agreement provides for the Viequenses to participate in a referendum on whether they want the Navy to continue the bombings, but the bombings would still continue for at least three years. Clinton has also promised more than $90 million in cash aid to Vieques, $50 of which are contingent on a Viequense vote to let
the Navy stay. Worse yet, the referendum does not allow voters the option of demanding an immediate and permanent end to the bombing. Plus, the Navy gets to decide when it will hold the referendum.
In the meantime, bombings are scheduled to continue with so called inert or “dummy” bombs on a reduced basis-90 days a year-for at least the next three years.
For many islanders, Vieques has become a symbol of what is wrong with U.S.-Puerto Rico relations. The fate of “La Isla Nena” (the Island Girl), as Vieques is known, and the grassroots movement supporting its residents will likely impact the 500-year-long struggle to achieve a greater degree of self-government. But the course might take some unexpected twists given that the participants represent a coalition of forces never before seen in the island’s political history.
In February, the coalition organized what many regarded as the largest
mass political demonstration in Puerto Rico’s history. Estimates of the throng ranged from 85,000 to 150,000 and the march was widely covered by the U.S. and international press. Their cause has fanned the flames of nationalist fervor.
Initially, the pro-statehood forces were caught up in the fervor of the movement to kick the Navy out of Vieques. But now they find themselves puzzled and confused. Is the Vieques movement against the U.S.? If it is, will it affect their aspirations for statehood? Or will Puerto Rico be viewed as a bastion of anti-Americanism?
Flavio Cumpiano, a Washington D.C. spokesman for the Vieques movement,
says “We cannot equate the struggle for Vieques with the pro-independence
struggle or the struggle for increased self- government”-especially since
this is an election year in Puerto Rico, which means everything there is
politicized.
As such, the interests of the big island’s politics threaten to overwhelm
what is, at its core, an issue of justice and morality. Don’t the
Viequenses deserve to live in peace? The statehooders seem to have said,
yes, but only if it does not challenge the Navy’s right to continue bombing the island for at least a while longer.
Most of the major milestones in U.S. policy toward Puerto Rico have not
come as a result of Puerto Rican volition. In 1917, for example, the U.S.
imposed U.S. citizenship on Puerto Ricans over the objections of the
Puerto Rican legislature. In 1952, the U.S. “allowed” Puerto Ricans to draft their own constitution as a reaction to Cold War politics and to burnish the tarnish that having a colonial possession gives to the image of the “Land of the Free.”
Given that historical legacy, the real significance of the Vieques movement is that for the first time Puerto Ricans are making their own history. This time, Puerto Ricans were calling the shots and the White House and Congress were listening-at least until Gov. Rossello broke ranks with the Puerto Rican people.
In the past 12 months, Puerto Ricans have flexed their political muscles,
and they like how it feels. Never before has the Navy faced such stubborn
resistance in the 102-year U.S. occupation of Puerto Rico.
If the coalition holds beyond the local November elections, it will symbolize a major shift in U.S-Puerto Rico relations. Whether the Navy is forced to leave or not, nothing can erase the sense of empowerment the Vieques movement has created. And the event will have opened a new path to ending Puerto Rico’s perennial colonial subjugation.
Rodriguez is a sociology professor at Concordia University in Irvine,
California
United by Their Love Towards Vieques
United by Their Love Towards Vieques
April 12, 2000
by Camile Roldan Soto
El Nuevo Dia
She will be dressed in a simple white dress on Saturday, her head adorned
with a crown, and accompanied by her groom they will board a boat which
will take her to La Yayi cay (Cayo YayÌ), in Vieques, where they swear to
love each other for the rest of their lives around their family and civil
disobedients.
With their union in prohibited territory by the United States Navy, Zoe Lugo Mendoza y Regalado Miro decide to make history and formalize their engagement with the struggle that united them: the demilitarization of Nena island.
“I proposed and she quickly accepted,” says Regalado, who also had the idea of having the wedding coincide with the anniversary of cessation of bombing in Vieques.
Zoe said that it was in New York, participating in activities trying to
bring forth consciousness of what was happening on the island, that she fell in love with the young man from Vieques.
The vieques sky as a roof
But it shall be underneath the sun in Vieques that they will continue to fight for the Navy to retreat.
It has been two months since they abandoned their jobs in the Big Apple to
be in Vieques, where they sleep, many times, in the restricted areas.
“Right now, we are unemployed, but we feel that this our duty as Puerto Ricans,” Regalado says, while his fiancé maintains that they will be in civil disobedience “until the Navy gets out.”
The honeymoon will be in La Yayi cay which will be adorned with gold and
white bows and balloons. Eric Diaz, the pastor, will perform the ceremony midday, and the party will be at Yayi afterwards.
Support for Vieques from Loisaida
Neoyorquinos rumbo a Vieques
sábado, 8 de abril de 2000
Por El Nuevo Día
LA CONCEJAL de Nueva York Margarita López llegó ayer tarde a Puerto Rico acompañada por 80 constituyentes de su distrito en el Bajo Manhattan para visitar hoy la isla de Vieques.
López, junto a los concejales Víctor Robles y José Rivera, sometieron una propuesta para declarar la isla de Vieques ‘ciudad hermana’, del sector del Bajo Manhattan, conocido como ‘Loisaida’, con el propósito de traer recursos económicos y aumentar la atención de los ciudadanos de Nueva York hacia la causa viequense contra la Marina de Estados Unidos.
“Nuestra delegación no viene como turistas, sino como activistas dispuestos a participar en acciones de desobediencia civil para ratificar su deseo de que la Marina salga de Vieques”, dijo López.
“Con su presencia en Vieques, los neoyorquinos que nos acompañan -todos norteamericanos- quieren expresar su desacuerdo con la política del Pentágono. Ellos, al igual que nosotros, consideramos como un abuso, como una falta de consideración con el pueblo de Vieques, las continuas prácticas militares en esa región”.
LA DELEGACION pernoctó en la Iglesia de Cristo Sanador en Santurce y partiría hacia Vieques temprano hoy. Allí visitarán los diversos campamentos de reistencia y participarán en actividades de solidaridad con Vieques. El lunes regresarán a Nueva York.
Depleted uranium related illness in Iraq.
I received a link to a links page favoring the lifting of sanctions on Iraq. I do not insinuate that a supporter of the the struggle in Vieques is in any way in agreement with this cause. But I think there is an area in which the Vieques struggle can gain information from those interested in lifting the sanctions. That is the fact that there has been considerable evidence of cancer due to the use of depleted uranium shells in the war. Check out the site at http://www.concentric.net/~Toria/
Free Vieques
“Borinqueno is a state of REVOLUTION.”
– T.C. Garcia
Once we remove the U.S. military from Vieques we must remove them from all of Puerto Rico, and then remove the U.S. government completely… and then remove all the trash they left behind… including our colonized minds…
Cancelacion de maniobras es triunfo
Martin: “Cancelación de ejercicios es un triunfo de Borinquen ”
jueves, 13 de abril de 2000
POR LA AGENCIA EFE
San Juan (EFE) – El vicepresidente del Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño
(PIP), Fernando Martin, estimó hoy que es un triunfo para Puerto Rico la cancelación de los ejercicios en la isla municipio de Vieques por parte de la
Marina de Guerra de Estados Unidos.
“Es un triunfo para Puerto Rico y una reivindicación para quienes se encuentran en desobediencia civil en Vieques´´, dijo Martin, quien opinó que
esta determinación es el anticipo de la posibilidad de que el presidente Bill
Clinton se vea obligado a reconsiderar las directrices.
Además, Martin comentó que “si en el período que va hasta el 31 de mayo no se
producen los arrestos la Marina se verá maniatada porque no habrá la voluntad
para reiniciar los bombardeos´´.
Sobre las opiniones del Gobernador en relación a que los arrestos no están
ligados a las prácticas militares, el dirigente admitió que “en el sentido
estricto lógico sí, pero sería un precio absurdo para una confrontación que no tendría el beneficio del área de tiro para la Marina´´.
A su vez, señaló que el argumento de que Vieques es indispensable para la Marina “se cae por su propio peso y ahora ellos tienen un método alterno que le es técnicamente satisfactorio. El argumento de que la isla Nena era indispensable resulta fraudulento´´.
RE: No arrests, just removal
I believe it would have a serious backlash effect were the government to attempt to remove demonstrators during Holy Week. Given Puerto Rican’s religious convictions, I believe it would be viewed as sacrilegious to conduct such an operation during this Holiest of times.
Kennedy se suma a la causa de Vieques
Kennedy se suma a la causa
miércoles, 19 de abril de 2000
Por Randy Nieves Ruiz
Agencia EFE
EL ABOGADO ambientalista Robert Kennedy, Jr. visitó el martes los campamentos
de desobediencia civil en Vieques, y buceó en la costa sur de la isla, donde
pudo observar una barcaza hundida con contenedores de alguna sustancia tóxica.
Kennedy afirmó que lo que vio en la zona de tiro de la Marina de Guerra de EE.UU. en Vieques fue la “destrucción ecológica”, y se comprometió a examinar
el caso para buscar algún remedio judicial.
“Sería un gran error que la Marina comience los bombardeos”, aseguró Kennedy antes de abandonar la zona, donde buceó por unos 25 minutos frente a la Roca Alcatraz, ubicada frente a la playa Gilberto Concepción de Gracia.
Además, visitó en el camión militar que los manifestantes restauraron, algunos campamentos y las lagunas muertas en la zona sembradas de balas, misiles, bombas y escombros.
Explicó que aunque por muchos años la Marina pudo argumentar que no sabía la
magnitud de la destrucción que ha ocasionado en Vieques, ahora todo se sabe.
“EL COSTO que la Marina le impone a esta comunidad es catastrófico”, sentenció el prominente abogado miembro del clan Kennedy, vinculado al Partido Demócrata estadounidense. “Claramente es un problema moral”, agregó en referencia al argumento de que el asunto de Vieques es de índole de seguridad nacional.
Aunque no especificó cómo ayudaría a la causa, apuntó que “usaremos todas las
herramientas legales” para paralizar los bombardeos. Kennedy es un exitoso
profesional que ha ganado litigios importantes contra industrias que
contaminan el ambiente. Aclaró que las maniobras de la Armada en la Isla Nena
“son ilegales, están violando las leyes”.
El estadounidense se reunió también con el candidato a la gobernación por el
Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño (PIP), Rubén Berríos, quien se mostró
optimista con su trabajo y aseguró que “cualquier tipo de acción, la gente de
él se pondrá en contacto con la de nosotros.
A principios de la década de 1990, Kennedy reclutó a Rivera para que le
ayudara en su lucha en defensa de las aguas del Río Hudson en Nueva York.
“Ahora es Rivera quien recluta a Kennedy para defender las aguas de Vieques”,
aseguró Rodríguez.
La visita de Kennedy se produjo un día antes del primer aniversario de la muerte del guardia civil David Sanes durante las prácticas militares de la
Marina en Vieques.
ESTE ACCIDENTE mortal provocado por un disparo errático de un piloto de la
Marina el 19 de abril de 1999, en la zona de tiro del Campamento García en
Vieques, incrementó la lucha contra el militarismo en el país lidereada durante décadas por los pescadores viequenses de diferentes ideologías y los inpendentistas.
A Year Of Peace, A Year Of Struggle
A Year Of Peace, A Year Of Struggle
by Fernando Reals Restrepo Molinary
Vieques Support Campaign/Todo NY Con Vieques
Monte David Solidarity and Camp Peace and Justice
Its April 21st, 2000 and as I awoke this morning, a Good Friday, the saddest day in the Christian calendar, I felt a bittersweet mixture of peace and sadness that has overcome my soul and so I weep and I write. Warm inside of my Binghamton apartment I have just finished reading the letter from compañero Robert Rabin down in Vieques about the activities on April 19th in La Isla Nena. As I read his words it sinks in: We have done it; we have brought peace for a year to a small island and perhaps the world with our will to struggle -our will to love.
On Wednesday the 19th, I joined my friends and compañer@s of the Vieques Support Campaign in New York City as we rallied and defied police wishes that we would just shut-up, in an effort to remind the motorists driving up the West Side Highway, in the shadow of the U.S.S. Intrepid, that Vieques must be free of her arrogant invador-the U.S. Navy. Carlito Rovira, now with a megaphone, has not shut up since the ‘60’s, when he walked through the streets of El Barrio with the Young Lords Party, yelling “Despierta Boricua, defiende lo tuyo.”
The bitterness of being a Nuyorican, a proud-rican born in the cold air of a November afternoon… Forget the wrong side of the tracks, I was born on the wrong side of the ocean… becomes intensified as I find myself waving a Puerto Rican flag on the street in Nueva York, reminding motorists, who might be misplaced Puerto Ricans as well, to fight for a Navy-less Vieques. Frankie Velgarra and Carlito have been fighting for a Gringo-less Puerto Rico for years; why are we still yelling on the street, with some pudgy-faced, white cops laughing at our efforts?
The sweetness of the same situation comes from the lips of one Doña Vera. Though she is pushing a century in the eyes of this young man, she is kicking out the navy from her island with every breath expelled… every word pushed into the air… with every “U.S. Navy, Out of Vieques!” spoken in the foreign language of the gringo, so that they may understand. Saulo, Ben, Rosalyn, Chris, Jane, the sisters from the island, the wepa white folks, and I are part of a movement. We are all from different walks in life, generations and experiences apart, but we stand in solidarity with our sister and brothers throughout the diaspora, and especially in Vieques.
Today is April 21st and I am proud to be part of the Monte David community at the rescued zone in Vieques, Puerto Rico. As I write these words/thoughts, I remember that it was a year ago tonight that the Zenon family, with its generations, and Tito Kayak took their position in the Grito de Vieques, and erected the white cross that has stood since and signifies peace. This resistance camp, the first of its kind, lent a terrific example to be duplicated by several groups in solidarity with the movement to stop the bombing in Vieques and end U.S. Imperialism. With the establishment of Camp Yayi, Los Maestros, Los Sindicatos, Los Christianos, Las Ruinas, Hostosianos, Pipiolos, Todo Puertoriqueños, Mapepe, and also Campamento Peace and Jutice, we truly have something to rejoice in this April. Let us continue to struggle so that not one more bomb, not one more bullet be fired in Vieques. Amen.
contact me to make contributions to Monte David at reals@graffiti.net
contact Robert Rabin to make contributions to Camp Peace and Justice at bieke@coqui.net
RFK Jr. Joins Puerto Rican Causes
RFK Jr. Joins Puerto Rican Causes
By RICARDO ZUNIGA, Associated Press
VIEQUES, Puerto Rico (AP) Environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Monday he would sue the Navy for allegedly polluting Vieques island, as he joined the Puerto Rican campaign to shut down a Navy bombing range on the
island.
Kennedy, a senior counsel for the New York-based Natural Resources Defense
Council, accused the Navy of breaking environmental laws in a way it never
would on the mainland.
“I don’t believe that the Navy could behave the way it has been behaving
in Vieques in any of the other 50 states. There would be a revolution,
Kennedy told reporters.
A Navy spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.
Vieques has a wealth of bird and sea life, including sea turtles, manatees, whales and endangered peregrine falcons.
Puerto Rican protesters are preparing vigils to mark the year anniversary
on April 19 of the death of a civilian guard killed by an errant Marine bomb within the Vieques range – one the sparks of popular protests against
the base.
President Clinton has negotiated a deal for the Navy to resume exercises but with only inert bombs until the people of Vieques cane decide in a referendum whether they want the base removed.
Despite the agreement, some protesters are refusing to budge, saying they will not tolerate any more exercises.
¡No a la invasión norteamericana!
¡Atención, atención, atención! Nos estamos dirigiendo a todos ustedes,
porque Puerto Rico, una vez más, está a la puerta de una nueva invasión
simbólica y real por parte del ejército de los Estados Unidos de Norteamérica. Creo que ha llegado el momento de plantearse nuevamente la posibilidad de organizar una Nueva Huelga Nacional que agrupe a todos los sectores progresistas de nuestro país frente a las fuerzas norteamericanas y que atraiga toda la atención internacional que necesitamos en estos momentos. Creo también que hay que pensar en solicitar el apoyo de las organizaciones de todos los trabajadores del país, de los maestros puertorriqueños, de los estudiantes universitarios, de los profesores universitarios, de la Iglesia Protestante y de la Iglesia Católica.
Ha llegado la hora de prepararnos para llenar las cárceles puertorriqueñas
con militantes, de preparar un “staff” de abogados que puedan sacar a los
Libertarios de la desobediencia civil inmediatamente que éstos caigan presos
y de preparar, si no se ha preparado ya, un grupo voluntario de enfermeras y
doctores que estén dispuestos a curar a las personas que puedan surgir heridas de ese intento norteamericano de reanudar el bombardeo contra la isla
de Vieques. Cada compañero que posea un computadora debe reproducir estos
acontecimientos, desde hoy, durante, y mientras dure la nueva invasión
norteamericana, para todos los amigos de la solidaridad internacional pero,
sobre todo, para los periódicos latinoamericanos. Ha llegado la hora de
invertir la información y de arrebatársela a esa cubanidad antipuertorriqueña del exilio. Nos urge reorganizar las listas de correo de Internet para notificar al mundo de todo lo que pase en Puerto Rico, para que los grupos solidarios, revolucionarios y antinorteamericanos nos apoyen. Es por eso, que estamos pidiendo, a través de estos medios, a los grupos de apoyo que
utilicen también sus listas de correo para reproducir los acontecimientos de
esta emergencia que se cierne sobre suelo puertorriqueños. Estamos pidiendo
la solidaridad de aquellos países (México, Cuba, Haití, Granada, Colombia,
República Dominicana, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Panamá, Irak, Serbia, Japón,
VietNam, Corea, etc.) que de forma directa, o indirecta, hayan sufrido la
intervención imperial de las fuerzas armadas yanquis. Si logramos romper la
frivolidad de la “red” a través de este apoyo inmediato a Puerto Rico,
verdaderamente nos estaremos preparando para establecer golpes informativos y
políticos a ese mito de la globalización que Estados Unidos trafica cínicamente contra los países latinoamericanos. Los amigos, las asociaciones y los grupos políticos que reciban este “email” no debe olvidar que en Puerto Rico, en la isla de Vieques, se ensayan todas las técnicas militares y todas las estrategias que luego se usarán y debutarán, con el apoyo de “sus”-oligarq
uías-demokráticas en los países de ustedes. Detener hoy a los Estados Unidos, denunciar internacionalmente a los yanquis en Puerto Rico, es una postura moral que nos resulta ineludible porque, sobre todas las cosas, establecerá un precedente latinoamericano. Defender hoy a Puerto Rico implicará defender mañana a Colombia, a México, a Perú, de una posible intervención militar norteamericana. El conflicto político-económico en su globalización es tal
que lo que hagamos hoy nos servirá para defendernos mañana. ¡No se desmoralice nadie! ¡No nihilice nadie! Si hay alguna democratización en estos momentos, esa somos nosotros, porque “nuestros” parlamentos y “nuestras” legislaturas han dejado de existir. ¡Dile no a las “demokracias” de la traición!
Serrano
Congressman Jose E. Serrano
NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ROSALINDA DEJESUS
April 25, 2000
SERRANO SENDS LETTER TO CLINTON REGARDING VIEQUES
Washington, D.C., April 25
Congressman Jose E. Serrano (D-NY) today sent a letter to President Bill Clinton urging him to act immediately to end the
Navy’s presence on Vieques and to suspend any efforts to remove the peaceful protestors from Navy property.
Serrano’s letter comes after Federal officials announced that they are
planning to remove, by force if necessary, dozens of Puerto Rican protestors on Vieques. Protestors have been on the island since a civilian, David Sanes Rodriguez, was accidentally killed last April during training exercises there.
Text of the April 25 letter follows:
The Honorable William J. Clinton
President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20500-0005
Dear Mr. President:
Recent press accounts indicate that we are facing another decisive
moment in the often rocky relationship between the United States and Puerto
Rico, a moment in which I hope you will exercise the intelligent and independent leadership which has characterized your Presidency. For too long, the history of this relationship has been driven by events extraneous to the core issue of tension: the ambivalent political status of the island vis-a-vis the United States. I fear that proceeding with plans resulting from recent negotiations between the government of Puerto Rico and the Navy will postpone but not resolve problems arising from this core tension.
It is therefore my hope that you will act immediately to end the
presence of the Navy in Vieques. Though, of course, I am fully aware of the recent directive providing for a gradual transition, I write in the hope
that you will act now to proceed to the ultimate objective of the agreement
– the orderly end to an unfortunate Naval presence in Vieques.
Most immediately, I request that you suspend any efforts to remove the peaceful protestors from Navy property. They are exercising their right of political expression in a non-violent way, endangering nobody.
With warm best wishes, I am
Sincerely,
Jose E. Serrano
Member of Congress
Navy delays departures of two ships
April 26, 2000
Navy delays the departures of two ships for Vieques
By JACK DORSEY AND DALE EISMAN
© 2000, The Virginian-Pilot
NORFOLK – A strong Atlantic storm, apparently combined with uncertain
political and bureaucratic currents, has postponed the sailing of two Norfolk-based amphibious ships that were set to head for the disputed Navy bombing range on Vieques Island, Puerto Rico.
The assault ship Bataan and transport dock Nashville remained in port Tuesday, awaiting word from Washington on whether they will sail for Vieques to support a possible federal eviction of protesters who have blocked the use of a Navy bombing range there for more than a year.
Crews of both ships were told earlier in the week to be ready to take Marines and their equipment to Puerto Rico in support of federal law enforcement authorities who would remove the several dozen protesters.
The ships originally were scheduled to sail at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday. That departure time was rescheduled for 10 a.m. because of a nor’easter off the
Virginia and North Carolina coasts, one Navy officer said.
A decision was made later to keep the ships in port for at least the rest
of the day, and defense officials said it is unclear when they might be
dispatched.
Politics might have played a part in the delay, one defense source said.
Justice Department officials met with senators Tuesday to defend the armed
seizure by federal immigration agents of 6-year-old Cuban refugee Elian Gonzalez in a pre-dawn Miami raid on Saturday.
The inquiry and anger the Miami raid created among Cuban-American voters
could postpone any operation in Vieques, the defense source said.
Other officials suggested that tensions between the military and law enforcement agencies may also have been a factor in the delay.
One senior defense official said military and law enforcement planners
appeared to be working largely in isolation from each other and that at
least some uniformed leaders were uncomfortable with what they saw as gaps
in the plan to clear the range.
Yet another official said that news reports Monday night and Tuesday
morning about the impending operation helped keep the ships in port. The
official said that the military and Justice Department don’t want additional protesters to be drawn to Vieques by reports that an eviction is imminent.
At one point last year, Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Rossello warned lawmakers that any attempt to clear the range would trigger the movement of thousands of Puerto Ricans to replace anyone arrested. Rossello has since agreed to a plan to reopen the range to inert bombs and shells, but defense officials remain wary of a mushrooming protest movement.
Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon declined to discuss the issue with
reporters Tuesday, saying he would not talk about any operational plans.
The plan being considered would involve federal marshals as well as FBI agents. Marines aboard ships off the coast would provide perimeter security once the range was cleared.
The range has been closed since an accident on April 19, 1999, in which a
Puerto Rican civilian security guard was killed by bombs from a Marine jet.
Demonstrators who began camping on the range shortly after the accident
claim the bombing has crippled Vieques’ environment and economy.
The Navy says Vieques is the only place in the Atlantic where its forces can “train as we fight,” practicing live bombing, shelling, submarine maneuvers, amphibious assaults and ship-to-ship warfare operations at the same time.
The carrier John F. Kennedy battle group was the last to use the Vieques range. An F/A-18 Hornet from its air wing dropped the errant bombs. Since then, the carrier Eisenhower battle group and the carrier George Washington battle group have had to seek other areas in which to train.
Vieques contaminated
To all recipients: Please broadcast, distribute, publish, and send out to
every web server list that will accept the following comments for the citizens of the world.
Thanks, dr. doug rokke
If, as indicated in the following press report that DOD officials are ready to use force against the residents of Vieques, then the citizens of the world must ban together to help the residents of Vieques.
This started because U.S. Marine Corps pilots willfully fired depleted uranium in violation of laws and regulations, as admitted by U.S. Navy officials, into Vieques and then a Navy pilot dropped a bomb that killed one and injured others. The claim has been that the bomb went off course. Funny thing about physics and Newtonian mechanics, bombs only go where you place them. Therefore the claim that the bomb was errant is pure rubbish. The pilot killed that guard and injured the others because he was wrong and was not careful with the bomb release. That is pure negligence!!!!!
This is also an issue of environmental justice where U.S. Department of Defense representatives refuse to provide medical care for all exposed individuals and also complete environmental remediation. U.S. Forces have contaminated the island of Vieques for too long causing health and environmental damage. It must stop now. In a direct quote from:
031-503-1017 Respond to Depleted Uranium/Low level Radioactive Materials
(DULLRAM) Hazards (new) U.S. Army Manual of Common Tasks the Department
of Defense authors state that:
“NOTE: Contamination will make food and water unsafe for consumption.”
Seems that Navy officials know that the use of DU causes willful harm because it is in the required DU training that all DOD personnel must complete by order and law. Thus disregard of this information probably violates RCRA (42 CFR 901) and is a crime against humanity.
Next: The U.S. Navy cites that Vieques is needed for training our forces, yet, the Navy has advertised to any nation for a fee that Vieques can be used for as quoted “Mission: consistently provide professional customer services, conduct real world anti-submarine warfare training for aircrafts, ships, and submarines of U.S. and foreign navies…Live-fire capability for most non-conventional weapons inventory…to provide airspace, surface, and subsurface water space for developmental and operational testing of new and existing weapons systems.”
In case anyone has missed the most important part of this advertisement it
is that “non-conventional” as cited has historically referred to nuclear,
biological, and chemical weapons. If that has occurred over the years, that is why the residents of Vieques are sick. Conventional weapons residues will also cause health and environmental problems.
It is time for everyone to support the residents of Vieques and demand that the U.S. Navy withdraw and cease all actions on that island. Just remember if the Navy willingly fired DU to prepare for battle in Kosovo then the next preparation with “non-conventional weapons” as advertised may be for use against you!
IFCO/Pastors for Peace sends delegation to Vieques
Media Advisory
For Immediate Release
April 25, 2000
Contact: IFCO/Pastors for Peace
Midwest office: 773-271-4817, p4p@igc.org
National office: 212-926-5757, ifco@igc.org
A Delegation of Religious Leaders, Physicians and Elected Officials to
Travel to US Military Bombing Range in Vieques, Puerto Rico Despite Government Plans to Forcefully Remove Protestors
As the US government announced plans to forcefully remove protestors from the US military base in Vieques, Puerto Rico, a delegation of religious leaders, physicians and elected officials are scheduled to arrive on the island Saturday, April 29.
The delegation organized by IFCO/Pastors for Peace will join dozens of people staying in peaceful encampments of civil disobedience throughout the bombing range, which began last year when Vieques civilian, David Sanes Rodriguez, was killed by an errant 500-pound bomb dropped by a US Military fighter jet.
US Federal authorities have announced plans to send the National Guard and FBI agents into the bombing range to remove the non-violent protestors. A reported 100 US Marines are preparing to provide perimeter security off the coast of Vieques, while Puerto Rican police will be used to “control” the anticipated popular protest of tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans.
Protestors include clergy, fishermen, political leaders, teachers, and youth, who have been pleading for an end to the bombing and strafing of Vieques for the past five decades.
The IFCO/Pastors for Peace delegation will be staying in the Evangelical
Obedience camp, a faith-based encampment organized by the Puerto Rican Evangelical Council, a ecumenical coalition of Methodists, Baptists,
Presbyterians, Evangelicals and Disciples of Christ.
Religious leaders from various denominations in Puerto Rico and the US,
have called for an end to the US military practice on Vieques, which has
used live ammunition, napalm, and depleted uranium on an island that is
inhabited by nearly 10,000 people. Rev. Lucius Walker, Jr., Executive Director of IFCO/Pastors for Peace, stated “Our faith calls on us to engage in civil disobedience when US policy condones military exercises that kill, contaminate, and cause disease at extraordinary rates. IFCO/Pastors for Peace stands in solidarity with its church partners in Puerto Rico who are standing, in moral obedience, against the US military destruction of their homeland. The people of Vieques have suffered too much, it is time for the US military to stop the madness.”
Pastors for Peace is an ecumenical action/education project of the
Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO). Pastors for
Peace was established in 1988, when an IFCO study delegation to Nicaragua
was ambushed by US trained and funded contra forces while traveling on a
passenger ferryboat. Two people were killed and 29 wounded, including
Rev. Lucius Walker, Jr. Since that time, Pastors for Peace has organized
31 national humanitarian aid caravans, 80 delegations and dozens of construction brigades to Chiapas, Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala,
Honduras, Nicaragua and Cuba. Each faith-based action/education project
demonstrates a people-to-people foreign policy, supported by tens of thousands of people across the US.
The special delegation will hold a press conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico on Friday, April 28, 2000. Location to be announced later today.
Vieques Protesters Face Showdown
Thursday April 27 6:24 AM ET
Vieques Protesters Face Showdown
By JAMES ANDERSON, Associated Press
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) – Any raid to remove protesters from the U.S. Navy’s Vieques bombing range will unleash anti-Americanism in Puerto Rico and antagonize Hispanic voters in the United States, opponents have warned.
With recurring rumors of imminent arrests, critics say forcibly ending the
one-year standoff would strengthen a grass-roots anti-Navy movement and harm Navy plans to regain its prized Atlantic training ground.
“This issue unites Puerto Ricans not only in Puerto Rico but throughout
the 50 states,” said U.S. Rep. Jose Serrano, D-N.Y. “It would definitely
become a campaign issue.”
Jose Rivera, a Puerto Rico-born New York City councilman, said Hispanic-Americans have yet to recover from the way federal agents took Elian Gonzalez from his Miami relatives’ home by gunpoint. “It won’t look good for anyone if they do one thing right after the other,” he said.
That anger, Rivera said, would show at New York’s annual Puerto Rican Day
Parade – an important event for many politicians, including U.S. Senate
candidates Rudolph Giuliani and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Military officials agree Vieques is a potentially explosive issue.
Clearing dozens of U.S. citizens from primitive campsites on a scrubby,
pockmarked wasteland rife with unexploded bombs is a daunting task. And
with arrests, militants have vowed demonstrations at U.S. facilities
throughout Puerto Rico.
The Vieques protesters are blocking a Jan. 31 agreement between President
Clinton and Puerto Rican Gov. Pedro Rossello to resume exercises for at
least three years using “dummy” bombs in exchange for a referendum in Vieques on whether to close the range.
It includes $40 million for economic development on Vieques and the return
of one-third of the island used as a munitions dump.
According to reports Monday, the Justice Department was planning a raid involving federal marshals, FBI agents, Marines and Puerto Rican police. Officials have since refused comment.
While most protesters say they won’t resist arrest, they do say other
demonstrators will replace them. Some vow to scatter into the ordinance-laden hills.
They’ve occupied the range since April 19, 1999, when errant bombs from a
Marine Corps jet killed civilian guard David Sanes Rodriguez.
Hardly a cohesive group, the protesters include fishermen, teachers, two bishops – one Catholic, one Methodist – students, pro-independence politicians, pro-statehood activists and veterans of foreign wars.
Their message: five decades of bombing an island populated by 9,300 U.S.
citizens is enough. Though they live nine miles from the range, Vieques
residents blame bombing for what they say is a high cancer rate, stunted
tourism, unemployment and ecological damage.
The Navy says Vieques is critical to the military’s preparedness, and patriotic Americans shouldn’t put servicemen’s lives in danger by denying them the kind of live-fire training that made the crucial difference in the Middle East, Kosovo and elsewhere.
“This is not a game. This is reality,” said Rear Adm. Kevin P. Green in a recent San Juan Star column commemorating Sanes’ death. “We are serving around the globe to protect your interests, and we must be prepared.”
Many Puerto Ricans, albeit quietly, support that argument. Local polls,
however, suggest most back a firm stand and argue the bombings would stop
immediately if Spanish-speaking Puerto Rico were a U.S. state.
The threat of a Vieques raid should put Puerto Rico’s political status – a
U.S. territory that can’t vote for president or Congress – on the nation’s
political agenda, Serrano said.
“Look at the Cuban issue. You have two Florida senators demanding hearings” into the Elian Gonzalez raid, Serrano said. “If Puerto Rico was a state, it would have two senators filibustering over Vieques.”
Critics say the Navy lied in the past about its use of napalm and depleted
uranium-tipped shells on Vieques and didn’t fulfill a 1983 pledge to promote the economy of Vieques, where most people live in poverty.
While the Roosevelt Roads Naval Station that administers Vieques injects $340 million into Puerto Rico’s economy each year, officials acknowledge their public relations efforts have been less than stellar.
Rossello and others have urged the protesters to abandon the range – then
vote the Navy out.
“I’m urging people to take everything calmly and let them make the arrests,” said Vieques Mayor Manuela Santiago. “It would be painful for blood to run in Vieques.”
Federal Authorities Said to Be Preparing…
New York Times
April 28, 2000
Federal Authorities Said to Be Preparing to Rout Protesters on Vieques
By DAVID JOHNSTON
WASHINGTON, April 27 — Prodded by the Pentagon, federal authorities are
preparing a sea-and-land law enforcement operation next week on Vieques, a small island off Puerto Rico, to clear demonstrators from a Navy bombing range there, government officials said today.
Preparations to move a large number of federal special weapons and tactics teams to Vieques are under way less than a week after armed immigration officers stormed a house in which the Cuban boy Elián González was staying with his great-uncle in Miami.
As the furor over the Miami operation continues, Attorney General Janet Reno
has been planning the much larger and potentially risky operation in Vieques. She has met with the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Louis J. Freeh, whose agents would play a central role in the assault, and with Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, the officials said.
The Vieques protesters have been demonstrating against an agreement reached on Jan. 31 by President Clinton and Gov. Pedro J. Rosello of Puerto Rico. The deal allowed the Navy to conduct limited exercises on Vieques in
exchange for an American promise to abide by a referendum in Puerto Rico on
whether to close the range.
The officials said that most days 50 to 75 protesters are camped on the island in the path of aircraft on bombing runs. Their ranks are expected to swell as knowledge of a pending operation spreads. Protesters are expected to arrive by boat and congregate at entry gates to the base.
Today, a Pentagon spokesman, Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, said that the Pentagon
had been consulting with other government organizations, but would not
discuss the status of the law enforcement operation.
“We’ve been in consultation with the Puerto Rican government, with the
Department of Justice, to work out a way to clear the range of the trespassers,” Admiral Quigley said. “That process continues, and I am just not going to go into any further detail on that process at all.”
Several civilian federal agencies are involved in the law enforcement
operation, the officials said. Among them are the Treasury Department and
the Transportation Department, which has jurisdiction over the Coast Guard, which would help block the flotillas of demonstrators expected to arrive by
sea from Puerto Rico.
The officials said that federal authorities are prepared to clear the
bombing range, but have expressed serious reservations about the operation, which is scheduled for next week if the White House approves it.
They said that Pentagon officials have been insistent that the Navy needed
the bombing range for training exercises, even though Justice Department officials have said that another military-style assault would provoke another avalanche of criticism of the Clinton administration.
The officials said they feared that neither the F.B.I. nor the federal
marshals were adequately prepared for such a large-scale enforcement action
so far from the mainland.
The operation would take place over a large area in which there would be
virtually no chance for a surprise raid, on beaches and open terrain including some areas where live munitions are thought to lie.
Moreover, the officials said, they feared the law enforcement operation
would provoke demonstrations in other parts of Puerto Rico, and that local
authorities were unprepared for large-scale disruptions.
Under the tactical plan, the officials said, marines would arrive aboard ships to provide perimeter security, but only after the operation, and the Puerto Rican police would be responsible for crowd control.
When the arrangement between the White House and Puerto Rico was announced,
Mr. Rossello said he would help federal efforts to stop trespassing at the
bombing range, but little action has been taken against the protesters.
Exercises on Vieques, where the Navy maintains a bombing range that it
considers essential to the training of its Atlantic fleet, were suspended
last spring after a wayward bomb killed a civilian security guard, an accident that intensified longtime protests against the military presence. The Pentagon has been putting pressure on the Justice Department to clear the bombing range of protesters. Earlier this year, an aircraft carrier battle group had to conduct some training exercises in different places, including using a bombing range in Scotland.
The next carrier group, led by the George Washington, is headed to sea in
coming months and the Navy is eager to use the range, which officials say
offers the ideal location for coordinating air-ground-and-sea training
exercises.
Alerta! Llama a Janet Reno/ Call Janet Reno
Alerta! Llama a Janet Reno – Call Janet Reno (202-514-2001)
Please Post and Forward – Favor de Distribuir
Alerta Urgente! Los medios de comunicacion han confirmado que dos buques de guerra partieron ayer (Jueves) de Virginia hacia Carolina del Norte
para recoger 1,000 Infantes de Marina y equipo militar. Se espera que en dos dias llegaron a Vieques para participar, junto al FBI y Alguaciles Federales, en un operativo para desalojar por la fuerza a los que enarbolan los principios de Desobediencia Civil No-Violenta en los campamentos de resistencia.
Favor de llamar DE INMEDIATO a Janet Reno (202-514-2001) para dejarle
saber de que dicho operativo es repudiado por el Pueblo de Puerto Rico.
Dej·le saber que lo mejor para los Estados Unidos sera suspender dicho
plan, pues de lo contrario veran su imagen afectada internacionalmente y
tendr·n que lidiar con masivas demostraciones de protesta tanto en Puerto Rico como en Estados Unidos.
Ahora mas que nunca;
¡PAZ PARA VIEQUES!
¡Ni una bomba mas!
========================================================
Alert! The media has confirmed that two Navy Warships just left Virginia, will
stop in North Carolina to pick up 1000 Marines and equipment, and will
participate, along the FBI and Federal Marshals, in a military operation to remove by force protesters from the resistance camps on Vieques. The navy says it takes 2-3 days to sail to Vieques.
Now is the moment for all of us to take action and call IMMEDIATLY Janet Reno (202-514-2001) to let her know that the people of Puerto Rico reject any military raid on Vieques. Let her know that the best interest of the U.S. will be served by suspending said plan, since arrests will only bring shame to the U.S. in the eyes of the international community and that massive protests will take place both in Puerto Rico and the U.S.
Now, more than ever;
PEACE FOR VIEQUES!
Not one more bomb!
if they arrest
We’ve been waiting for the arrests for a year now. We’ve forced the Navy to halt their practices in Vieques and we’re ready for the next step. Our struggle has been characterized by non-violent tactics. Both in Puerto Rico and in the US activists are ready to implement several of our defensive plans. We recognize that the U.S. government has the power to mobilize thousands of agents and soldiers and clear the area in a relative short time. However, our strength relies on the moral conviction that our struggle for human rights and freedom is just. They might regain control of the Vieques range for some time but will be condemned by the international community. Furthermore, they will have to work with Puerto Ricans shutting down important federal areas in Puerto Rico and in the United States. If the U.S is not willing to give us our land back, then they will have to face the anger of 3 million Puerto Ricans and millions of allies in the US who are potential active agents in the !
struggle to liberate Vieques and Puerto Rico. We encourage you to start contacting the leaders of this movement to coordinate joint demonstrations around the US. If you don’t find anyone, please plan with whatever people you have. Vieques needs you.
If they carry out the arrests, I say we burn the US flag wherever we see it. Let the burning of the American flag be symbolic of the repudiation to the tyranny of the U.S. governement by all people of consciousness in the United States. This should be considered what it is: a non-violent act. We don’t do this out of hatred or desperation but out of the the understanding that springs from more than a century of U.S. colonialism.
BURN THE U.S. FLAG!!!
Message from Robert Rabin
NOTE: Robert Rabin is one of the main Viequense leaders. He’s in charge of the camp that blocks the entrance to the military post.
Sunday, April 30, 2000
Dear Friends in Solidarity with Vieques
From Vieques with love and great appreciation for the support from all the organizations and individuals in solidarity with the struggle of the people of Vieques.
Before the threat of a violent intervention by the military and police forces of the US Government and their assistants in Puerto Rico, the people of Vieques respond with love and bravery in defense of their human rights and dignity. In the civil disobedience camps the only weapons are justice and peace. The only violent elements in this situation are the military. Our people are commited, more each day, to peaceful civil disobedience in defense of our right to life.
We are attentive to the lies of Carlos Romero Barceló and his diabolic capacity to plant (together with the FBI and the Navy) violence through provocative agents and fabricated evidence.
The men and women in the 14 civil disobedience camps in the bombing area and those of us here in front of the gates to the Navy facility at Camp García, remain firm and tranquill. The Puerto Rico and US press inform about intervention in the coming days. We have been prepared for some time now. Here everyone is committedd to continuing actions of peacefull civil disobedience and with plans for a continued pressure against all attempts by the Navy to resume bombing in Vieques.
Mass mobilizations in important US cities is key to denounce the arrests and to increase pressure against Navy plans for Vieques. We recognize the great efforts of the organizations and individuals in solidarity with Vieques throughout the US and in other areas.
It is crucial not to pay attention to rumors. In these critical moments the only official information is that which comes from the community organiztions on Vieques or from our representatives in Puerto Rico and the US.
In struggle, in solidarity,
Robert Rabin
Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques
Navy Plans Immediate Shelling of Vieques
Navy Plans Immediate Shelling of Vieques
by STEWART M. POWELL
© 2000 Hearst Newspapers
Navy warships will immediately fire non-explosive shells at the target range on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques as soon as federal authorities remove encamped Puerto Rican demonstrators, defense officials said Thursday.
Three defense officials outlined the Navy’s plans for a quick show of force as a Justice Department-led task force prepared to end a year-long occupation of the 899-acre target range that has thwarted Navy training on the range.
The task force, including FBI agents, U.S. Marshals, the Coast Guard, the
Navy and 1,200 Marines, is expected to begin rounding up protestors early
next week, according to a fourth U.S. official who said he is familiar with coordination planning between law enforcement agencies on the U.S. mainland and in Puerto Rico.
Navy warships will begin using the 59-year-old range “as quickly as possible” after the law enforcement operation is complete, said one defense official. A second defense official said the Navy wants to “demonstrate use of the range in a prudent fashion as soon as we can just to get that principle established or restarted.”
A third defense official said the Navy would “be in a hurry to make a
statement by using the range.”
The three officials spoke on background on the condition that their identity not be disclosed.
Attorney General Janet Reno, speaking at a Justice Department news conference, declined to discuss the impending operation.
“I don’t comment on any prospective, or otherwise considered, law enforcement action,” Reno declared.
Navy Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, a Pentagon spokesman, said the Pentagon has been in “consultation with the Puerto Rican government (and) with the Department of Justice to work out a way to clear the range of the trespassers,” adding: “That process continues.”
Rep. Jose Serrano, D-N.Y., the senior Puerto Rico-born lawmaker in Congress, urged Clinton in a letter to halt the plans for a federal round up.
“This is not going to be nice,” warned Serrano. “It’s not too late to call the whole thing off.”
A federal raid to break up peaceful civil disobedience on Vieques would
likely be a hot campaign issue for the 900,000 Puerto Rican voters in New York who could play an influential role in the outcome of the Senate campaign of first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, Serrano said.
“What happens in Vieques affects greatly the largest Hispanic voting bloc in New York,” he said. Many of Puerto Rico’s 3.8 million residents – U.S. citizens by birth – have relatives living in the United States.
The removal of the protestors is designed to clear the way for
implementation of an agreement reached by President Clinton and Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Rossello on Jan. 31 to end a bitter standoff between the Navy and the demonstrators.
Dozens of protestors, led by Puerto Rico Sen. Ruben Berrios, the Puerto Rico Independence Party’s candidate for governor in November, occupied the
beach-front bombing range after a Marine bombing mishap in April 1999 killed a Puerto Rican security guard working for the Navy.
The occupation of the target range prevented the Navy and Marine Corps from conducting the final air, land and sea combat rehearsals on Vieques that have prepared every departing Atlantic-based combat force since World War II.
The Clinton-Rossello agreement calls for the White House and Congress to provide $40 million in immediate economic development assistance to the 9,300 residents of Vieques and reduce noisy military training on Navy-owned land to 90 days a year using only non-explosive shells and bombs. The accord also calls for the island’s residents to vote in a
binding referendum on future Navy use of the island by February, 2002, with $50 million in additional U.S. assistance due to Vieques if the residents vote to permit combat training with explosive ordnance.
The forcible removal of protestors is expected to take place barely 10 days after a Justice Department-led operation broke into a Miami home to take custody of 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez and return him to his Cuban father.
The Navy is poised to resume using the range. Four warships armed with 5-inch guns with ranges of 15 miles will be in the region in coming days as part of a combat exercise with the aircraft carrier USS George Washington and a Marine amphibious task force. The armada is scheduled for deployment in June to the Mediterranean.
Navy Secretary Richard Danzig told Congress in testimony on March 22 that
the Navy is eager for “the resumption of the use of the range and establishing the rhythms of cooperation.”
The shutdown of the target range since April 1999 forced the battle fleet led by the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower to sail for duty in the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf in late February with five of the eight
escorting surface warships still needing to requalify for their naval gunfire support mission by firing roughly 100 shells of 5-inch ammunition at shore targets. The ships broke away from the fleet in transit to requalify at ranges at Cape Wrath, Scotland, or Capoteulado, Sardinia.
dos buques de guerra partieron Virginia
Please Post and Forward – Favor de Distribuir
¡Alerta Urgente!
Los medios de comunicacion han confirmado que dos buques de guerra partieron ayer (Jueves) de Virginia hacia Carolina del Norte para recoger 1,000 Infantes de Marina y equipo militar. Se espera que en dos dias llegar·n a Vieques para participar, junto al FBI y Alguaciles Federales, en un operativo para desalojar por la fuerza a los que enarbolan los principios de Desobediencia Civil No-Violenta en los campamentos de resistencia.
Favor de llamar DE INMEDIATO a Janet Reno (202-514-2001) para dejarle saber de que dicho operativo es repudiado por el Pueblo de Puerto Rico. Dejale saber que lo mejor para los Estados Unidos ser· suspender dicho plan, pues de lo contrario veran su imagen afectada internacionalmente y tendran que lidiar con masivas demostraciones de protesta tanto en Puerto Rico como en Estados Unidos.
Ahora m·s que nunca;
¡PAZ PARA VIEQUES!
¡Ni una bomba m·s!
========================================
Alert! Media has confirmed that two Navy Warships just left Virginia, will stop in North Carolina to pick up 1000 Marines and equipment, and will participate, along the FBI and Federal Marshals, in a military operation
to remove by force protesters from the resistance camps on Vieques. The
navy says it takes 2-3 days to sail to Vieques.
Now is the moment for all of us to take action and call IMMEDIATLY Janet Reno (202-514-2001) to let her know that the people of Puerto Rico reject any military raid on Vieques. Let her know that the best interest of the U.S. will be served by suspending said plan, since arrests will only bring shame to the U.S. in the eyes of the international community and that massive protests will take place both in Puerto Rico and the U.S.
Now, more than ever;
PEACE FOR VIEQUES!
Not one more bomb!
Christian Peacemaker Teams
Christian Peacemaker Teams is Sending an Emergency Delegation to Vieques CPTNet (Christian Peacemaker Teams)
PUERTO RICO ALERT: U.S. Marshals Threaten to Arrest Nonviolent Protesters
on Vieques Island. CPT To Send Emergency Delegation
CPT asks supporters to be especially vigilant in the coming days regarding
the situation on Vieques Island, Puerto Rico. Pentagon sources say a raid on nonviolent protest camps by U.S. Marshals and FBI agents could occur
early next week.
CPT will send an emergency delegation to Puerto Rico on Monday, May 1 in
response to requests from Church leaders involved in the peace encampments who say a presence from the mainland will be very important if authorities attempt to remove the protesters.
CPT invites churches to:
1) Make calls and send e-mails to President Clinton and Jeffrey Farrow,
Clinton’s point person on Puerto Rico, urging them to respect the voice of the Puerto Rican people who say “Not one more bomb. ” Tell both Clinton and Farrow not to authorize the use of force against those engaged in nonviolent witness on Vieques. (Contact info below)
2) Prepare groups from our churches and meetings to gather for special prayer in the offices of Senators and representatives if the arrests are
carried out.
3) Undergird those traveling to Puerto Rico on short notice as part of CPT’s emergency response with prayers and financial support.
BACKGROUND:
Vieques, Puerto Rico, is a small island, two thirds of which is still controlled by the U.S. Navy. A small part of the island has been used by the Navy for bombing and military maneuvers for about 60 years.
One year ago a civilian guard was killed when two 500 pound bombs missed their target. Since then, protest encampments in the restricted zone have prevented any bombing or maneuvers. The people of Vieques are saying, “Not one more bomb; not one more minute.”
The churches of Puerto Rico have been united across denominational lines in support of the struggle to stop the Navy actions on Vieques.
Several times in the last five months the Navy intended to carry out major
military maneuvers on Vieques, but had to move them to other sites because
of the presence of the peace encampments. A huge church-sponsored march in February made it clear that an accord-signed behind closed doors between the Clinton administration and Puerto Rico’s Governor Rosello, calling for the removal of the camps and renewed maneuvers in March-does not have the
support of the Puerto Rican people.
Now, threats of arrest are increasing against the protest encampments. Rumors of guns in the camps are being used to discredit this strong, organized, nonviolent witness.
ADDRESSES:
The White House
Phone: 202-456-1414
e-mail: President@whitehouse.gov
Jeffrey Farrow
Phone: 202-456-2896
Jesse Jackson joins PR leaders
PUERTO RICAN LEGAL DEFENSE & EDUCATION FUND
For Immediate Release
Monday, May 1, 2000
Contact:
Juan A. Figueroa 212-219-3360, Ext. 229
JESSE JACKSON JOINS PUERTO RICAN LEADERS
IN CALL FOR URGENT MEETING WITH PRESIDENT CLINTON
ON TENSE SITUATION IN VIEQUES, PUERTO RICO
Key Puerto Rican political and civic leaders in the United States were joined by the Reverend Jesse Jackson in a joint letter calling on President William J. Clinton to avoid the forcible removal of those protesting the US Naval presence in Vieques, Puerto Rico.
They urged the Clinton Administration to “work harder to find a fair resolution to what will otherwise become an even more difficult conflict.”
The situation in Puerto Rico has become tense as reports increasingly circulate that the United States government is
readying itself to forcibly remove the protesters in Vieques. The local media has reported that two ships with assault capabilities, the USS Bataan and USS Nashville, have been sent to Vieques from the base in Norfolk, and that the Tactical Operations Unit of
the local Police, the Marines, FBI and other federal agencies has been meeting to plan the removal of the protesters next week.
These developments, combined with the recent media images of the federal government’s dramatic assault on the Miami home of Elian Gonzalez’s relatives, have joined together to raise the specter of a violent confrontation in Vieques that could spread throughout Puerto Rico.
“This could be the turning point in United States- Puerto Rico relations if it IS not handled correctly,” stated Juan A. Figueroa, President and General Counsel of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund. He is one of the signers of the letter to the
President and spokesperson for the group. “We hope that President Clinton will meet with us before taking any actions that would make a bad situation worse. We believe that this issue can
be resolved in a peaceful and constructive way.”
Citing popular support in Puerto Rico for the removal of the Navy from Vieques, the letter to the President points out that “widespread actions of civil disobedience would seem inevitable.” It states that, “Thousands of people throughout Puerto Rico and the
United States have already pledged to support the protesters should they be arrested and/or forcibly removed.”
The letter recounts the troubled history of the U.S. Navy’s troubled 50-year relationship with Vieques. “Surely,” it states, “the national security of the United States should not come at the expense of a colonized people.”
The letter concludes that “This situation clearly requires delicacy
and tact” and that this is “an extraordinary circumstance.” It ends
by urging a joint meeting between the President and the signatories of the letter.
The letter was signed by: Congresspersons Luis V. Gutierrez (D-
Chicago), JosÈ Serrano (D-Bronx) and Nydia Vel·squez (D-Brooklyn and Manhattan), Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer, New York State Assemblyman and Bronx Democratic
Party Chair Roberto Ramirez, Philadelphia Council Member At-Large Angel Ortiz, New York City Councilmembers Jose Rivera
(Bronx) and Margarita Lopez (Manhattan), the Reverend Jesse
Jackson, 1199 SEIU President Dennis Rivera, and Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund President and General Counsel Juan A. Figueroa.
Religiosos que apoyan salida de la Armada
POR THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
VIEQUES (AP) – A horas de lo que parece un inminente operativo de desalojo,
el reverendo Wilfredo Estrada, uno de los religiosos que se encuentra en
campos de desobediencia civil en terrenos de la Armada en Vieques, dijo que el grupo está preparado para enfrentar los arrestos de producirse por
entender que están desacatando una ley injusta y porque su acción es “un
imperativo moral´´.
El religioso, presidente de la Sociedad Bíblica de Puerto Rico, llegó ayer a
Vieques y se unió a otros religiosos que mantienen un campo de desobediencia
civil en el área de tiro de la Armada en Vieques.
“Sabemos que estamos desafiando una ley injusta e inmoral, desde la perspectiva de la moral, y en este momento estamos con una paz que es indescriptible´´, dijo el religioso. Junto a Estrada se encuentran, entre otros, el Obispo de la Iglesia Metodista de Puerto Rico, reverendo Juan Vera.
Vera dijo que los religiosos que está en Vieques está comprometidos “con que
no se tire una bomba más en Vieques y aquí permanecemos en paz y oración y
aspirando que llegue la plena paz a Vieques´´, dijo.
Efectivos del FBI, de la Guardia Costera, de la Armada, y de la Policía han sido movilizados y se espera que de un momento a otro inicien el desalojo de
los desobedientes civiles que se encuentran en el área de tiro de la Armada desde hace un año. Los desobedientes comenzaron a invadir el área de tiro desde el 19 de abril
del año pasado cuando un guardia civil de la Armada murió cuando erró el tiro
de una bomba, según dijo la propia Armada.
Desde entonces los manifestantes han pedido el cese permanente de los bombardeos y la eventual salida de la Armada de Vieques.
El pasado 31 de enero el presidente Clinton emitió una orden ejecutiva
autorizando el reinicio de las maniobras en Vieques y una consulta en la que
los viequenses expresarán si favorecen que la Armada salga en el 2003 y que
continúe con los bombardeos indefinidamente.
NO A LA INVASION YANQUI!
i have started to write and call people from the united nations asking for there support, telling the usa not to invade vieques i am asking for you to do the same you can look up their phone# fax# and email address at:
http://www.un.org/Overview/missions.htm
please show support and ask your friends and family to do the same.
VIEQUES: Protest The Unjust Arrests
Help us keep the pressure up for peace in Vieques. Make your voice heard in favor of the permanent suspension of the bombings of Vieques.
New York
Manhattan – The Vieques’ Solidarity Network is calling to a massive
mobilization that will take place the next day after the imprisonment at
5:00 P.M. in Times Square (42nd. and Broadway). If the arrests are Friday
or Saturday the protest will be the next day at noon in Times Square.
Sponsored by: Vieques Solidarity Network, Todo El Barrio con Vieques, Todo Nueva York con Vieques, Vieques Support Campaign, Veterans Support Vieques, Women for Peace and Justice in Vieques, David Sanes Rodriguez Brigade, PIP-NY, Lower East Siders for Vieques.
Contacts: “Todo Nueva York con Vieques” at 212-631-4620 and “Todo el
Barrio con Vieques” at 212-348-8004
Washington, D.C.
If the arrests occur before midnight, the next day at noon, there will be
a mobilization in Lafayette Park, in front of the White House. If the
arrests occur after midnight, then the protest will be the following day
at noon. Please, contact the media and call your people.
Contacts: David Santiago 202-223-3915 ext. 308
San Francisco, California
The Vieques Solidarity Coalition is calling to a “Weekday-After” Emergency
Response Rally the day after the arrests at Justin Hermann Square (by
Stewart and Market across from the Ferry Building, near Embarcadero BART)
at 4:00 PM.
Contact: Fellowship of Reconciliation 415-495-6334
Comité 98 510-389-5660
Hartford, Connecticut
In the event of arrests or removal of protesters in Vieques we will
demonstrate in front of the federal courthouse on Main Street in Hartford
a day after the arrests or removal. The demonstration will begin at 5:00 PM
For more information please contact:
Rafael Rodriguez Cruz- home (860)523-4125 or work (860)541-5053.
>or email ivanr67@hotmail.com
Boston, Massachusetts
Latinas & Latinos for Social Change are calling for a protest at 4PM the
next working day after the arrest take place (or Saturday if arrests take place on a Friday). We will meet in front of the JFK Federal Building, in Government Center, Boston (T- BLUE LINE, GOVERNMENT CENTER STOP). Also, we plan to be there for a long time, and have a 24 hour presence in front of the Federal Building. Please contact us if you can help us with our 24 hour civil disobedience camp.
Contacts:
E-mail: LFSC1999@aol.com
Telephone: 617-824-4213
Springfield, Massachusetts
The committee “All of Springfield with Vieques” has called for a demonstration in front of the U.S. Government Building, located at 1550 Main Street, in the event of arrests or removal of protesters in Vieques. If the arrests or removal happens before 4:30PM we will demonstrate the same day at 5:00PM. If the arrest or removal happens after 5:00PM the demonstration will begin at 4:30 PM on the following day.
For more information please contact: Sandra Zenón (413) 736-7323 or Idalí
Torres (413) 746-4338
Tucson, Arizona
Tucson demonstrators have agreed to protest at the Federal Building
(downtown at 300 W. Congress, across from the Holiday Inn), at 4:30 p.m.
on the day the eviction begins and arrests are made. PLEASE TELL PEOPLE… BRING FRIENDS, BRING SIGNS AND BANNERS.
QUESTIONS? CALL (520) 323-8697 or e-mail nukeresister@igc.org
ALSO, please remember the regular WEEKLY VIGIL AGAINST U.S. MILITARY INTERVENTION at the Tucson federal building, EVERY THURSDAY, from 5-6 p.m.
Burlington, Vermont
Demonstration in Burlington at the federal courthouse (off of church
Street) the day after arrests in Vieques, from 4:00-5:30pm.
Contact: Colleen McDonald: colleenmcd7@yahoo.com
Orlando, Florida
Next day following the arrests in Vieques there will be a protests at
4:00 PM to the Federal Building of the City of Orlando. (80 N. Hughey Avenue).
Contact: Irving Forestier (407) 678-4121
e-mail: jf40479@pegasus.cc.ucf.edu
URGENTE-COMIENZAN LOS ARRESTOS EN VIEQUES
[English Version at the Bottom]
URGENTE-COMIENZAN LOS ARRESTOS EN VIEQUES
Hoy Jueves, 4 de mayo de 2000, a las 5:30 de la maÒana comenzaron los arrestos de los Desobedientes Civiles en Vieques. Para m·s detalles favor de accesar y/o sintonizar los medios noticiosos. (http://endi.zonai.com/)
Es el momento de poner en marcha los planes de contingencia tanto en Puerto Rico, como en Estados Unidos. Habran protestas hoy y mañana. Favor de accesar (http://www.micronetix.net/virus/emergency.htm) para sabes en donde ser·n las protestas en tu area.
Para informacion: http://www.ViequesLibre.org
Urgent-U.S. Arrests Vieques Demostrators
Today, Thursday, May 4, 2000, at 5:30 A.M. federal authorities began to arrest the people conducting Civil Disobedience in Vieques. For more details, please access news media.
This is the moment to put forward the planned activities. Today and tomorrow protests will take place in U.S. and Puerto Rico, please access (http://www.micronetix.net/virus/emergency.htm) for scheduled protests.
For information: wwww.ViequesLibre.org
democracy
Among the “democratic” things that the U.S. government did was cut off all phone lines, all TV signals, and not allow reporters in with cameras. This is what I call democracy, freedon of speech, and freedom of the press.
The following message is by a former Young Lords leader, Puerto Rican equivalent of the Black Panthers.
— Forwarded Message from Carlos Rovira —
Hola mi hermano Hector,
Please forgive me for not writing any sooner. I was having personal problems as well as being extremely busy with the preparations for the present situation around Vieques.
As for this proposal you are circulating, all I have to say is – VAYA! It was waved in our faces along with bayonets when they first invaded us
in 1898. That’s precisely how we in the Young Lords back in the old days would respond.
Anyone who has the illusion that respect is required for this symbol, is surely not living in the real world. Flag burning has always been through the ages, a form of expressing contempt for an enemy.
Respect is a quality that is earned. And for that matter, so is dispise and disrespect. Boricuas who are colonized have no business viewing the U.S. flag other than with disarespect.
Again, perdoname for not writing sooner.
Fuera La Marina De Vieques!
Que Viva Puerto Rico Libre! Carlito Rovira of the Vieques Support Campaign, (212) 677-0619
— Hector Rosario wrote:
NOTE : I understand this is a very delicate issue and I will procede
carefully. Please, try reading the entire message and process it before
responding to it.
After extensive conversations with political prisioner Antonio Camacho
Negron and my compadre, former political prisioner, Hilton Fernandez Diamante, we’ve come to the conclusion that one of the most effective (albeit old) ways to get attention to the Vieques cause in the United States is the burning of the U.S. flag. This single act fosters anti-U.S. sentiments, which are important to change public opinion about Vieques, and especially, to force a psychological shift in the mind of the colonized. Vieques should be our gate to independence.
I am trying to push this idea forward in the United States. My friend Freddie Marrero has declined my offer to post this message on ViequesLibre.com claiming that his website serves exclusively as a voice to the people in the civil disobedience camps, which is a legitimate reason. We here have the advantage that we could, if need be, technically dissociate ourselves from the tactics employed in Vieques and Puerto Rico and claim that this is one way of showing how we repudiate U.S. policy towards Vieques. Americans don’t care much about a Muslim burning a flag in Iran, but will certainly mind when they see hundreds of flags being burnt inside of the U.S. by U.S. citizens. It would be great to see dozens of U.S. flags burning up 5th Avenue during the Puerto Rican Parade in NYC this summer. I know there are some expert flag burners in NYC and I know they will come forward with courage and pride. Just be careful when you burn it. Make sure you have ample space.
If the idea of burning the flag is not appealing to you, then at least
wear one upside down like the American Indian Movement (AIM) used to do.
For those who are wondering if this is a lack of respect towards the
U.S., think about this:
1) the U.S. flag has 50 stars, one of which comes from Hawai’i, whose indigenous population has been treated with flagrant disrespect, to say the least. Furthermore, the Hawai’ian Kingdom, has never recognized U.S. rule since it never gave up its Archipelago.
2) the U.S. flag does not represent the thousands of indigenous peoples in the Continent. To the contrary, it glorifies the indigeneous blood that was brutally shed in order to serve the interests of the colonizers.
3)under the same flag Dr. King was beaten numerous times simply for being Black. This didn’t happen 200 years ago.
4)under the auspices of the U.S. flag and with the help of the some Puerto Rican collaborators, many independence movement leaders in Puerto Rico were systematically murdered.
5)under that flag, the people of Vieques have suffered for almost 60 years.
If you think that flag still represents you for being Black, Red, White, or Blue, our conversation is over. I urge those of you who understand my message to pass it along.
The arrests started today at 5:30 in the morning!
I want to know when we will be moving back into the camps? And if there are any additional strategies?
I know there have been communications between the Puerto Rican leadership from the island and the U.S. But very little has been reported. I would like to hear from the Puerto Rican leadership individually on this issue. I know of Serrano, Velasquez, Gutierrez, Mendez and Rivera. But I feel that beyond protesting and a lot of rhetoric, there has not been any longterm strategy which is disappointing. If there is, if I am wrong, I would like to hear from someone about this.
Listen to what’s happening in PR–LIVE!
: Hector.Rosario@Dartmouth.EDU (Hector Rosario)
Reply-To: Hector.Rosario@Dartmouth.EDU (Vieques)
Subject: superkadena
To: (Recipient list suppressed)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Sender: owner-prolibertad@beaconschool.org
Precedence: bulk
Live coverage of what’s happening in Puerto Rico right now at:
http://superkadena.spiderlink.net/kadena.ram
RE: URGENTE-COMIENZAN LOS ARRESTOS EN VIEQUES
Emergency Demonstration: To Protest the removal of the Religious, Environmental and political Activist From the Firing Range at Vieques Puerto Rico: Friday may 5thPM 42nd Street & Broadway Manhattan
Peace for the People of Vieques: Todo Nueva York con Vieques
The demonstrators sat in circles and sang.
Vieques Island Protesters Arrested
By Chris Hawley Associated Press Writer Thursday, May 4, 2000; 6:01 a.m. EDT
VIEQUES, Puerto Rico U.S. marshals began arresting protesters at a disputed U.S. Navy bombing range today, including a U.S. congresswoman.
In Washington, the Justice Department issued a statement saying, “this morning federal agents began removing a group of trespassers who have been unlawfully camped out on Vieques.”
In the dark before dawn, masked FBI agents in dark uniforms arrived at the gates of the bombing range on Vieques, and the Navy commander ordered them to move.
“You must leave the property immediately … If you do not leave promptly, we will have to remove you,” Adm. Kevin Green, the training ground commander, said over a megaphone at 5:15 a.m.
Within minutes, four helicopters, one with red lights blinking, swept over the range where dozens of protesters have been camped out for more than a year to block the Navy from bombing.
Demonstrators on the range include religious figures and two Congress members from the U.S. mainland as well as Puerto Rican nuns and independence and labor leaders who have camped on the bomb-littered range for 382 days.
The vast majority of protesters have said they would surrender peacefully. But some militants have threatened to scatter into the bush around unexploded ordnance they have marked out posing a threat to themselves and any pursuers.
Earlier, outside the gates where dozens of other protesters have prevented military personnel from entering the camp, about 40 Puerto Rican anti-riot police in bulletproof vests advanced toward demonstrators and set up a line in front of them.
The demonstrators sat in circles and sang.
The Navy says the Vieques range is vital to national security and is the only place its Atlantic fleet can conduct simultaneous air, sea and amphibious training using live munitions. It has been blocked since stray bombs killed a civilian security guard in April 1999, unleashing pent up frustrations throughout Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory of 4 million Spanish speakers.
A raid to clear the base has been expected since Monday, when three U.S. warships, reportedly carrying 1,000 Marines, arrived in the Vieques area, looming ominously offshore before retreating a little farther to sea. The Marines reportedly would secure the range’s perimeter once protesters are removed.
RALLY IN NYC AND STATESIDE FOR VIEQUES
MOBILIZE FOR VIEQUES TODAY AND TOMORROW
As you probably know by now, the US military began operations to forcibly remove the protestors from Vieques at 5:30am today Thursday. The operation was peaceful to this point, bu the affront to the people of Vieques and Puerto Rico is not.
Attorney General Janet Reno told the media three hours later that she was “pleased that so far the operation has gone very, very smoothly” and that it was done “with the full support of the
government of Puerto Rico and the assistance of the police of Puerto Rico.” At that point 140 demonstrators from 12 campsites were taken to detention site and they estimated that another 20 remained in four remaining campsites.
Puerto Ricans Stateside need to come out in full force today and tomorrow to show our solidarity with the people of Vieques in getting the US Navy off the island. We also need to let President
Clinton know that we plan top hold him accountable for this outrageous action against the US citizens of Puerto Rico.
In New York City, two actions are being held:
TODAY,
THURSDAY, MAY 4, 2000
5:00PM
VIGIL AND NEWS CONFERENCE
US MILITARY RECRUITING STATION
FORDHAM ROAD AND GRAND CONCOURSE
BRONX, NY
Further info: Rosa Escobar 7180409-3595
TOMORROW,
FRIDAY, MAY 5, 2000 (CINCO DE MAYO)
5:00PM
RALLY
TIMES SQUARE – 42ND STREET & 7TH AVENUE
Further info: 212-63104620
For updates and information on demos in other cities, visit:
http:\www.micronetix.netvirusemergency.htm
PAZ PARA VIEQUES
Vieques may be at zero hour–FYI
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Vieques may be at zero hour
By Ivan Roman
San Juan Bureau
Published in The Orlando Sentinel
on May 04, 2000
VIEQUES, Puerto Rico — A flurry of last-ditch efforts Wednesday in Puerto
Rico, New York and Washington to keep federal law-enforcement agents from
arresting dozens of bishops, priests and activists camped on the Vieques target range took on increasing urgency.
The end of the day left many high on resolve, but some were short on hope,
as the operation appeared inevitable — and many speculated it would happen this morning.
Helicopters zoomed overhead as more religious leaders arrived at the target range Wednesday. By the sea, in a packed wooden church with no walls, the top leadership of virtually every denomination on the island promised a broad civil-disobedience campaign if the arrests take place.
Representatives of the coalition of religious leaders heading the civil
disobedience appeared glum as they emerged from a late-afternoon meeting
with Rear Adm. Kevin Green, head of the Navy Southern Command, in charge
of implementing President Clinton’s directives. The controversial
directives, issued Jan. 31, call for the Navy to resume more limited training with dummy bombs for another three years.
Dialogue may continue with Green on a request that bombing not resume until the voter referendum on the Navy’s future based on Clinton’s directives takes place. But they got no answer when they asked that the removal operation — with up to 400 federal law-enforcement agents, who left for Vieques on Wednesday, and 1,000 Marines — be put on hold.
“Only a miracle can save the situation,” said Archbishop Roberto Gonzalez
Nieves, after the meeting at Naval Station Roosevelt Roads in nearby Ceiba
on the main island of Puerto Rico.
Green said he would share the leaders’ ideas with top Navy brass. “I think
there are a lot of aspects to the current situation that we have to work
on and improve,” he said.
But he was mum on the removal operation, which sources in Washington and on the island indicated could take place today.
Meanwhile, Puerto Rican political leaders in New York sent a delegation to
Vieques, including Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., and Rep. Nydia Velazquez,
D-N.Y., to show support and call on Clinton to act. Gutierrez joined
Baptist, Catholic, Evangelical and Methodist leaders in their midday
petition for calm resolve. He was to spend Wednesday night on the bombing
range.
In Washington, officials representing Clinton and Puerto Rican Gov. Pedro
Rossello made it clear they were in no mood to back down from their agreement to arrest protesters at what they consider their premier target range and resume military training there.
Alfonso Aguilar, head of the governor’s office in Washington, dismissed the protesters as people with “marginal” political views — a reference to the fact that some favor having Puerto Rico break away from the United States and become a separate country.
Bishop Alvaro Corrada del Rio of the Caguas Diocese, which includes Vieques, said religious leaders want a dialogue to try to convince the Navy of the “terrible mistake” the United States would be making if the activists, priests and nuns were forcibly removed. He vowed that if that does happen, the country will see more civil disobedience from Vieques all the way to Washington, New York and other cities.
“These people aren’t protesters,” Corrada said with dozens of religious
and lay activists standing behind him. “They are here for human rights and
giving testimony to the Gospel, and that’s what the American struggle for
civil rights is all about.”
In New York, Rep. Jose Serrano, D-N.Y., said 50 members of Congress, including some representatives in key committees, had already signed a letter by 5 p.m. Wednesday urging Clinton to put the brakes on the eviction plans and hold an emergency meeting on the crisis.
The White House rebuffed that notion.
“The president and others of us here have worked on this issue a long time
and developed a solution that fully meets the needs of the people of Vieques,” said a White House official.
The White House is not involved in deciding when to make the arrests, said
the official, who asked not to be identified. “That’s a law-enforcement
decision.”
More groups supporting the protesters held news conferences in New York
City Wednesday night, and a myriad of marches and demonstrations are to be
set into motion in New York City, Washington, San Francisco, Chicago,
Hartford, Orlando and other cities if the marshals and FBI agents move in.
In Central Florida, the Orlando Committee for the International Movement
Peace for Vieques is calling for a protest in front of the Federal
Building at 80 N. Hughey Ave. Demonstrations are to start at 4 p.m. the next working day after arrests take place.
After visiting the target range, Velazquez said the removal and possible
arrests carry serious political repercussions from Puerto Rican voters in the states.
That spells trouble for Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore and for
first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s bid for a Senate seat representing the
state of New York. Hillary Clinton issued a statement Tuesday calling for
peaceful dialogue to put an end to the crisis, for bombing to stop and, at
least, not resume until the referendum is held.
Some Puerto Ricans have been embroiled in a yearlong conflict with Washington and the Navy over the use of the target range for training since a stray bomb killed security guard David Sanes Rodriguez on April 19, 1999. His death blew the lid off much of the resentment and anger against the Navy pent up for almost 60 years, since it displaced thousands and took over three-quarters of the 52-square-mile island in 1941 for the range and Camp Garcia.
After an initial months-long standoff, the Puerto Rican government agreed to Clinton’s directives issued Jan. 31, stating that they were sure voters would decide in the referendum that the Navy will leave in three years. The religious leaders, who reject any more bombing, stepped in to fill the void in the opposition leadership.
Since then, religious leaders and Rossello have engaged in a war of words
over the agreement, and the religious leaders stepped up their civil disobedience efforts on the target range.
The religious coalition had asked weeks ago for a meeting with Green but
didn’t get an invitation until Tuesday when the bishops, priests and ministers were on the target range and the prospect of the fallout of a removal operation became messier and much more complicated.
The plans for that operation call for FBI agents to move in to clear out
the protesters on the target range, which on Wednesday swelled to at least
150. Federal marshals, with the help of local police, would remove or arrest those — including Puerto Rican opposition politicians and the
delegation from New York — keeping vigil at Camp Garcia’s main gate in
the civilian part of town.
The 1,000 Marines brought in on the USS Nashville and the USS Bataan on Monday would then move in to impose a naval blockade with the help of the U.S. Coast Guard and secure the range. Protesters on and off the range have already said that if people are removed, they’ll find ways to get back in constantly and keep blocking the bombing from resuming. Some plan to cut through the 4.5-mile-long fence. One has already chained himself to an bombed-out tank.
Vieques residents are expected to rush to the gate once news of the arrests is known, creating problems for local police. Fearing retaliation, the Puerto Rico Police Department has also stationed officers at most federal installations on Vieques and the main island of Puerto Rico.
Tamara Lytle of the Washington Bureau contributed to this report.
ALERTA ALERTA ALERTA
En la madrugada de hoy dia cuatro de mayo empezo el operativo de las fuerzas
del gobierno de Estados Unidos para remover a los resistentes civiles que se oponen a la continuacion de los bombardeos en la isla de Vieques. Decenas de resistentes civiles, mujeres,pastores,sacerdotes, trabajadores,incluyendo un alcalde
y varios representantes electos fueron arrestados,esposados y subidos a camiones militares, al negarse
a retirarse de las zonas ocupadas. Hasta el momento se desconoce ha donde han sido trasladados aunque
rumores no confirmados afirman que estan siendo llevados a la base naval de Roosvelt Roads, en Ceiba Pueto Rico.
Solidaridad ahora!!!!!!!!!
LLamamos a todos y todas las fuerzas democraticas a manifestar de inmediato su solidaridad con el pueblo de Puerto Rico.
Vieques si Marina NO
Libertad Inmediata de los arrestados del cuatro de mayo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Organiza tu protesta!
A las 9 am frente a Buchanan!
URGENTE: ESCUDOS HUMANOS AUN EN VIEQUES
“AUN HAY VARIAS PERSONAS EN LA ZONA DE TIRO EN VIEQUES”
(“THERE ARE STILL SEVERAL PEOPLE IN THE LIVE IMPACT AREA IN VIEQUES”)
COMUNICADO DE PRENSA/MENSAJE URGENTE
CAMPAMENTO MONTE DAVID
VIEQUES, PUERTO RICO
Contacto: Carlos Zenon (Tel. 787-741-8315)
5 de mayo del 2000-
Carlos Zenon, Presidente de la Asociacion de Pescadores de Vieques y
dirigente del Campamento Monte David en la zona de tiro en Vieques, anuncio
que aun quedan hombres y mujeres en la zona de tiro que continuan actuando
como escudos humanos contra cualquier intento de reanudar bombardeos en
Vieques.
Zenon explico que “La estrategia del Campamento Monte David siempre ha sido
que no ibamos a resistir los arrestos con violencia, pero tampoco le ibamos a
hacer la cosa facil a la Marina y a los alguaciles federales. Cumplimos con
nuestra palabra. Cuando comenzo el operativo contra los manifestantes,
integrantes del Campamento Monte David y el Campamento Mapepe (otro de los
campamentos de desobediencia civil) se internaron en la zona de tiro y se
encuentran en dos campamentos secretos cuya localizacion y existencia nunca
divulgamos.”
Anadio Zenon que en ambos campamentos secretos hay agua y provisiones y que
“la presencia de estas valientes personas en la zona de tiro sirve para
incentivar al pueblo y darle continuidad a nuestra lucha y a la paralizacion
de los bombardeos.” El pescador viequense anadio: “De hecho, mientras quede
si quiera una persona escondida en la zona de tiro, los mismos alguaciles
durante su busqueda estarian actuando tambien como escudos humanos contra los
bombardeos”.
Zenon pudo identificar a por lo menos siete (7) personas que aun permanecen
en el area de tiro. Del Campamento David se encuentran (1) su hijo Pedro
Zenon, (2) su hijo Cacimar Zenon, y (3) Magaly Santos, y del Campamento
Mapepe (4) Miguel Gonzalez, (5) Miguel Velazquez, (6) Carlos Garcia, y (7)
otro joven viequense. Explico Zenon que se cree que hay mas personas
escondidas en la zona de tiro, y dijo que “aunque de la Marina de Guerra de
los Estados Unidos se puede esperar cualquier cosa, la realidad es que
mientras estos manifestantes esten en la zona de tiro, la Marina no puede
reanudar el bombardeo.”
Por ultimo, Zenon expreso: “Yo como padre, y mi esposa como madre, estamos
preocupados por lo que le pueda pasar a nuestros hijos en circunstancias
donde estan solos y en condiciones infrahumanas y peligrosas. Pero hay
tantas familias viequenses que han sufrido por las atrocidades que ha hecho
la Marina aqui en Vieques por tanto tiempo, que estamos dispuestos a pagar
ese precio por contribuir a que el sufrimiento de este pueblo termine ya.”
URGENT: HUMAN SHIELDS STILL IN VIEQUES
“THERE ARE STILL SEVERAL PEOPLE IN THE LIVE IMPACT AREA IN VIEQUES”
PRESS RELEASE/URGENT MESSAGE
CAMP MOUNT DAVID
VIEQUES, PUERTO RICO
Contact: Carlos Zenon (Phone# 787-741-8315)
May 5, 2000-
Carlos Zenon, President of the Vieques Fishermen’s Association and leader of
Camp Mount David in the live impact area in Vieques, announced that there are
still men and women in the live impact area acting as human shields against
any attempt to renew bombing in Vieques.
Zenon explained that “The strategy in Camp Mount David has always been that
we were not going to resist arrests with violence, but we were not going to
make it easy for the U.S. Navy and the federal marshalls. We kept our promise. When the raid against the demonstrators began, members of Camp Mount David and Camp Mapepe (another of the civil disobedience camps) went deep inside the live impact area and are in two secret camps whose location and existence was never revealed.”
Zenon added that there is water and provisions in both secret camps and that
“the presence of these courageuos men and women in the live impact area
serves as an incentive to the people and to provide continuity to our struggle and to stopping the bombings.” The Viequense fisherman added: “In fact, as long as there remains even one person hiding in the live impact area, the federal marshals themselves during their search would also be acting as human shields against the bombings.”
Zenon was able to identify at least seven (7) people who are still in the
live impact area. From Camp David there are: (1) his son Pedro Zenon, (2) his son Cacimar Zenon, and (3) Magaly Santos, and from Camp Mapepe (4) Miguel
Gonzalez, (5) Miguel Velazquez, (6) Carlos Garcia, and (7) another Viequense
youth. Zenon explained that there might be more people hiding in the live impact area, and said that “although one can expect almost anything from the U.S. Navy, the fact is that as long as these demonstratos remain in the live impact area, the Navy cannot resume bombing.”
Finally, Zenon stated: “As a father, and my wife as a mother, we are concerned about what may happen to our sons in circumstances in which they are alone and in subhuman and dangerous conditions. Yet there are so many
Viequense families who have suffered the atrocities committed by the U.S. Navy here in Vieques for so long, that we are willing to pay that price in order to contribute to putting an end to the suffering of our people.”
Reports From Protests at Cornell and San Francisco
MAY 4, 2000
Cornell U. Rallies for Vieques
This afternoon, May 4, almost 150 people gathered in support of Vieques at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. The rally was spearheaded by La Voz Boriken and supported by numerous other student groups and Ithaca community members.
The activity began in front of one of the main academic buildings. Various
speakers from the very diverse group discussed how Vieques was connected
to other issues directly related to colonialism. The protesters then marched to Barton Hall, the ROTC building. The land was claimed for the remainder of the protest as a stake holding the flag of Lares was driven into the ground in front of Barton Hall. Personnel in the ROTC building locked the doors as the chants of “U.S. Navy Out of Vieques” grew stronger.
Under the pouring rain, the activity ended an hour and a half after it had
started as the crowd lifted their fists in the air and sang the revolutionary anthem of Puerto Rico, La Borinquena.
For more information, contact Edgardo Cortes at
Wake-Up Call
Now I ask all Pro-Statehooders: Still want to be part of a country that doesn’t care one iota about our expressed desires, humanity, and pride?!?
If Vieques doesn’t knock some sense into you….I don’t know that anything else ever will.
JBaez
RE: The Domino Theory Revisited
Rememder the Domino Theory? The theory in a nutshell: Once one country goes communist so would the others in a paticular region of the world. Put that in the context of Vieques: once the base on Vieques goes, the others in Puerto Rico could go the same route, out of the island This creates the spectre of a Caribbean and Latin America free of U.S. military installations which threaten greater democracy movements in the region. Remember the domino theory?
White Ribbons
In one of the pictures from Vieques I noticed an elderly woman standing next to a fence covered in white ribbons. In an
article elsewhere I read the ribbons stood for Peace.
In honor of this woman and Vieques, I have placed a white ribbon on the attenae of my car. In addition, I have copied
the Marina Fuera Sign and placed it in my car window.
I encourage all Vieques supporters to do the same.
Everyone, Place a White Ribbon on your car, trees, picket signs, etc to symbolize the fight for Naval freedom in
Vieques.
In the 90’s I was a yellow ribbon supporter of the Troops in Gulf War. I had many college friend and school teachers
called to the war.
While the ribbons themselves did not bring them home, The display of the yellow ribbons everywhere supported our
friends and loved ones as called by the military.
I knew people of all ages, all walks of life and all races supporting and knowing what these ribbons were for.
It is a similiar story with the pink ribbons for breast cancer awareness and other ribbons for causes.
When people do not know what the ribbons mean, they ask questions and we can share the information to spread
awareness of the plight of Vieques.
Please everyone, Find a White Ribbon somewhere and Show the fight for Vieques is not ending with a few
demonstrations here and there.
The large battle is at hand. We must spread the word of Vieques and get more people involved.
I am so happy to see that there are so many cities having demonstatrations, but there should be more.
We need to write letters, send emails, and encourage our representatives to have a bill passed to cease Naval activites
in Vieques.
The time is now. Voting seasons will be coming soon, and we need all the votes and supporters we can muster.
The pictures have helped, but Everyone needs to know.
GODPEACE
Vieques SI
Marina NO
PEACE TO VIEQUES No More BOMBS (concrete or Live!)
RE: White Ribbons
I think this is really a great symbolic gesture and will be putting one on my car!
RE: Wake-Up Call
Clinton, who seems to be really laying low on this issue, basically turned his back to all the Puerto Rican leaders in the U.S. who wanted to halt the removal of the protesters and end the bombings. Congressman Jose Serano, who is the most senior, along with the Reverend Jesse Jackson, had their appeal rebuked.
Comunicado de Profesores de Panama
comunicado de la Asociacion de Profesores de Panama
Date: 05/04/2000 6:16:18PM
Hawaiian Standard Time
ASOCIACION DE PROFESORES DE LA REPUBLICA DE PANAMA
Ave. Peru Final, Edificio Las Camelias, Segundo Piso, Oficina 204
Tel.: 265-5852; Fax: 265-5450
e-mail:asoprof@sinfo.net
http://www.multired.com/educa/aprp
COMUNICADO A LA COMUNIDAD PUERTORRIQUENA E INTERNACIONAL
Hemos recibido con gran indignacion las noticias que dan cuenta de la
provocacion e intimidacion de la marina y la posterior incursion de las
autoridades federales norteamericanas en los campamentos establecidos por
los patriotas puertorriqueños con el fin de impedir las practicas militares y el bombardeo indiscriminado en la Isla Nena.
La Asociacion de Profesores de la Republica de Panama repudia estos hechos
y extiende su solidaridad y apoyo fraterno al pueblo de Puerto Rico, en
especial a todos los viequenses. Asimismo hacemos un llamado a la
comunidad internacional a unir esfuerzos en contra de esta actitud intolerante, hostil y barbara del gobierno estadounidense dirigido por Bill Clinton.
BASTA DEL ATROPELLO A LOS PUEBLOS LATINOAMERICANOS.
VIVA LATINOAMERICA UNIDAD
FUERA LA MARINA YANKEE DE VIEQUES
UN PUEBLO UNIDO, JAM¡S SER¡ VENCIDO
Profr. José Ramon Garcia Jr.
Secretario General
Panama, 4 de mayo de 2000
Hacia el “estado de sitio”…..
En compás de espera los actos de resistencia
sábado, 6 de mayo de 2000
Por Benjamín Torres Gotay
El Nuevo Día
VIEQUES – Líderes de la oposición a la presencia de la Marina de Guerra de
Estados Unidos en Vieques manifestaron ayer su intención de volver a instalar
el Campamento de desobediencia civil Justicia y Paz frente a los portones del
Campamento García, tan pronto sea desactivado el bloqueo policial que impide actualmente la llegada al lugar.
Hasta ayer, los manifestantes no podían acercarse al Campamento García porque
una barricada vigilada por agentes de la Unidad de Operaciones Tácticas (UOT)
de la Policía impedía el paso desde cerca de un cuarto de milla antes, como
parte de la estricta vigilancia a la que están sometidos los viequenses desde
el desalojo de la zona de tiro de la Marina ejecutado por autoridades
federales el jueves.
Por agua, la vigilancia era igualmente estricta, lo que provocó quejas de los pescadores, que no podían acercarse a menos de tres millas de la costa para llevar a cabo sus labores. Carlos Ventura, líder de la Asociación de Pescadores del Sur de Vieques, dijo que las autoridades federales amenazaron con confiscar las embarcaciones de quienes violaran esa directriz.
“LOS PESCADORES están bien afectados, porque mientras dure todo esto no van a
poder ganarse la vida”, dijo Ventura.
La pesca es la actividad económica más importante de Vieques, pero la Guardia
Costera, en un memorando que circuló ayer entre los pescadores, les indicó
que la zona de seguridad de tres millas era necesaria para que la Marina pudiera realizar sus ejercicios sin el riesgo de que manifestantes penetren la zona de tiro.
“Estamos en un estado de sitio no declarado”, dijo Ventura. Ese “estado de sitio” era evidente en la mucha presencia policiaca en las calles de Vieques, en el número de embarcaciones militares que se veía en la costa y en los constantes vuelos de helicópteros por sus aires. El jefe de los alguaciles federales a nivel de Estados Unidos, John Marshall, estuvo ayer en Vieques inspeccionando las zonas. “LA MILITARIZACION de Vieques ha traspasado los portones del Campamento García y ha llegado a las calles”, dijo Robert Rabin, líder del campamento Justicia y Paz. Rabin dijo que la Coordinadora Justicia y Paz para Vieques, que administraba el campamento desmantelado por las autoridades federales en el operativo del jueves, no ha decidido todavía cuándo ni cómo va a ser reinstalada la protesta. Rabin indicó que su “inclinación” es ubicarla donde mismo estaba antes.
El Campamento Justicia y Paz ubicaba en la frontera entre los terrenos federales y estatales, pero en jurisdicción de Estados Unidos. Los que se manifestaban allí impedían la entrada a la instalación a cualquiera que no
fuera viequense, lo que causó grandes fricciones.
“De lo que no debe quedar duda es de que vamos a seguir con actividades de
desobediencia civil”, dijo Rabin. El comandante José Caldero, jefe de la región policiaca de Fajardo, dijo que
la presencia de la UOT en la carretera que da al Campamento García va a
permanecer “hasta que sea necesario” y aseguró que si los opositores a la
Marina intentan retomar los terrenos federales a la entrada de la instalación
serán arrestados.