Puerto Rico Update Archives

Vieques: Washington's Pawn or Democratic Process?

by John Lindsay-Poland

When President Clinton issued a pair of directives on January 31 to "resolve" the conflict between the Navy and Puerto Rico over Vieques, he did so with the approval of pro-statehood Governor Pedro Rosselló. But the deal was cut with no consultation with Vieques nor with Puerto Rican society or political parties.

The deal includes $40 million for economic development in Vieques, contingent on a resumption of bombing on the island, and a referendum in Vieques with only two options: bombing with "inert" munitions until 2003, or unlimited bombing with live munitions indefinitely. The referendum is to be paid for out of the $40 million, and held on a date to be set by the Navy between August 2000 and February 2002. The deal also included a request to Congress to transfer 8,000 acres in western Vieques to the Government of Puerto Rico.

But an exhaustive survey of more than 2,200 Vieques residents (out of 9,300 total), conducted by the Catholic Diocese of Caguas, PR on June 10-11, found that 88.5 percent favor the immediate departure of the Navy from Vieques. Only 7 percent support an indefinite stay by the Navy, while 4.5 percent favor their Navy's departure in 2003.

Puerto Ricans have also been voting with their feet. When the Navy announced full-scale bombing exercises for June 24 to June 29, Puerto Ricans mobilized unprecedented civil disobedience actions to act as shields and prevent the bombing. After hundreds were arrested, including 162 Independence Party activists on June 27, the Navy was forced to cut short its exercises by two days. Only two of the five ships in the George Washington battle carrier group were "qualified," according to Pentagon spokesmen. "It is a victory of morality and intelligence," said organizers of the protests. "The frustration of the soldiers was evident in their faces, confronted with the patriotic pride of those arrested, who looked them in the eyes."

Back in Washington...
While the Navy faced off against organized nonviolence, Puerto Rican political leaders met with President Clinton in Washington on June 28. Clinton asked the leaders to talk about Puerto Rico's status, in an apparent bid to defuse his Vieques problem. Independence and Popular Party leaders Rubén Berríos and Sila Calderon were not having it, however. They insisted on talking about Vieques, instead. According to Calderon, Clinton said that three admirals had threatened to resign if he allows the Vieques range to close.

Meanwhile, Congress split Clinton's directives on Vieques into pieces in May and June, putting Clinton's package into jeopardy. The Clinton-Rosselló deal was dependent on congressional action to approve funding and a land transfer of western Vieques. With no coherent package, and with the people of Vieques and Puerto Rico overwhelmingly opposing the directives in word and deed, Clinton could have an opening change course. As a lame duck, he still can issue an executive order for an end to the bombing in Vieques before he leaves office next January. This is how Navy bombing ranges in Culebra, Puerto Rico and Kaho'olawe, Hawai'i, also the objects of civil disobedience campaigns, were closed on 1975 and 1991, respectively.

On May 18, the House of Representatives passed, by a vote of 218 to 201, an amendment that protects the agreement reached between Clinton and Rosselló. Republican hawks on the House Armed Services Committee had inserted language which would have demanded that Puerto Rico allow the US Navy to resume training using live ordnance before permitting the transfer of funds or land. Rep. Ike Skelton (D-MO), the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, introduced an amendment on the floor of the House to strike that language, leaving the agreement intact.

In the Senate it was another story. While the Senate agreed to the $40 million in funds, a provision signed into law by President Clinton on July 13, key Republicans excluded the transfer of lands in western Vieques from their version of the bill. The differences between the House and Senate versions must be worked out in a "conference" committee before October.

Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) staunchly opposed any transfer of lands in western Vieques without a resumption of bombing using live munitions. He claims that the lands are worth $300 million, although they are contaminated with munitions from an abandoned ammo dump and with other military toxics.

In September 1999, while protesters occupied the Vieques bombing range, it was Inhofe who introduced legislation to close the huge Roosevelt Roads Naval Station, which employs two thousand Puerto Rican citizens, if the bombing range in Vieques should be closed to live fire practice. That bill went nowhere, but in the Senate's final Defense Authorization bill, if Vieques votes to kick the Navy out, military construction at the Army's Fort Buchanan, in San Juan, would be suspended and troops reassigned to Roosevelt Roads. In other words, Inhofe would try to "punish" those Puerto Ricans who benefit from or favor other U.S. military activities on the island. For those who want all the military bases gone, the closure of the Vieques range could mean leverage for the departure of other military activities from Puerto Rico.

Latino members of Congress spoke against the requirement to use live munitions during the floor debate in May. Rep. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) argued, "Requiring the resumption of live bombing ignores the devastating impact of the Navy's activities on this group of Americans, and it is an indication of the second-class citizenship that some apparently assign to the residents of Vieques." Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-NY), who was arrested in Vieques during the May 4 removal of the camps, described the move by the Armed Services Committee to require live-fire bombing as "shameful, mean-spirited... a slap in the face of our own people."

Opposition to the Skelton amendment was led by Rep. Floyd Spence (R-SC), Chairman of the Armed Services Committee. He spoke out harshly, saying, "Vieques is a national asset. People do not realize we own that island. We bought it." Rep. James Hansen (R-UT) echoed the Navy's claim that it cannot find another place to conduct its training.

Rep. Skelton did not defend his amendment as a way to allow the people of Vieques to decide the fate of their island, but instead claimed it would ensure that the Navy has a place to train for the immediate future, even if troops are not allowed to use live ordnance.

A major issue of contention among Republican opponents to the Skelton amendment was that President Clinton's deal allows the people of Vieques to decide whether or not the Navy will continue training on the island after 2003. "Allowing local communities to vote on the future of military training at local bases would establish a precedent that could endanger access to other critical military installations both in the United States and overseas," the House Armed Services Committee wrote in its budget authorization bill. The prospect of such democracy is especially fearsome to the Pentagon in the wake of major protests against US bases in South Korea and Okinawa, Japan in June.

"There are a lot of politics of perception" in the Navy, according to one Navy officer who spoke with Puerto Rico Update. "They don't want the conflict to be perceived as David vs. Goliath."

Some Congressional Representatives support the Vieques majority. "We are against all bombing," wrote 46 Representatives to President Clinton on the eve of the May 4 removal of protesters from the civil disobedience camps in Vieques. The letter expressed the Members' "strong and united opposition to the forcible expulsion and arrest of these [peaceful protesters], who are exercising their right of political expression in a nonviolent way."

It is time for the Navy "to recognize that it has lost the battle in Vieques," said Rep. José Serrano (D-NY) after the protests in late June.

Sources: Latin America Working Group Legislative Update, 5/26/00; El Nuevo Dia 6/26; 7/1; 7/4/00; House of Representatives, Defense Authorization Act for FY2001, Title XV; Congressional letter to President Clinton, 5/2/00.

Back to the Top

Fellowship of Reconciliation
Puerto Rico Campaign
Produced by the Fellowship of Reconciliation Task Force on Latin America and the Caribbean
2017 Mission St. #305, San Francisco, CA 94110
Tel: (415) 495-6334, Fax: (415) 495-5628,E-mail: forlatam@igc.apc.org