Vieques Island, Puerto Rico - Methodist women from throughout Puerto Rico traveled here on February 12 to lend their support to a struggle to drive the U.S. Navy off this small Caribbean island.
"If Jesus were here, he would be standing with the people of Vieques.
Since we are the hands and feet of Jesus in the world, we have to stand
with the people of Vieques if we're going to be obedient to the Gospel,"
declared Milagro Martinez, president of the Methodist Women of Puerto
Rico.
Martinez, a social worker from Arecibo, was one of 75 Methodist women who traveled to Vieques from the "Big Island" of Puerto Rico.
Since 1941, the Navy has used Vieques for bombing practice and munitions storage. After the accidental death of a civilian guard on the bombing range last April, a wide-based opposition movement has emerged. More than a dozen protest camps—including two church-sponsored camps—have been set up in a restricted zone, effectively preventing the Navy from resuming its activities.
In the sanctuary of the Methodist Church in Isabel II, one of two towns on Vieques, the women listened to a panel of Vieques women describe their decades-long struggle against Navy control of two-thirds of this 21-mile long island.
Judith Conde, a leader of the Vieques Women's Alliance, told visitors how island women had struggled to overcome fear, "finally gaining the strength to put aside our brooms and mops and struggle to achieve our right to live without bombs, to live in peace."
The visiting women also traveled to the main gate of the Navy's Camp
Garcia, where they talked with protestors camped there.
The Methodist women tied white ribbons on the gate, symbolizing their support for the islanders' struggle for peace.
The visiting women "wanted to know what was going on here, and they wanted to say to the courageous women of Vieques that they are on their side, that they are committed to supporting causes that are just and right," said Lucy Rosario, the pastor of the Methodist congregation in Isabel II.
The women were accompanied to Vieques by Juan Vera, bishop of the Methodist Church of Puerto Rico. He pointed out how the Methodist Church has accompanied the people of Vieques for almost 100 years, providing pastoral care, education, and health services.
"We were also the first church in the country to pass a resolution, in
1970, demanding that the Navy leave Vieques," Vera declared. "We're a
church with a social creed and social principals that are very clear.
The Navy's presence here is a clear violation of the environment, of the
health of the people, of the right to life and economic development that
the people of Vieques possess."
Vera reaffirmed the church's commitment to civil disobedience, saying the Methodist presence in the protest camps would continue until the Navy decides to leave Vieques.
"We believe firmly in civil disobedience when other forms of protest have been exhausted," Vera said. "It's a last resort, a dramatic step to make our voice felt. Our civil disobedience is peaceful and nonviolent, as Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., practiced it."
Vera is one of several Puerto Rican church leaders who support civil disobedience to rid Vieques of the Navy. He dismissed comments on February 9 by Puerto Rico's governor, Pedro Rossello, who called on Puerto Ricans to practice "religious disobedience" and ignore the call of their church leaders to oppose the Navy.
"The comments of the governor were unfortunate and lamentable. I think he was poorly advised," Vera said. "None of us church leaders and bishops has obligated anyone to commit civil disobedience. We're not forcing anyone to do anything. It's a voluntary act. It's the people and the pastors who want to do it."
Vera said the struggle to liberate Vieques from the Navy offers "a new way for Puerto Ricans to look at our country. We're a people of peace, but for a long time our land, air, and water have been used to practice for war. Here they've practiced wars that are later carried out in the Persian Gulf or Central America. Yet this piece of land where we live is beautiful, and we want to reclaim it, make it a peaceful place and not a place to practice war."