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   Vol.64/No.21            May 29, 2000 
 
 
Puerto Ricans demand: U.S. Navy out!
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BY BETSEY STONE AND RON RICHARDS  
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico--"This is the beginning of a new stage in the fight to get the U.S. Navy out of Vieques," said Angel Figueroa Jaramillo of the electrical workers union UTIER. "We don't want one more bomb. We don't want to wait three years. We want them out now!"

These words echoed the reaction of many electrical workers and other unionists to the U.S. military's resumption of bombing practice on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques and the May 4 removal of more than 200 protesters encamped on the U.S. Navy bombing range by a force of U.S. marshals, FBI agents, and U.S. marines. Figueroa Jaramillo is the education secretary of UTIER.

Far from being intimidated by the renewed war training and the mass evictions, many workers, fishermen, students, and others told Militant reporters they were more determined than ever to get the U.S. military out of Vieques for good.

In an interview, Jaramillo said that from discussions among unionists and media reports, it's clear that a majority of workers oppose the January agreement between President William Clinton and Puerto Rican governor Pedro Rosselló--made behind the backs of the Puerto Rican people--that accepts a continuation of the bombing with so-called inert bombs and a referendum in which Vieques residents who are registered U.S. voters could vote on whether the U.S. Navy stays or leaves by 2003.

Several workers going to their jobs at a large electrical plant here May 12 pointed to the danger of "inert" bombs setting off some of the unexploded bombs scattered about the firing range.

Many proudly described the four-hour work stoppage at their plant and the mobilization of thousands of electrical workers to picket U.S. government and military facilities the day after the U.S. police-military raid.

Since the May 4 raid, protests have continued to bubble around Puerto Rico on a daily basis. About 50 anti-Navy protesters defied the Navy May 13 by entering the restricted zone at Vieques and were arrested when they tried to walk the eight miles to the bombing range. Many others have announced plans to enter the Navy-occupied land in the days to come.

Those arrested included Ismael Guadalupe, a leader of the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques; former boxing champion José "Chegüí" Torres; Graciani Miranda, former president of the Puerto Rican Bar Association; and Rev. Margarita Sánchez of the National Ecumenical Movement.

Earlier in the week Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP) leaders Rubén Berríos and Jorge Fernández were arrested on Navy-occupied land and charged with misdemeanor trespass, which carries a maximum penalty of six months in jail and a $500 fine.

Under an executive order signed by President Clinton the day of the U.S. raid, they could have been charged with a felony carrying 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Vieques fishermen have been denouncing the imposition by U.S. authorities of restricted zones in the waters around Vieques limiting their right to fish. They filed a court suit demanding the right to enter the prohibited areas.

Aleida Encarnación, a leader of the Vieques Women's Alliance, was the featured speaker at the first of a series of "Fridays for Peace in Vieques" held May 12 in old San Juan. Her husband, Carlos Zenón, is a leader of the decades-long struggle by Vieques fishermen to get the Navy out of their island. Her two sons, Cacimar and Pedro Zenón Encarnación, are among the small group who managed to elude the Navy and remain in the restricted area during the week after the raid.

The Vieques Women's Alliance organizes protests, health campaigns, fund-raising, and education about the struggle for their land. "The voice of women is very important in this fight," said Encarnación in an interview. She commented that on a speaking tour in the Caribbean island of Grenada she had a chance to talk with people who described Washington's invasion of their country in 1983, which was rehearsed in Vieques.

"They train on our island to invade other peoples," she said, giving the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama as another example.

Encarnación described how the Puerto Rican police and National Guard worked in league with U.S. forces during and in the days after the raid to intimidate and violate the basic rights of the people of Vieques. Residents of Barrio Luján, just outside the entrance to the naval base, were not allowed to have visitors in their homes. The Puerto Rican cops blocked off part of the public road and detained dozens of fishing boats in the surrounding waters.  
 
Restrictions on right to protest
The authorities have begun to relax some of the harsh conditions they imposed but are still seeking restrictions on the right to carry out protests.

National Guardsmen were sent to "protect" electric plants and other facilities all over Puerto Rico to try to intimidate electrical workers from carrying out their four-hour strike. According to Jaramillo, this is the first time since the 1973 electrical workers strike that the National Guard has occupied these plants--"a dangerous precedent in response to protests that have been completely peaceful."

On May 12, U.S. agents ordered participants in a demonstration initiated by the Socialist Front at the U.S. Federal Building not to use loudspeakers except during one hour between noon and l:00 p.m. According to Jorge Farinacci, secretary of the Student General Council at the University of Puerto Rico here, when thousands of students and others demonstrated at the Ft. Buchanan base the day of the U.S. government raid, new restrictions were also established there. Some students were beaten by police when they challenged this.

For months prior to the evictions of protesters on the U.S.-run bombing range, demonstrators at the Peace and Justice Camp used a wide space in front of the gates of the base to protest the U.S. military presence. This and other camps were put up after a U.S. warplane dropped a bomb during a training exercise that killed a civilian Puerto Rican guard, David Sanes.

During the May 4 U.S. raid, marshals and FBI agents ordered everyone to leave and detained anyone who did not. After 10 to 12 hours of being handcuffed and denied food, water, and legal representation, the protesters were released without charges being filed. Some 226 were detained.

Luisa Guadalupe, 82, was one of the protesters who were detained. She insists that the arrests were illegal because they took place on Puerto Rican land and not Navy land.

Denied access to the public land near the gate, anti-Navy forces have rented two tracts of land nearby to set up a new camp. Protesters who want the Navy out sleep on the site.

"This is a boxing match with many rounds," Luisa Guadalupe commented. "We are going to win the next round." It was almost six decades ago, she said, at the beginning of World War II, when the U.S. government gave her family 24 hours to leave their land, for which they were paid $50 an acre. The land was turned over to the Navy for ammunition storage.

At a May 12 press conference, José Paralitici, a spokesperson for All Puerto Rico With Vieques, a coalition that is organizing "Fridays for Vieques" actions, said the possibility of a national work stoppage was under discussion among both unionists and students.

Jazmín and Alelí Canals, students active in the Vieques struggle at the University of Puerto Rico, described the political impact of the recent events on students. "Consciousness has really changed between last August and May of this year," Alelí Canals pointed out. "People are more opposed to the fact that the U.S. government is controlling us, trying to manipulate us." This sentiment was registered, she said, in the shutdown of the campus, organized by students on the morning of the raid and the accompanying marches and demonstrations.

Jasmín Canals, her sister, added that the mobilizations around Vieques build on the experiences acquired by many students and workers during the l998 battles against the privatization of the state-owned Puerto Rican telephone company. "I recognized faces of workers I knew from the 1998 telephone strike on the picket line at Ft. Buchanan," she remarked.

Luis Rivera, a member of the Young Socialists in Chicago, contributed to this article.  
 
 
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