FOR- Programs - Puerto Rico

The Defense Authorization bill approved by Congress in December did away with the binding referendum in which Viequenses would have decided in January whether the Navy would leave in 2003. Instead, Secretary of the Navy Gordon England must certify, after considering recommendations from the uniformed chiefs of the Navy and Marine Corps, that a comparable alternative site or sites is available. The land in Vieques would transfer to the Fish & Wildlife Service in the Department of the Interior. In short, the legislation leaves the decision to leave Vieques to the political winds.

Congressional action was followed, however, with the cancellation of training in Vieques by the USS John F. Kennedy battle group, which had been announced for late January. The exercises will take place instead in North Carolina and Florida, using live explosives. As the normally pro-Navy Hartford Courant noted, "The Navy has shattered its seemingly irrefutable argument that no other acceptable location could be found." Military commanders had asked England in December to use live fire during the exercises, which the Navy says have not been used in Vieques since 1999. The USS George Washington is scheduled to resume bombing in Vieques in March or early April.

On January 10, the day after the Kennedy’s cancellation, Puerto Rico Governor Sila Calderon asked President Bush when the Navy would leave Vieques, and according to Calderón, Bush "looked me in the eyes and said his commitment to end military training by May 2003 remains firm." Extracting the promise — which has no force of law — represented a political victory for Calderón, who has faced criticism for using Puerto Rican police to prosecute protesters in Vieques and for her overall management of the Commonwealth.

Prison Ins and Outs

On January 15, federal judge José Antonio Fusté sentence Carlos "Taso" Zenon and his son Yabureibo Zenon to six months in prison for entering Navy-controlled waters in Vieques with their boat, when naval bombing was occurring on October 4, 2001. The Zenon family has been at the core of resistance to the Navy in Vieques since Taso Zenon led fishermen in preventing naval exercises in 1979, when he was also sentence to prison. Many observers were scandalized by the six-month sentences for simple trespass convictions, which were imposed less than a week after two other Zenon sons, Pedro and Cacimar, were released after serving 12 days for similar actions.

Vieques mayor Dámaso Serrano was released from federal prison in December after serving his four-month sentence. And on February 12, "Tito Kayak", who flew a banner reading "Bieke o Muerte" from the Statue of Liberty in 2000, was finally transferred to Puerto Rico from New York, where he has been serving a one-year sentence. (In the last Puerto Rico Update, we asked readers to write the warden in New York for Tito’s transfer, to be closer to his family. The letters and calls worked!)

A federal judge in Washington recently threw out the Puerto Rican government’s lawsuit against the Navy, which was based on an anti-noise ordinance passed in April. However, the legal team of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Puerto Rico Legal Defense Fund still have lawsuits pending on environmental and civil rights grounds. In addition, there are also more than 2,000 tort claims by viequenses which are pending.

The Puerto Rico Planning Board issued a ruling on December 13 that Navy bombing (with inert or live ordnance) would violate the Puerto Rico Coastal Management Program. The ruling is likely to overruled by a waiver, but the 175 letters of comment submitted by federal and Puerto Rican agencies and non-governmental groups show significant opposition.

While the Planning Board took a stand against bombing that would cause further environmental destruction, the Navy began cleanup of the transferred western end of Vieques in early February. The 8,000 acres now owned mostly by the town of Vieques and the U.S. Interior Department have at least 17 contaminated sites, including an area once used for disposal of munitions. A Navy-citizen Technical Review Committee established in Vieques to review documents related to the cleanup will meet on March 13.