Tensions Flare as Navy Ships Reach Puerto Rico

Two U.S. Navy warships arrived off the coast of this island Monday as protesters braced for the arrival of federal agents expected to oust them from a military bombing range.

The mood in the small, illegal camps was anxious--with green military helicopters passing overhead throughout the day. More than 50 protesters have occupied the area in a yearlong standoff aimed at ridding the island of the U.S. military altogether.

Ruben Berrios, who has camped on the bombing range for more than 11 months, is eager for the confrontation.

“If the Navy comes and routs us, they lose,” said Berrios, whose crusade forced him to resign his seat in the Puerto Rican Senate. “And if they never come, we’ve won, because the bombing has stopped.”

If arrests come this morning, as some have predicted, the protesters have promised to go peacefully. But any action against them could trigger massive civil disobedience on Puerto Rico, where surveys indicate most people want the Navy to pull out.

There could be political repercussions in the United States as well. Next month’s annual Puerto Rican Day parade in New York, for example, already has been dedicated to the issue.

Tensions in the protest camps increased last week with reports that two ships--the Nashville and the Bataan--had left Norfolk, Va., and picked up 1,000 Marines in North Carolina en route to Vieques.

The Marines reportedly would secure the perimeter of the bombing range once protesters are removed. The actual arrests would be carried out by federal agents in an FBI-led operation in conjunction with the Justice Department, according to Pentagon sources.

The Coast Guard reportedly would be used to block flotillas of boats from Puerto Rico, about seven miles to the northwest, should they turn out in support of the protesters as promised.

Bombing on the island was suspended after the death of a civilian security guard in April 1999, when two bombs accidentally were dropped near an observation post. That’s when the protesters moved in, seeking a commitment from the Pentagon to give up the eastern third of the island. The Navy controls about two-thirds of the 52-square-mile island.

The Navy says the site--its prime live-fire range for the Atlantic fleet--is vital to U.S. national security.

In January, the Clinton administration struck a deal with Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Rossello to resume exercises for three years with dummy bombs. The Navy also promised $40 million for economic development after giving up one-third of its holdings on the island.

But the protesters refused to leave the range, now dotted with several small camps run by church groups, longtime Vieques residents who assert a claim to the land and other political activists. The demonstrators also have set up a blockade outside the main gate.

The island is littered with spent bombs, trucks and airplanes used for target practices as well as, say some protesters, widespread contamination that has caused high cancer rates on the island.

Some of Vieques’ 9,000 residents, especially those in the island’s budding tourism industry, wish the protesters would go home. James Weis, who runs a hilltop guesthouse, said that many tourists have canceled vacations scheduled this week in fear of a violent clash between the government and protesters.

Janice Gutierrez Lacourt, director of the ACLU chapter in Puerto Rico, said the civil rights group would be closely monitoring the planned removal for any signs that demonstrators’ rights were being violated.

Since Berrios, 60, pitched a tent on the beach here last May 8, the Vieques issue has gained popular support among Puerto Rico’s 3.9 million residents. The military is a major employer on the island, and in the most recent plebiscite, voters split evenly between continued commonwealth status and becoming the 51st U.S. state.

Berrios, a Yale-educated lawyer who held the Puerto Rican Independence Party’s only Senate seat for 15 years, has been camping out here in an idyllic cove on a white sand beach with the blue-green waters of the Caribbean lapping at the shore.

Berrios has spent his time rereading “Don Quixote” and has been visited by civil rights leader Jesse Jackson.

But the protest has also taken a toll. His wife, Vivian, visits him on occasion. He’s had health problems. And he admits that he has been here months longer than he could have imagined.

“I am paying the price, but we are enjoying the triumph of nonbombing,” Berrios said.

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Positioning for a Showdown

Protesters living in primitive campsites at the U.S. Navy’s Vieques bombing range in Puerto Rico are preparing for a possible showdown with federal authorities.

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Source: Compiled from AP wire reports