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The U.S. Military Occupation of Vieques, Puerto Rico

Originally named Bieque by the island's indigenous inhabitants, Vieques is located in the Caribbean to the east of the big island of Puerto Rico. It has a population of 9,400.

Since 1938, the U.S. navy has been acquiring land in Vieques by expropriation and currently controls 26,000 of the island's 33,000 acres. Located in the eastern and western sections of the island, the U.S. navy uses 75% percent of the island's soil for war maneuvers, and bomb storage. In 1941, during the height of World War Two, the U.S. navy initiated a campaign of forced expropriation of territory, which ultimately ended in its possession of over two-thirds of the island's most arable land. In the process it displaced thousands of families and seriously jeopardized their basic means of subsistence. The navy arbitrarily set the price for the expropriated land giving the island residents very little say, if any, in the matter. Resistance became an exercise in futility, as the navy issued the following ultimatum: Either accept the price set by the Americans 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.

The unemployment rate in Vieques is almost 50 per cent. General Electric, is one of the few large companies on the island, closed its plant there in the summer of 2000, putting even more pressure on the local economy. Fishing remains the island's sole industry of any economic significance. Agriculture, which was once an important economic activity, has been virtually destroyed by the U.S. navy's expropriation of the island's most fertile lands.

However, now even the fishery is threatened. Carlos Zenon, the former President of the Fishermen's Association, said that when the U.S. navy ships enter the 100-foot deep waters where the fishers have their traps, "the ships' propellers destroy the buoys that indicate where the traps are." When that happens it is hard for the fishers to find the nets. As a result, the nets stay at the bottom of the sea for 8 to 12 months, catching many fish that ultimately die in the traps. In 1977, for example, 131 nets were lost in this manner. The U.S. Department of Agriculture conducted a study which found that a single lost net collects from 4,500 to 5,000 pounds of fish in 10 months, posing a severe environmental threat to the fragile marine ecosystem in that region.

Ecological Damage

The U.S. navy conducts practice bombings and shellings in Vieques, the immediate effect of which has been the destruction of delicate ecosystems in the island, which support hundreds of species of plants and animals that are killed instantly upon the direct impact of the projectiles. Furthermore, the bombings and military maneuvres have led to serious contamination of the environment because of toxic residues they leave behind. In an article published in 1988, engineer and environmental consultant Rafael Cruz-Perez identified three things from the military's missiles that pollute 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, as well as the junk and scrap heap they use for target practice. In his article Cruz-Perez wrote: "According to information provided by the navy, this material is never removed. Under the effects of additional explosions and sea breezes, metals are oxidized or decomposed, turning in accelerated fashion into leachates that pollute the environment". He also referred to a scientific study by the U.S. navy, which found that the sources of drinking water in Vieques' Isabel Segunda village and Barrio Esperanza are polluted with toxic chemicals, including TNT, tetryl and RDX. Cruz-Perez commented that "the study doesn't explain how these substances got into the water sources, located more than 14 kilometers away from the shooting area".

In the 1970s, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sampled the air and soil in Vieques. After studying the samples, the EPA determined that the air had unhealthy levels of particulate matter and the ground had above normal iron levels.

High Levels of Cancer & Health Problems

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 higher than the rest of Puerto Rico. Rafael Rivera-Castano, a retired professor from the University of Puerto Rico's Medical Sciences Campus, has documented an increase in extremely rare diseases, such as scleroderma, lupus, thyroid deficiencies, as well as not-so-rare ones like asthma, which is significantly affecting Vieques' children. "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.

The Struggle Against the U.S. Navy

The people of Vieques have continued in the fighting tradition of the Puerto Rican people against American colonization. Vieques' fishers, for example, have confronted the warships at sea several times. In February,1978, US.. admiral Robert Fanagan told the fishers that they would not be allowed to fish for a period of three weeks, because all the NATO countries had planned an intensive military maneuvre along the entire coastline. Carlos Zenon informed him that the fishers would protest. On February 6, 1978, the fishers of Vieques took a desperate gamble. Forty fishing boats "invaded" waters where target practice with live ammunition was about to begin. They were successful in delaying the maneuvers and also received huge support from the entire Puerto Rican nation.

Today, the struggle against the U.S. military presence in Vieques is intensifying. In 1999, a massive civil disobedience campaign was launched in Puerto Rico in response to the tragic death of David Sanes Rodriguez on April 19th, 1999, following a routine bombing practice. Protests have been held in different cities in the U.S and internationally. Activists in Vieques have also formed an ad hoc alliance with the activists fighting against the U.S. army bases in Okinawa, Japan.

In May, 2000, U.S. federal authorities began to arrest the people engaged in civil disobedience in Vieques. Among those arrested were community leaders and members of the community at-large, religious leaders, elected officials from Puerto Rico and the U.S., including two members of the U.S. Congress and members of the Puerto Rican Legislature, leaders of the Puerto Rican Independence Party, students, union members, and well-known artists.

According to the Vieques Times, the U.S. navy recently hired a Virginia advertising agency in a belated attempt to improve its image and convince residents of Vieques that it can be a good neighbour. The navy's objective is to persuade Vieques voters to allow it to stay on the island indefinitely and resume live bombing, if and when the question is addressed in a referendum.

In the meantime, the navy is transferring the western third of the island, a former ammunition dump, to Puerto Rico. Questions remain about whether the people of Vieques (from whom the land was expropriated) will actually be given it back, or whether it will end up in the hands of real estate developers, as was the case on the neighboring island of Culebra.

The U.S. navy has also promised to promote economic development on Vieques with $40 million having been allocated by Congress. However, Vieques activists remain skeptical, since all the money from a similar, earlier plan was squandered on "administrative" costs.