Vol. 64/No.18 May 8, 2000

U.S. rulers map plans to oust Vieques protesters

BY MARTIN KOPPEL

Washington has escalated its probes to evict scores of protesters from Vieques who oppose the U.S. Navy's use of that Puerto Rican island for bombing practice. In response, anticolonial fighters and others are gearing up for further protests both in Puerto Rico and the United States.

On April 24, two days after U.S. marshals and immigration cops carried out a commando raid on a house in Miami to seize Cuban child Elián González, unnamed Pentagon sources reported to the media that two U.S. Navy warships were heading toward Vieques with 1,000 Marines to back up U.S. marshals and FBI agents preparing to arrest the protesters.

The following day, a U.S. official stated that the departure of the Bataan and the Nashville from Norfolk, Virginia, was being delayed because news of the move had been leaked. The ships had been projected to pick up Marines from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and set up a perimeter around the 21-mile-long island of Vieques, to prevent access by fishermen and others to the dozen protest camps on the U.S. Navy's bombing range. The Puerto Rican colonial government agreed to provide police for "crowd control," stepping aside for the imperial cop agencies to do the main job. After the arrests, the Marines would reoccupy the disputed Vieques territory.

The big-business media immediately connected the INS raid in Miami with the announced raid on Vieques, which would also be directed by the U.S. Justice Department. The San Juan daily El Nuevo Día noted that "the eviction operation would be more complex than the one that federal authorities carried out to remove Cuban child Elián González from the home of his Miami relatives," and suggested that protesters had guns, the same pretext used in the Miami raid.

Robert Rabin, a leader of the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques, denied the accusation and held U.S. president William Clinton and Puerto Rican governor Pedro Rosselló responsible for any violent incident resulting from a U.S. assault on Vieques.

In one probe, a bus carrying several unknown individuals attempted to ram through the entrance to the U.S. Navy's Camp García, which remains blocked by protesters who have set up Camp Justice and Peace. Within 30 minutes, some 250 local residents rushed to the camp to join the six protesters on duty. The Puerto Rican Lawyers Guild, which has pledged to defend any activists victimized, immediately flew in an attorney.

Since April 1999, when a U.S. warplane on a training exercise dropped "errant" bombs that killed Vieques resident David Sanes, the 60-year-long fight to remove the U.S. Navy from Vieques has been rekindled, becoming a mass campaign in Puerto Rico and winning increased support among Puerto Ricans in the United States. The fight has involved significant numbers of fishermen, workers, and youth.

Meanwhile, U.S. officials announced that the USS George Washington aircraft carrier battle group will train off the east coast of the United States rather than the coasts of Vieques. It is the fourth series of naval maneuvers to be diverted from Puerto Rico since the Vieques movement exploded.

The Clinton administration has been seeking to implement a January 31 agreement with colonial governor Rosselló to allow the Pentagon to resume bombing practice on Vieques and to hold a referendum among island residents — widely scorned in Puerto Rico as a fraud —on whether to withdraw the U.S. forces in 2003. Despite having to divert the latest naval exercises, Washington continues to press for an opportunity to dislodge the protesters and retake the territory in eastern Vieques.

Meanwhile, opponents of the U.S. Navy have announced demonstrations to take place at Fort Buchanan in San Juan, at New York's Times Square, and in other cities as soon as any arrests take place on the island.

"I was a sergeant in Korea for 11 months... fighting for democracy--now I'm ready to fight the Navy," declared Angel Navarro, 72, who told an Associated Press reporter he plans to take his fishing boat through any blockade.

Other Vieques residents have vowed to replace any arrested demonstrators by cutting fences, sending in reinforcements by horseback, and dispatching dozens of fishing boats to break any blockade.

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