Puerto Rican Protesters Plan for Crisis on Range

Reacting to reports that Marines are setting sail to arrest them, Puerto Rican protesters braced Tuesday for a possible showdown on the dusty, cratered expanse of the U.S. Navy’s Vieques bombing range.

After a year of holding the Navy at bay, demonstrators camped out on the range said the threat of arrests won’t stop their campaign to shut down the Navy’s prime Atlantic training ground.

“I know all the risks and I am ready to be arrested,” said 65-year-old Felicita Garcia, who camped with about 30 other people outside the front gates of the training ground.

Dozens of people joined the protesters at camps set up after an April 1999 accident on the range, which is littered with unexploded bombs and shells. A 500-pound bomb launched off-target killed a civilian security guard.

Gov. Pedro Rossello urged the protesters to leave Tuesday, even offering them public land outside the training ground for their camps.

“We are asking that the removal be voluntary and peaceful . . . so that there will be no kind of confrontation,” Rossello said.

But the demonstrators refused, saying they would replace any arrested protesters by cutting through fences or sending in reinforcements on horseback.

Pentagon sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Monday that a raid on the camps by U.S. Marshals and FBI agents could occur as early as next week.

As soon as the news was leaked, islanders began moving to the camps--where numbers vary from less than 10 on weekdays to dozens on weekends--said one organizer, Robert Rabin. More than 60 people were on the range by Tuesday morning.

There were unconfirmed reports that two ships in Norfolk, Va., were preparing to carry Marines to set up a security perimeter around the 21-mile-long island, just east of Puerto Rico.

Local police are to provide five patrol boats, helicopters and 100 to 200 officers in case of any raid, police Supt. Pedro Toledo said. He said the police would only provide transport and crowd control.