Robert L. Rabin Siegal, Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques *

Good Evening. I thank the organizers of this event for the opportunity to share with you the experience of struggle on the Island of Vieques, Puerto Rico, beseiged by US Naval activities during the past six decades. I thank the people of Puerto Rico and, in particular, the people of the Island Municipality of Vieques, for allowing me to live and work with the community during these past twenty years and to participate in such an important struggle for peace and justice in such a special place.

I am here in representation of the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques, a grass roots community organization on Vieques that defends the basic demands of the people of this small Caribbean Island, demands known as the four D´s: demilitarization, decontamination, devolution (or return of the lands) and development.

I will share with you tonight some history of the US military presence and activities on Vieques, the environmental, health and socio/economico consequences of that presence and the historic and heroic struggle of a small community against the mightiest naval force in the history of the world.

Around 7:00 PM (EST) on April 19, 1999, a U.S. Navy pilot launched two five hundred pound live bombs from his FA-18 jet that missed their target at the bombing range in Vieques, Puerto Rico, destroying the Navy's observation post, killing David Sanes, a civilian security guard and injuring several others.

David Sanes' killing was the chronicle of a death foretold. For decades Viequenses have been clamoring for an end to the bombings and shelling on the Island and for an end to the military presence. This was not the first time that the Navy missed its target. Fishermen generally complain about the great number of unexploded bombs in the coastal waters of Vieques and the destruction caused to coral reefs and other elements of the marine environment from the bombing. In October of 1993, another FA-18 fighter jet missed its target by about ten miles, dropping five 500 hundred pound live bombs about a mile from the main town of Vieques. Luckily, no one was killed in that incident. In November of 1994, during a two week exercise, a Navy air wing dropped 20thousand pounds of live explosives, including Napalm, on Vieques. In 1998, during maneuvers involving Navy and Puerto Rican National Guard troops, bullets broke windows in the Public School Buses parked at the Public Works area of the Municipal Government in the Santa María sector. Several government employees in the area at the time had to take cover until the shooting stopped.

caused by U.S. Navy and NATO bombing (the Navy "rents" Vieques to NATO and other countries for bombing practice) on this Island.

Since the 1940's, the U.S. Navy controls 3/4 of Vieques' 33,000 acres. The western end is used as an ammunition depot while the eastern third is a bombing and maneuver area. Military expropriations in the 40's caused a social and economic crisis that lasts to this day. The Navy controls the shortest connecting point between Vieques and the main island (the Puerto Rico Ports Authority must use an 18 nautical mile route instead of the six-mile route controlled by the military). The Navy controls the highest points on the island, the best aquifers and most fertile lands, extensive white sand beaches, and hundreds of archaeological sites.

Large-scale ecological destruction is the result of over half a century of bombing and experimentation with new weapons systems. In his study titled "Vieques: The Ecology of an Island Under Siege", Professor José Seguinot Barbosa, Director of the Geography Department of the University of Puerto Rico in Río Piedras, explains that "the eastern tip of the island constitutes a region with more craters per kilometer than the moon." Professor Seguinot Barbosa adds "the destruction of the natural and human resources of Vieques violates the basic norms of international law and human rights. At the state and federal level the laws pertaining to the coastal zone, water and noise quality, underwater resources, archaeological resources and land use, among others, are violated."

Chemical engineer Rafael Cruz Pérez, in an article titled "Contamination Produced by Explosives and Residuals of Explosives in Vieques, Puerto Rico" (published in Dimensión,

Magazine of the Association of Engineers and Surveyors of Puerto Rico, Year 2, Vol. 8, Jan. 1988) points out that " . . .chemicals from the bombing (TNT, NO3, NO2, RDX and Tetryl) are transported by diverse mechanisms toward the civilian area. . .We find that the effective concentration of particles of contaminants over the civilian area of Vieques exceeds 197 micrograms per cubic meter and therefore exceeds the legal federal criteria for clean air." Studies done recently in the bombing area by leading Puerto Rican environmental scientists Dr. Neftalí García and Jorge Fernández, indicate dangerously high levels of heavy metals and other toxic chemical components related to military activities in the soil and water. The EPA and the Puerto Rico Environmental Quality Board previously announced their intent to deny the Navy permission to continue bombing activity that results in discharges into bodies of water. However, with the signing of the Presidential Directives, these agencies have abandoned their responsabilities to the environment and the people of Vieques to allow the Navy to continue with its destructive activities here.

The Navy stated in May of 1999 – after a Freedom of Information Act Request by the Military Toxics Project helped obtain the information - that 263 Depleted Uranium projectiles were "accidently" fired from a Harrier Jet into the impact area at Vieques during training for the war in Yugoslavia in February of that year. Documents from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission indicate that only 56 DU rounds were retrieved and because of the danger of unexploded conventional ordnance in the area, the search for the rest of the DU was postponed until August of 1999. The Navy has still not publicly stated the status of their "cleanup". Depleted Uranium poses a serious threat to the health of the people of Vieques who suffer an already alarmingly high cancer case rate. We believe the Navy has been using Vieques for practice and experimentation with DU weapons possibly for decades.

Scientific studies carried out over the past two years identified high concentrations of arsenic, barium, cadmium, zinc, cobalt, copper, tin, mercury and silver and lead. Aluminum, chromium, iron, manganese, nickel, and vanadium concentrations were found in some areas. High concentrations of nitrates, nitrites, ammonia, hydrocarbons typical of diesel fuel, and phosphates, that are formed from bomb explosions or are present in other war artifacts, were also found. The metals found in high concentrations are present in explosives, propellants, paints, conventional and uranium bullets, napalm, chaff, flares and other paraphernalia used by the Navy in Vieques.

Metals have been found in plants, violinist crabs, fish, mussels, Thalassia and sea grass beds, and humans in Vieques, which confirm the expected processes of biomagnification. High concnetrations of mercury and lead have been found in hair samples of civilians in Vieques subcontracted by US companies like Raytheon and General Electric to work in the impact areas.

High contentrations of aluminum, antimony, arsenic, bismuth and lead have been found in hair samples of a large number of civilians in Vieques that do not work in impact areas. Other metals found in above normal levels are boron, cadmium, tin, manganese, mercury, silver and vanadium. Uranium in above normal concentrations has been found in stool samples of civilians.

Fishermen have for decades struggled to get the Navy to stop bombing and leave the island. Giant military ships destroy fish traps and bombing and other maneuvers impose severe restrictions on fishermen's entry into some of the best fishing areas around the island. On numerous occasions fishing boats have been damaged by naval gunfire and fishermen have been severely hurt by bombs exploding close to their fishing activities.

After the April 19^th killing of David Sanes, groups of Viequenses and supporters from the main island of Puerto Rico occupied several areas inside the bombing zone to block the possibility of renewed bombing and-or maneuvers. Close to the site where Sanes was killed, a giant cross was placed by members of the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques (CPRDV), fishermen and others on 22 April. Until the arrests of May 4, 2000,, a group of young Viequense men and women together with university students from Puerto Rico, maintained a permanent vigil at the site of the cross. The area has been renamed Moount David.

The Puerto Rico Independence Party (PIP) set up a protest camp about a mile from Mt. David, also in the bombing range on the 8^th of May. On the North coast of Vieques (both Mt. David and the PIP camp were on the South coast of the island) a group of fishermen and other residents of Vieques occupied the Yayi Key while a group of Vieques teachers, with support from the CPRDV and the Congreso Nacional Hostosiano (a coalition of PR Independence groups) held a position directly across from the Yayi Key. All of the protest camps were within Navy restricted zone. Labor groups, the Catholic Church and Protestant denominations, and university students set up other camps.

In front of the entrance to the bombing range at Camp García, another camp was set up on December 3^rd, to block all military vehicles and personnel from entering or leaving the base. This was a project of a coordinating committee made up of church groups, political organizations, the Vieques Womens Alliance, a youth group and the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques.

On 25 June, 1999, a Special Commission on Vieques appointed by the Governor with members from the three major political parties, the churches, Vieques fisherman and the Mayor of Vieques submitted its report in which it supported the position of the community – total demilitarization, decontamination, devolution (return of all lands to the people) and development. The Governor of Puerto Rico established Public Policy demanding the immediate and permanent cessation of all military activity on Vieques.

Representatives of the CPRDV successfully lobbied to have a clear statement on Vieques included in the final resolution of the UN Committee on Decolonization in July. On behalf of the Vieques committee, a protest was formally introduced to the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the UN at Geneva and a complaint filed with the Organization of American States, citing Navy abuses and violations. On the main island, a national coordinating committee - "Todo Puerto Rico con Vieques" (All Puerto Rico with Vieques), rallied fifty thousand people for a demonstration at the entrance to Roosevelt Roads Naval Station in the town of Ceiba on the 4^th of July of 1999.

A Presidential Panel – two of the three members from the Department of Defense - appointed to investigate the military presence on Vieques recommended the continuation of bombing for a five year period while the Navy searches for alternatives. This recommendation was universally rejected by all sectors of Puerto Rican society.

In January of this year (2000), the Governor of Puerto Rico made an abrupt turn and signed an agreement with President Clinton authorizing the continuation of bombing for at least three more years. The Presidential Directives, signed by Clinton and Puerto Rican Governor Pedro Roselló on January 31, without the slightest participation of the people of Vieques, gave the green light to the Navy to remove protesters from the civil disobedience camps inside the bombing area and reinitiate bombing shortly thereafter.

The Directives suggested the clean up and return of the eight thousand acres on the Western end of the island and the fifteen thousand acres on the East to the people of Vieques. However, Congress recently passed the Military Appropriations Bill that stipulates only 4 thousand of the 23thousand acres controlled by the Navy will be returned to the people of Vieques. Without community participation in the process, the Navy and the Puerto Rican government work to return lands before carrying out environmental cleanup. The agreement between the Governnor of Puerto Rico and President Clinton was recently changed and approved by Congress, openning the door for renewed use of live weapons, and does not include language about the cleanup of the impact area nor does it discuss the return to the people of Vieques of any of the land on the Eastern third of the Island. It also leaves the Navy´s giant ROTHR Radar functioning with its electromagnetic contamination and the Navy in control of the hightest point on Vieques, Monte Pirata, where it will continue to operate an observation post and communications center.

In Febrary of this year, over one hundred and fifty thousand people marched in San Juan against the Presidential Directives. The march – considered by many to have been the largest ever – was convoked by Puerto Rico´s most influential religious leaders in support of the position of our community: not one more bomb, not one more minute.

On 4 May of this year, over a thousand Marines and hundreds of federal officials – FBI, customs officials, US Marshalls, among others – arrested over two hundred people in the bombing area, including priests, nuns, pastors and ministers, fishermen, housewives, students, workers, union leaders, grandmothers and great grandmothers. Shortly afterwards, the Navy resumed bombing, with non-explosive projectiles, they say, and only for 90 days a year, according to the Presidential Directives.

Since the May 4 arrests, close to a thousand people have been arrested during a series of civil disobedience actions inside the bombing area and in other parts of the Navy´s restricted zones on Vieques. In small, medium and large groups, by water in fishing boats and by land through the Navy´s perimiter fence, hundreds of Viequenses and Puerto Ricans from the main island have entered the restricted zone to protest and disrupt the continuation of bombing and press for demilitarization.

In June of this year, the Puerto Rican Independence party organized its members for a large scale civil disobedience action aimed at disrupting Navy maneuvers. The President of the Party, Puerto Rican Senator Rubén Berríos, other legislators, mayoral candidates and assemblymen and women from all parts of Puerto Rico participated in the actions led by the PIP. Over one hundred members of the PIP were arrested and many spent over a month in the Federal Prision in San Juan.

During that same period, Vieques fishermen outmaneuverd Navy patrol boats and after leaving several civil disobedients in the bombing area, led the high speed, high tech Navy vessels through shallow waters where they stayed caught up on the coral reefs. The fishermen returned safely to the civilian area.

On the first of October, a coalition of organizations in Vieques and on the main island of Puerto Rico, carried out a march in support of civil disobedience. While approximately five thousand people marched in the Esperanza sector, 70 people entered the restricted area on the Western end of Vieques. Hundreds of people travelled to Vieques that day in private yaughts and fishing boats to participate in the demonstration.

The following Sunday, hundreds of Viequenses blocked the entrance to the Navy´s Camp García with their cars during a two hour demonstration. On the 22^nd of October, hundreds of people from our community tore down large sections of the Navy´s perimeter fence close to the entrance to the bombing area. When Navy security forces approached the protesters from inside the base, they were "attacked" with paint filled balloons and lots of whistle blowing.

This past October 17th, nine people from Vieques entered the bombing zone during large scale NATO maneuvers. Although the Navy was informed of the presence of the group, they nevertheless continued to bomb from ships and jets. Three Viequense veterans, part of the civil disobedience team, were caught in the firing when they tried to get to the observation post after the oldest member of the group – 70 year old Korean war veteran, Angel Navarro – suffered a diabetic shock. Bombs fell within feet of the group as they tried to get Navarro medical attention.

At the same time and close by in the bombing zone, six other Viequenses – including the Deacon of the Catholic Church, Justino López; the ex Mayor of Vieques, Radamés Tirado;

retired Viequense teacher and veteran Angel Guadalupe; José Silva, whose wife died of cancer shortly before the killing of David Sanes; Cedric Morales, leading member of the Vieques Chamber of Commerce; and myself - waited out the bombing from 8:00AM until 11:00 PM, moving from one place to another to stay clear of Naval gunfire. After crossing the entire bombing zone on the second day between 4:00 and 6:00 AM, we were arrested close to the observation post

Every Saturday night for the past year and a half, the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques holds a vigil at the Peace and Justice Camp in front of the entrance to the bombing zone. Last Saturday around 200 people participated and around thirty people spent the night to provide security due to rumors of a possible FBI/PR police intervention against the Camp.

There have been protests and civil disobedience actions for Vieques throughout the US, and in Vieques we are greatly appreciative of all the solidarity activity organized by the Puerto Rican communities and others here. This past Sunday, activitists from Puerto Rico and New York placed a Vieques flag, a Puerto Rican flag and sign for peace in Vieques on the Statue of Liberty, before being arrested.

Members of the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques have travelled recently to Korea, Okinawa, England, Mexico and the US to help raise consciousness about the US Navy presence on the island and to learn from other communities that face environmental degradation and repression at the hands of the US military. We maintain contacts with people struggling in Hawaii, the Phillipines and Panamá and have received activits in Vieques from many of these countries during this past year of intense struggle.

From 16 to 20 November, we will celebrate in Vieques an International Tribunal on Human Rights Violations in Puerto Rico and Vieques, with the participation of judges and observers from across the globe.

We now prepare for our - and their – next maneuvers.

The CPRDV, together with the Vieques Women´s Alliance, the Vieques Conservation Trust and other community leaders, has begun to articulate a vision for future social and economic development of a Vieques freed from the Navy. For several years the CPRDV worked on the development issue with the UN based Economist Allied for Arms Reduction and Columbia University´s Urban Technical Assistance Program. In July of 1999, a group of highly respected Puerto Rican professionals organized, at the request of the CPRDV, a Multidisciplinary Technical Team in Support of Vieques.

The local grassroots organizations recommend the creation of a community land trust to keep and maintain the lands rescued from the Navy in the hands of the people of Vieques. We also recommend the establishment of a continuing education and training program in order to adequately empower the community of Vieques to fully participate in the development process.

The decontamination of Vieques is crucial to ensure the healthy social and economic development of the island. Our community will continue to struggle for an end to militarization, for the environmental restoration and devolution of the lands that belong, by natural right, to the people of Vieques.

The people of Vieques need your support in this historic moment. We ask organizations and individuals to show solidarity by bringing up the issue of Vieques at the workplace, in schools, at community and religious meetings. The struggle for peace in Vieques, is a struggle for people everywhere who believe that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is worth fighting for, even against the most powerful military forces of our times.

Thank you.

*(Founded in 1993, the CPRDV is a grassroots organization dedicated to ending the US military presence on Vieques and promoting the sustainable development of the island. Donations for this struggle can be sent to the CPRDV, Box 1424, Vieques, PR 00765. For more info. bieke@coqui.net

Florencia, 10,11, 12 de mayo de 2002

El RICKY MARTIN ITALIAN CLUB ha sido admitido a participar en la 28° Edición

de esta exposición nacional de los Fans Clubes, dónde representaremos

nuestro Ricky con un stand preparado.

Tenemos el honor de recibir la delegación de Vieques a Florencia che ha

aprobado de participar en las dos conferencias organizadas por el RIC para

divulgar y denunciar a nuestros medios de comunicación la situación de

Vieques.

En el curso de la manifestación también será entregada la donación del RICKY

ITALIAN CLUB por Vieques.

Sois todos invitados a participar: la entrada es totalmente gratuita. Os

alegamos el programa en los detalles y...

¡ESPERÉMOSVOS TODOS A. ¡FLORENCIA!!

RIC STAF

* * * * * * * RICKY MARTIN ITALIAN CLUB http://www.rickymartin.it

www.cyberpub.it/ricky.html

màs informes: www.musicalnews.com; www.fanzine.net

* * * el RIC os espera al XVIII ULULATI DALL'UNDERGROUND FANZINE & FAN CLUB

MEETING OF ITALY 10,11,12 de mayo - Florencia; horas 9-19 entrada gratuita;

Saschall, cercana sede R

Italy

in collaboration with the Municipality of Florence

Departement of education and Juvenile Politics

Informagiovani Firenze

Florence, 10,11, May 12 th 2002

--------------------------------------ENGLISH

The RIC has been acknowledged to participate in the 28° Edition of this

national exposure of the Fans Club, where we will represent our Ricky by a

prepared stand.

We have the honor to receive the delegation of Vieques at Florence that has

accepted to partecipate in the two press conferences that we have organized

for divulging and to report to our media the situation of Vieques.

During the demonstration a benefic donation for Vieques will be done by the

RICKY ITALIAN CLUB.

You are all guests to participate: the entry is totally free. We attach you

the program in the details and...

WE'LL WAIT FOR YOU ALL AT. FLORENCE!!

RIC STAFF

* * * * * * * RICKY Martin Italian CLUB http://www.rickymartin.it

www.cyberpub.it/ricky.html

further informations: www.musicalnews.com; www.fanzine.n

the RIC waits for you al XVIII Ululati dall' underground Fan CLUB & FANZINE

MEETING LY 10,11,12 May - Florence; times 9-19 free entry; Saschall