Vieques: A Few Words from “El Campo de Tiro”

1. Vieques: A Few Words from “El Campo de Tiro” Victor M. Torres Velez

2. Brief History • After 400 years of Spanish colonial rule, Puerto Rico became a possession of the United States as a direct result of the Spanish-American War of 1898. • Today, after 103 years of direct economic, political and military rule, Puerto Rico continues to be a US colony. Given its geographical position, Puerto Rico has always played a key strategic military role for the United States. • In 1938 the US Navy began using the island-municipality of Vieques, right off the eastern coast of Puerto Rico, for military practices. In 1941, during the height of WW II, the Navy initiated a campaign of forced expropriation of territory, which ultimately ended in their possession of over two thirds of the island’s most arable land, thereby displacing thousands of families and seriously jeopardizing their basic means of subsistence.

3. Brief History • The Navy arbitrarily set the price for the expropriated land giving the island residents very little say, if any, in the matter. • Either you accept the price set by the Navy or prepare to be evicted, by force, if necessary, within 24 hours. The net effect of these policies was the clustering of the entire civilian population of Vieques into a small strip of land right in the middle of the island. Thus the US Navy took control of over 75% of this tiny island. • This terrible situation forced an exodus of people to leave Vieques. So from a population of more that 44,000 people before 1940 there is currently only 9,000 people living in the island.

5. Legacy of U.S. Navy in Vieques: Economic Aspects • Unemployment rate of almost fifty percent (50%) • Besides employment in the tourist sector, not too significant in terms of number of jobs, fishing is the only industry in the island of Vieques with any truly viable economic significance. • But even fishing is greatly affected by military practices when the US Navy ships enter the one-hundred-foot deep waters where the fishermen have their traps. The ships’ propellers destroy the buoys that indicate where the traps are. When that happens it is hard for fisherman to find the nets. As a result, the nets stay at the bottom of the sea for eight or twelve months, attracting many fish that ultimately die in the traps. • This poses a severe environmental threat to the fragile marine ecosystem in that region.

6. Legacy of U.S. Navy in Vieques: Environmental Aspects • The immediate effects of the bombings in Vieques are the destruction of delicate ecosystems in the island, which supports hundreds of species of plants and animals that are killed instantly upon the direct impact of the projectiles during military target practices. • These bombings and military maneuvers lead to serious contamination of the environment due to toxic residues. There is at least three ways in which military's bombings pollutes the environment in Vieques: • (1) Chemicals in the Missiles’ explosive payloads, (2) Dust and rock particles released into the air as a result of the impact and/or explosion of missiles, and (3) Metallic residues left by missiles after they detonate, and the junk and scrap heap they use for target practice.

9. Legacy of U.S. Navy in Vieques: Environmental Aspects • This material is never remove and under the effects of additional explosions and sea breezes, metals are oxidized or decomposed, turning in accelerated fashion into leachates that pollute the environment (Cruz-Pérez 1988). • According to Cruz-Pérez, the sources of drinking water in Vieques' Isabel Segunda village and Barrio Esperanza are polluted with toxic chemicals, like TNT, tetryl and RDX. • Furthermore, US Environmental Protection Agency sampled Vieques' air and soil determining that the air has unhealthy levels of particulate matter and the ground has iron levels above normal.

11. Legacy of U.S. Navy in Vieques: Health Aspects • The people of Vieques suffer from high levels of cancer and other serious health problems. • Studies carried out by the Puerto Rico Department of Health have shown that from 1985 to 1989 the rate of cancer in Vieques rose to 26 percent above the rest of PR. • Dr. Rafael Rivera-Castaño has documented an increase in extremely rare diseases, like, for example, Scleroderma, lupus, thyroid deficiencies, and not-so-rare ones, like asthma, which is significantly affecting Vieques’ children.

12. Legacy of U.S. Navy in Vieques: Health Aspects • "How can the children of Vieques get asthma if this is such a small island? The winds that blow in from the ocean are rich in iodine, which prevents asthma. The only possible cause is air pollution. We don't have factories here, the only source of air pollution here is the Navy," he has stated . • Asthma is not the only disease that Vieques’ children confront. Vieques’ children have four times more probability of getting cancer than children in the main island of Puerto Rico.

15. Social Mobilization and Resistance • In February of 1978, US admiral Robert Fanagan told the fisherman that they would not be allowed to fish during 3 weeks. All NATO countries had planned an intensive military maneuver along all of Vieques’ coastline. • On February 6, 1978, fed-up with the Navy’s arrogance, the fishermen of Vieques took a desperate gamble. Forty fishing boats ‘invaded’ waters where target practice with live ammunition were about to begin. • They were carrying out a struggle with the sling shot of David against the Goliath of NATO. They were successful detaining the maneuvers and awakening the support of the entire Puerto Rican nation.

19. Social Mobilization and Resistance • After David Sanes Rodríguez’s death on April 19th, 1999, a group of civilians gathered in the area of the “accident” to protest the bombardments. • The named the area Monte David in memory of Mr. Sanes. This was the place in which the encampments of Civil Disobedience were established. These were the same encampments that stopped US Navy military practices for more than a year by posing themselves as human shields against US Navy aggressions. • At the beginning of May 2000, there were about 14 Civil Disobedience encampments with over one hundred people living permanently in “El campo de tiro”.

20. Social Mobilization and Resistance • On Thursday, May 4, 2000, at 5:30 A.M. federal authorities arrested all the people conducting Civil Disobedience in the “restricted areas”. • The struggle against the U.S. Navy continues….

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