BY ROBERTO BARRETO
PUERTO RICO — The people of Vieques have won an important victory over the US Navy. After six decades of struggle — including mass mobilisations and mass civil disobedience actions over the past four years — the navy was forced to abandon Vieques.
On May 1, Camp Garcia — which the navy used as a practice range for decades, using all kinds of weapons, including explosive bombs, napalm and depleted-uranium munitions — finally closed down for good.
The navy fought long and hard to stay in Vieques. In April 1999, a stray practice bomb killed a civilian security guard at the base, sparking outrage from thousands of people who poured onto the grounds, blocking the use of the range and demanding an immediate and permanent end to military exercises.
Under the slogan "Not one more bomb", 12 civil disobedience camps were set up inside Camp Garcia, immobilising the base. But in May 2000, the US Navy organised a huge multi-agency operation to arrest the protesters and take control of the shooting range.
Protesters continued to enter the camp over the next three years. More than 1700 persons were arrested; some were sentenced to up to six months in prison.
In the end, the popular resistance was too much for Washington. "Physical security at Vieques is becoming ever more difficult and costly to maintain given the civil unrest which accompanies the Navy's presence on the island", wrote Admiral Vern Clark, chief of naval operations, in a memo about the closing of the base.
On May 1, the people of Vieques celebrated by removing hundreds of metres of the military fence around Camp Garcia. Their demand now is for the US Navy to take responsibility for decontaminating the land.
Residents of Vieques suffer from numerous illnesses and health conditions as a consequence of the base — including the highest cancer rate in Puerto Rico. So far, the navy has offered only US$2 million to clean up the area. Estimates of the cost of removal of the contaminants range up to hundreds of millions of dollars.
That is why the struggle for Vieques is not over. The people of Puerto Rico won't even get to control the land of the former base. The US Navy is transferring control to the US interior department and the Federal Fish and Wildlife Service.
Another unexpected consequence of the Vieques struggle has been the closing of most of the Roosevelt Roads Base in Ceiba, Puerto Rico, and the shutdown of installations for US Southern Command. Around 2500 troops stationed in Roosevelt Roads have received their transfer orders. The Pentagon understands that without the shooting range in Vieques, the Roosevelt Roads base loses its usefulness.
Roosevelt Roads is the US Navy's second-largest base and was used to launch the 1983 invasion of Grenada. Its partial dismantling will lessen the US government's ability to use Puerto Rico as a springboard for military interventions.
The lessons of the struggle in Vieques are very important for anti-war activists. It shows that ordinary people can organise to stop the war plans of the most powerful empire in the world.
[From Socialist Worker, newspaper of the US International Socialist Organisation.]
From Green Left Weekly, May 28, 2003.
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