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Abstract
In May 2003, the United States Navy departed from Vieques Island, Puerto Rico after 62 years of occupation. ... departure was neither voluntary nor desired; rather, the 9400 occupants of Vieques managed to vehemently protest the military occupation until the United States eventually acceded to leave. For the small island of Vieques, the U.S. departure was a major victory; for the United States, it was a strategically important loss as well as a humiliation. How did such a small island manage to overpower the large and mighty U.S. Navy? This paper will examine the history of Vieques and U.S. ...
Prologue: History of Vieques prior to 1999
Puerto Rico and its Relationship with the United States
Since 1898, Puerto Rico has been a self-governing territory of the United States. ... The United States has a wide scope of control, including: “interstate trade, foreign relations and commerce, customs administration, control of air, land and sea, immigration and emigration, nationality and citizenship, currency, maritime laws, military service, military bases, army, navy and air force, declaration of war, constitutionality of laws, jurisdictions and legal procedures, treaties, agriculture, highways, postal system, social security, and other areas generally controlled by the federal government in the United States. ... Puerto Ricans have the same privileges and obligations as United States citizens, such as paying social security and serving in the armed forces, but they have their own system of taxation and do not participate in U.S. ... In 1998, on Puerto Rico’s 100th anniversary as a United States? ...
History of Vieques and U.S. Navy Relations
U.S. ... In 1938, the US Navy began using Vieques, an island and municipality off the east coast of Puerto Rico, as a military base. According to the Navy, Vieques was a strategically important location where the US Military could replicate live combat. In 1941, the US Navy fully expropriated 26,000 of Vieques? ... On the western end of the island the Navy erected the Naval Ammunition Facility to store thousands of tons of explosives, while on the eastern end of the island the Navy created the Atlantic Fleet Weapons Training Facility which includes the Eastern Maneuver Area and the Live Impact Area to be used for bombing practices. In 1941, the Navy forcibly seized the land from the Viequenses. Only after the takeover, between 1941 and 1947, did the US Congress (with the support of the colonial government in San Juan) issue legislation to legalize the Navy possession of the western and eastern ends of Vieques Island, leaving only a small zone in the center of the island for the civilian population.
Prior to the U.S. Navy’s expropriation of Vieques, the island was an agricultural land with about 15,000 inhabitants. Following the takeover, the Navy had the task of deciding where to relocate the population as well as how to ease the loss of Puerto Rico’s agricultural land. According to Acting Director of the Navy Department Irwin W. Silverman, in an August 8, 1947 Memorandum to Under Secretary Chapman, the proposal was to transport the population of Vieques to St. ... Large landowners on Vieques were paid a price fixed by the Navy to leave, and over 800 families with no legal title to the land were given $20 to $30 for their houses with only one or two days to abandon the area. In the end, the people of Vieques were relocated to St. Croix, the mainland of Puerto Rico, or the middle third of Vieques. About 8000 Native Puerto Ricans remained on the island of Vieques.
With the expropriation of the Viequenses agricultural lands, the then Mayor of Vieques, Doctor Leoncio T. ... In addition, the Navy claims to have made numerous investments on the island to encourage employment, such as supporting over 20 economic development programs; creating the Economic Development team to help the islanders improve manufacturing, job training, infrastructure, transportation, and tourism; and encouraging US Naval employees to frequent local bars. Despite the Navy’s economic assistance to the island, Vieques remained in rampant poverty: in 1948, the average annual income was only $52, and 70% of the homes lacked sanitary services. ... 3% of the population of Vieques lived below the poverty line, 14. ...
From 1948 and over the next fifty years, tensions remained between the Viequenses and the United States Navy. ... Hundreds of Viequenses attended the funeral, and the Vieques Municipal Assembly unanimously called for the Navy to return the 26,000 acres of expropriated land. ... In 1959, 19 Viequenses were injured (6 of them seriously) when military personnel tried to crash a private party at the Club Social Recreativo de Vieques. ...
In 1961, the US Department of Defense proposed to relocate the population of Vieques and turn the entire island over to the naval forces. ... Kennedy, the Governor stated that “the political, social, and human effects of the Department’s plans…will be so profoundly destructive that the project should be abandoned unless it is not merely desirable, but clearly, critically, and urgently necessary for the military defense of the Nation. ... Although he clearly noted his opposition to the total expropriation of Vieques, Mu? ... In the end, the Navy decided not to carry out its proposal.
Beginning in the late 1970s, protests against the Navy began to heavily reemerge on Vieques. In February 1978, Vieques fishermen protested the use of live ammunitions in their fishing waters by taking over the waters where the bombings were to occur. ... and the Acting Secretary of the Navy, James Goodrich, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the two countries. This MOU was designed to diffuse the growing anti-military movement on the island and covered four broad areas: Community Assistance, Land Use, Ordnance Delivery in the Inner Range on Vieques, and Environmental Matters. In the case of community assistance, the Navy committed itself to improve the welfare of the Viequenses, including helping to lower the unemployment rate. Concerning land use, the Navy promised to consult with the Commonwealth’s Department of Natural resources on the most beneficial and compatible uses of Navy land. ... Representatives from the Commonwealth Department of Natural Resources, the US Navy, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service formed a Management Advisory Committee to facilitate the resolution of environmental problems and concerns.
In the 1990s, the Navy began to intensify its operations on Vieques. In 1992 Navy jets dropped 40,000 pounds of live explosives on Vieques, including Napalm. ... In 1994 the Navy proposed the installation of a Relocatable Over-The-Horizon Radar (ROTHR) on Vieques, prompting 500 people to rally against this installation. This anti-military demonstration was the largest in Vieques in nearly twenty years. ... In February 1999, the Navy reported that 263 bullets containing depleted uranium were fired by accident on the eastern part of the island, and only 57 were recovered.
Why was it that, despite fifty years of discontent, the Viequenses never formed a cohesive organization strong enough to expel the Navy from their island? Mainly, the Vieques residents lacked a unifying symbol that could successfully bring 9400 people together. ... While most Vieques residents were upset by the US Military presence on the island, the Navy had not done anything so grave as to sufficiently anger the Viequenses and cause them to rise up. Mapepe’s murder, for example, was strongly protested by the Viequenses, but because it occurred by Navy members who were off duty the Viequenses could not create enough support to keep momentum for a long term protest campaign. ... While most reports of the Navy’s wrongful activities on the island were followed by discontent among the Vieques population, until April of 1999 no major action was taken. ... This incident resulted in the death of a Vieques civilian security guard, David Sanes Rodr? ... On April 20, the Governor of Puerto Rico wrote to the President and Secretary of Defense requesting the “immediate and permanent cessation of United States and allied activities that entail the use of weaponry anywhere in the vicinity of the Municipality of Vieques, Puerto Rico. ... The Secretary of the Navy immediately directed that no activities involving fire occur on Vieques pending a report by the Special Panel on Military Operation on Vieques. ... death was a symbol that galvanized immediate, strong, and unified support for the expulsion of the United States Navy from the island.
Until April 19, 1999, not many people outside Puerto Rico paid much attention to the Navy’s usage of Vieques for military training. However, when the bomb missed its target and killed David Sanes, the Viequenses were outraged and yet not surprised since Vieques residents had feared this type of accident would occur. For years the people of Vieques had desired that the US Navy cease military training on the island. ... death prompted the US Navy to temporarily cease training on Vieques and conduct an investigation into the accident, the military did not allow any civilians to participate in the investigation, sparking suspicions of a cover-up.
Puerto Ricans and the people of Vieques had long protested the Navy’s use of the island for war game simulations. ... Throughout the history of the naval use of Vieques, numerous people had been hurt or even killed by the Navy. Although these incidents angered the people of Vieques, it was not enough to sustain a rise to collective action. ... Sanes became a direct link between the bombing practices and the impact it has on the people of Vieques. ... death focused the movement on the singular issue of the bombing, and gave rise to the movement’s slogan: Ni una bomba m? ... They also cited that the US Navy only offered Vieques $3 million per year in aid and expenditures (while receiving over $80 million from renting Vieques to NATO allies), whereas the Navy offered nearly $5 billion to similarly constructed US bombing forts. ... Island residents worried about Vieques? ... /3 of the island, and 26% above the cancer rate on the main island—and blamed the Navy’s use of radioactive bombs for the 300% rise in breast, uterine, and cervical cancer on Vieques between 1979 and 1999. ... Concerning safety, not only did the residents worry about the physical impacts of bombings, but also the rise in drugs, street brawls, and prostitution since the entrance of the Navy. ...
Emergence of Concrete, Anti-Naval Actors
Committee to Rescue and Develop Vieques
The Committee to Rescue and Develop Vieques (CRDV) was created to lead the movement to remove the Navy from Vieques and restore the land to the people of the island. ... The goals of the Committee were to have the Navy leave Vieques, restore the land to its original state, and address the economic and environmental concerns of the Viequenses. ... memorial service, the Committee to Rescue and Develop Vieques erected a white cross on the target site to symbolize their discontent. The cross started as a means of memorializing the loss of David Sanes; however, soon the Viequenses started putting up white crosses to mark the death of every person at the hands of the Navy from cancer, economic destitution, or pub fights and brawls. ... De Jesus declared that he was personally going to block the Navy from resuming its practices. ... The protesters literally were a human shield blocking the Navy from resuming their bomb testing.
Women’s Alliance of Vieques
The Women’s Alliance of Vieques ?Alianza de las Mujeres de Vieques ?emerged in the anti-Navy movement about a month after the death of Sanes. Dora Vargas and Amelia Mulero founded the Women’s Alliance as a means for the women of Vieques to articulate their concerns.
Approximate Word count = 9650
Approximate Pages = 38.6
(250 words per page double spaced)
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