 Navy Out of Vieques:
Local Activists Continue Fight
By Robert Waddell, July 10, 2009
Before the Navy was forced off the island of Vieques, a tidal wave of activists supported the military’s removal. They performed acts of civil disobedience in the live bombing area, were arrested and imprisoned, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, Bobby Kennedy and Adolpho Carrion, Jr.
“Ni Una Bomba Mas” was the rallying cry of an international cadre of celebrities and citizens fighting an ecological and human injustice to the islands of Vieques and Puerto Rico. After the goal was achieved, however, the work still remains: To safely clean up the island and return the land back to the people of Vieques, which begs the crucial question --- Where have all the activists gone?
Rafael Cancel-Vazquez, Executive Director of Asociacion Nacional de Derecho Ambiental, an activist environmental group, said that the fight for Vieques was to be done in 3 stages. The first was to remove the Navy from the island. The second and third stages come with the environmental clean up and a return of lands to the people of Puerto Rico.
 The first was a very big stage, removing the Navy, was completed, he said but the rest has been left to chance. The military has done very little to safely clean-up the island.
“The struggle does continue,” Robert Rabin, a board member of the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques said, “We had an amazing victory in 2003, we stopped the most powerful military on the face of the Earth without one shot being fired.”
Rabin, who has lived on Vieques for 30 years, said that the plan for Vieques involved the four Ds – Demilitarization, Decontamination, Devolution, a return of lands to the people of Vieques and Development.
He also believes that the Vieques land that was once used by the Navy for testing live ammunition should be returned to the people of the island and not to large corporations or devlopers. Rabin believes in community involvement and the people of Vieques must have a say in what will happen to their island, he said.
 “The decontamination has begun,” Rabin said, “We have a problem with the detonation of live ordinances. And the fish and wildlife belong to all the people of Vieques.”
Rabin said that first it was the demands of the people of Vieques that created an international stir to get the Navy out. Now, he said, it’s the responsibility of all Vieques and Puerto Rican citizens to come forward and demand that the last 3 Ds are completed.
“We’re at a turning point in the history of Vieques,” Rabin said, “The people of Vieques were the principal activists….This is not 1999. Individuals and small groups of people still resist. We are a million times grateful for all those who came here.”
Rabin said that it was the local activists who planted the seeds that grew into an international movement.
 “We mobilized and were active then garnered support….It’s the responsibility of all the people of Puerto Rico. We know we’re not the only place in the world but we have to get organized, energized and mobilized.”
Panama Alba, former Young Lords Party member and current labor organizer, who actively worked to help remove the Navy from Vieques called the island “an abandoned municipality. There’s no government plan for revitalizing the economy.”
Alba, speaking from vacation in Rio Piedras, said committed activists like Rabin, Ishmael Guadalupe, Nestor de Jesus and others are still very active locally to secure the safety of Vieques.
“Has the military really left?,” said Alba, “They’re still there detonating bombs (as part of their clean up effort). But still the land was never really returned to the people. The economy of Vieques has never been re-started. The real estate speculators are capitalizing on the needs of the people and a lot of people have been forced to sell their lands.
“It’s still very much an unresolved issue.”
This story was developed through the Education Beat Writing Fellowship at the New York Community Alliance. |
