Vieques, Yes! Navy, No!

Bernice Powell Jackson is Executive Director of the Commission for Racial Justice of the United Church of Christ, 700 Prospect Ave., Cleveland OH 44115; 216/7362168. These reflections are from her Civil Rights Journals.

It's very difficult to put into words what I saw and felt as I visited the little island of Vieques off Puerto Rico early this spring. It's an island of some 32 miles, two thirds of which has been taken over by the US Navy for the past 60 years. There are 9000 civilians crammed together in the rest of the island, sandwiched between the naval base and the target range.

Culebra, Puerto Rico

Most of the island and the waters surrounding it have been the target of not only bullets, but bombs. For 220 days a year, for 60 years, the US Navy has used this little island to practice war. Tens of thousands of bullets and bombs, including those filled with uranium, have rained down on Vieques. As I walked around Vieques, all around me were bullet casings and bomb shells, some exploded, others not. I saw the tanks and planes and trucks brought in from Operation Desert Storm and used as bombing targets.

Last year, on April 19, the Navy stopped the bombing when a civilian guard was killed accidentally. Within a few weeks the people of Puerto Rico joined the people of Vieques in their resistance to resumption of the bombing. Camps sprang up where the bombing had taken place; people began to reclaim the land.

Protestants and Catholics together have built an ecumenical chapel in the restricted area. Fishermen have opened a camp and so have trade union folks. At the Puerto Rican Independence party camp, the leader has not left in 11 months. A group has been sitting outside the Navy's gates, not allowing any military vehicles in or out. At each camp people know they are staying in a restricted area illegally and will not leave even if the bombing resumes. They are prepared to die for their beliefs. They believe Dr. King's words--that every person should have something he or she would die for. Through the months, they have bad visitors from Puerto Rico, from all parts of the mainland, from Hawaii, and the Philippines.

While the US government was putting pressure on Puerto Rico's governor to accept an initial offer of $40 million and a plebiscite in three years, nearly 200,000 people marched in San Juan against the resumption of the bombing.

As I talked with the mothers and grandmothers of Vieques, with fishermen and workers, with environmentalists and doctors, it was clear that the people of Vieques and the people of Puerto Rico already know they don't want the bombing to resume. They already know that $40 million will not begin to clean up the ecological devastation. They already know that $40 million will not begin to pay for treating their cancers. They already know that it will not begin to fund the kind of economic development that Vieques, with 70% unemployment, will need.

In early May, the nonviolent protesters who had camped out in front of the gates to the US Navy base and on the beaches in the bombing area of the tiny island were arrested by US marshals at the request of the Navy. After more than a year without bombardment, it seems that the forces of power and might will prevail, and once again the people, the fish, the coral reefs, and the plant life of Vieques will be besieged by our bombs.

As I have listened to, watched, and read the media accounts of this beautiful island and its proud people, I have been startled at the misinformation and just plain old bad reporting. Most of the press has not taken the time to really go and talk with the people of Vieques or to visit the bombing sites or to understand what the movement against the bombing is really all about. Too often, it has just accepted the navy's misinformation and half-truths, or it has made wrong assumptions about Vieques and about the bombing.

I want to share what I know and saw.

Myth #1. The people of Vieques voluntarily gave up their island for the bombing during World War II.

The land was taken by eminent domain by the US Navy some 60 years ago. The part of the island now used for target practice was once verdant pastures with many cattle farms. The beef from Vieques was considered some of the best in the Caribbean. Many of these farming families were given two weeks or less to leave their homes and paid a few thousand dollars for hundreds of acres of land. I met an 84-year-old woman whose parents owned such a farm. She recalled the suicide of her aunt shortly after her family was moved, and she called that the first death as a result of the Navy takeover of the island.

Myth #2. The Navy needs Vieques because it is the only place on earth that has all the elements required for its practice.

During the Ford Administration, the bombing of Culebra, another island of Puerto Rico, was stopped by executive order. The official who facilitated the Culebra agreement has written that 25 years ago he identified other islands which were uninhabited which might be used instead of Vieques.

Myth #3. The US has promised a plebiscite of the people of Vieques and a halt to the bombing after three years. Isn't that enough?

It is true that the US did promise such a vote but why do they need a vote? And why bomb before the vote and for three years after the vote? The people of Vieques have said what they want in every way they know how, including putting their bodies on the line in nonviolent protest for more than a year. The Navy has made promises in the past to the people of Vieques which it has not kept. The people are not willing to trust anymore.

Myth #4. The protesters were armed and were a radical fringe.

The people who were in the camps were very intentionally practicing nonviolence. Those who were camped on the beach were church leaders, women, fishermen and carpenters and labor and political leaders. Their mission is to save the island, meaning save the fish and the coral reefs and the luminescent bay and the turtles and coqui, those tiny little frogs of Puerto Rico--all once again returning to the island, since the bombing stopped.

Nearly as many people marched in San Juan in support of Vieques as marched in 1963 at the March on Washington. Yet there was very little press coverage, so we tend to think this is just a small group with a grievance.

Myth #5. The people of Vieques are being unreasonable and unwilling to compromise.

Vieques is an inhabited island. Can you imagine using Martha's Vineyard or Nantucket or Whidbey island off Seattle for target practice? The people of Vieques suffer a cancer rate significantly higher than that of their brothers and sisters in Puerto Rico. The Navy has admitted that it has used uranium bullets and bombs in the past, which may well be the cause of this high rate of illness.

The truth will prevail. Justice can be delayed, but it can never be denied. The people of Vieques are strong in the spirit. So often in the world, the US has misunderstood and underestimated the power of the people to be free, to make their own choices about their own lands and their own destinies. It would be tragic if we have entered the new millennium without having learned some lessons from the old. To continue to bomb Vieques against the will of the people and the will of creation would be a tragedy for our nation. Might is never right. Peace will always prevail.

What you can do:

• Call Maria Echaveste at the White House (202/514-65940) to demand an immediate withdrawal of the Navy from Vieques, or write 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington DC 20500.
• Join "Free Vieques" activists in vigils and marches: <viequeslibre.org>
• Travel to Vieques with a delegation. Contact Fellowship of Reconciliation at 415/495-6334 or <forlatam@igc.org>
  

Vieques: An Environmental Justice Story

One night, they took us out on the world's largest luminescent bay. The waters of the bay have both fresh water, brought by an underground stream, and salt water from the ocean and millions of ultra-tiny creatures which glow in the dark As we sat on the boat, waiting for the sun to go down, our host, a fisherman who is also a marine biologist, told us about how many different kinds of fish come into the bay to spawn. He showed us the four kinds of mangrove trees that live alongside the bay and act as natural desalinization plants. And then, as the darkness enfolded us, he put his hand in the water and began to move it around. It looked like tiny fireflies in the water. The fish darting all around the boat provided an underwater fireworks display and as he started the boat's engine, the wake was like a light show of water.

That bay is in danger of being destroyed by the Navy trucks which are filling the road around the bay with sand which is killing the mangrove trees. It is in danger of being destroyed as the Navy dumps toxic drums in the lake, as bullets and bombs are dropped. Planes are said to have crashed into the bay and the surrounding waters.

The people of Vieques seem to have a much higher rate of cancer than do even the people in Puerto Rico, only 18 miles away. Some studies have shown a rate at least 27% higher and while the Centers for Disease Control has done recent studies, they have yet to release their findings. Standing on Mt. David, a little hill in the restricted area, I saw areas of a nearby lagoon with white waste bubbling up.

The people of Vieques face the psychological and emotional realities of living next to a bombing area. For 220 days per year, for nearly 60 years, these people have had to listen to bombs dropping nearby. Schools sometimes have had to be closed early. The people are forced to leave the island to work since no industries will move into a bombing zone. In order to attend high school, teenagers, too, must leave the island and there is no hospital.

It's been almost a year since bombs have dropped on Vieques. The grass and plants are re-appearing. The coqui, the little tree frogs common in Puerto Rico, have not yet returned. But I just got word that a giant turtle has returned and laid its eggs on the beach--something not seen in generations.