This move is a response to the eruption of protests in Puerto Rico, and among many Puerto Ricans in the United States, against the decades-long U.S. military occupation of Vieques. Many see it as an effort by Washington to deflate opposition and hold onto the island as long as possible. Since World War II the Navy has occupied two-thirds of the small island, with a bombing range on the eastern tip and an ammunition depot in the west.

Protests against the Navy's occupation and devastation of Vieques have been unabated since April 19, when David Sanes, a civilian guard, was killed by a 500-pound "errant" bomb dropped by a Navy plane during target practice.

The fight to remove the U.S. military from the island has become a flashpoint for the nationalist resurgence that marks all politics in Puerto Rico today. Protesters have established several civil disobedience camps in the Navy's eastern "restricted zone" for the past six months, and the Pentagon has so far suspended its maneuvers on the island.

The battle over Vieques has been intertwined with another anticolonial struggle, the campaign to win freedom for 17 proindependence political prisoners, which scored an important victory in September when Clinton ordered the release on parole of 11 prisoners.

"The panel's recommendation is a fraud," said Ismael Guadalupe in an October 21 telephone interview from Vieques. Guadalupe, a leader of the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques, explained that "if the U.S. Congress and the president accept the proposal, the Navy wouldn't be required to leave within five years, as the press is saying. They would simply have five years to do a 'study' to find an alternative location. That's unacceptable. The Navy must not resume its bombing. It should leave our island immediately and clean it up."

Clinton's panel was headed up by Francis Rush, a U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense. The other members were former congressman Lee Hamilton, retired Marine Corps general Richard Neal, and retired Navy vice admiral Diego Hernández, former commander of the Third Fleet.

The panel, appointed shortly after the flare-up of protests in April, has been "studying" the situation in Vieques for months. Its recommendation was leaked to the press in early September. The White House had been stalling on the release of its findings, hoping the issue would die down, but it hasn't.

"Our demand that the Navy leave our island is nonnegotiable," said Carlos Ventura, president of the Fishermen's Association of Southern Vieques, in a phone interview. "Not one more bomb, not one more military maneuver.

"That's not just the position of the Vieques fishermen, but of all of Puerto Rico. Even the government of Puerto Rico has said it will not do the Navy's dirty work of evicting people from the camps," knowing such action would get it in hot water.

Ventura added, "The goal of the U.S. government is to ask for five years of 'time out' so they can find some sleight of hand to stay on our island."

The Vieques fishermen have for decades spearheaded the fight against the use of their island by the U.S. military, which has disrupted their livelihood with constant bombings and war maneuvers in fishing waters.

"The history of the U.S. Navy here has been a bitter one," Ventura said. "It's a history of lies. In 1940, the Navy told the residents of Vieques that they would only have to leave the island temporarily and that after the war they would be allowed to return to their homes. But they lied.

"Then the Navy argued that they had to stay in Vieques and carry out target practice during the Cold War. Then it was Vietnam. Later, it was their invasions of Grenada, Panama, the Persian Gulf, Haiti, and Kosovo. The U.S. military used Vieques for all these wars.

"Now they say they need our island for their so-called war on drugs, claiming the radar they are installing here is to detect drug traffickers, not for military purposes. But of course we know it is for military use."

Ventura noted that U.S. officials have warned of their intentions of forcibly evicting those camped out in the restricted zones. "But if they evict us, we're going to return. And that's only going to make things worse for them."  
 

Thousands volunteer for camps

The fishermen's leader reported, "Thousands of people around Puerto Rico have volunteered to replace us on the camps if we are arrested — even church groups." The Vieques fishermen have set up one such camp at La Yayí. Hundreds of workers, college and high school students, fishermen from around Puerto Rico, and political and religious figures have visited the camps to express their solidarity.

Meanwhile, Ventura said, the fishermen and others have been building facilities in the restricted zone. "With the help of several unions — the water workers, the telephone workers, and others — we've built a pier at La Yayí to make it easier for residents of Vieques to visit the camps, especially the older people, who now want to come back to the areas where they grew up.

"The old folks are telling the story of their lives before the Navy forced them to leave — what crops they were growing there, how they earned their livelihoods, how the Navy lied to them claiming they would be allowed to return after the war." They're giving the new generation an education about half a century of resistance.

In face of these continuing protests, a number of capitalist politicians have jumped on the Vieques bandwagon. In Puerto Rico, even the two colonial parties have voiced support for getting the U.S. Navy out of the island — the pro-Commonwealth Popular Democratic Party (PPD) and the ruling New Progressive Party (PNP). This includes both Gov. Pedro Rosselló and Carlos Romero Barceló, leader of the PNP's right wing and currently Puerto Rico's nonvoting representative in the U.S. Congress.

In New York, both major contenders for the U.S. Senate, Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Rudolph Giuliani, have been reborn as champions of the people of Vieques. Democratic presidential aspirant Albert Gore has posed as sympathetic but more equivocally, saying he is for "a resolution to this important issue."

Navy secretary Richard Danzig, who endorsed the presidential panel's recommendation, has asserted that the Pentagon has failed to find a replacement for the Vieques firing range, which he calls "the only suitable training site" for joint naval, aerial, and amphibious war maneuvers using live fire.

Panel member Hamilton offered a note of concern. He said that after months of careful study, the panel had discovered that "the Puerto Rican community is very incensed by this and they all want it stopped immediately."  
 
 
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