A crowd of demonstrators numbering perhaps over 100,000 gathered near the penitentiary in San Juan, Puerto Rico, at 10 am on February 21 and marched down Las Americas Expressway to insist that the U.S. Navy's target practice on Vieques island cease forever. Called for by a coalition of Catholic and Protestant church leaders, the demonstration was the largest ever of its kind in Puerto Rico, according to Mr. Acevedo-Delgado. As the head of the procession reached its destination, those at the tail end had yet to leave the starting point.

Franklin Guerrero, Executive Secretary for Latin America and the Caribbean, participated in the demonstration. He said there was a wonderful feeling. The people walked in silence holding white flags. Considering the large number of demonstrators and the strength of their convictions, the march was surprisingly peaceful. Mr. Guerrero said that the religious sector has not called for a march of this scale since 1972.

Among the demonstrators were Bishop Juan Vera of the Methodist Church of Puerto Rico; a Lutheran and an Episcopal bishop; Roman Catholic leaders headed by the archbishop of San Juan; some Hindus; the founder of the Progressive party, which has leanings toward statehood; men from all walks of life; women who had left their work in order to protect their children's future; many youth; and even children, "who knew what they were doing there," according to Mr. Guerrero.

The message sent by the demonstrators was, "Ni un tiro mas, ni una bomba mas" (not one more bullet, not one more bomb). It was a resounding rejection of an agreement reached by Puerto Rican governor Pedro Rossello with President Clinton and the U.S. Navy. The governor's agreement with President Clinton was a reversal of his previous position staunchly defending the people of Vieques.

Back in December of 1999, President Clinton tried to find a middle ground between insistence by the U.S. State Department that Navy and Marine target practice on Vieques was essential to U.S. military preparedness and the insistence of those who live on Vieques that they will no longer tolerate having their air, land, and water polluted by further detonations.

The President's compromise plan proposed a phase-out of training on Vieques within five years while the Navy seeks an alternative target site, a transfer of the land to Puerto Rico on a timetable to be determined by the Navy, and a use of "inert ordnance only no live fire " during the transition period. Target exercises were to resume in the spring. An economic incentive of $40 million was tied to the plan.

The President's plan was quickly rejected by Governor Rossello, a Clinton ally who supports statehood for Puerto Rico. Rossello told a news conference that any arrangement involving resumption of target practice on Vieques was unacceptable. Mr. Acevedo-Delgado explained that the use of "inert ordinance" is really no solution, because cement-filled shells are more difficult to aim and could detonate some of the live shells still lying on the target range, as well as stir up toxic products of previous explosions. According to Governor Rossello, the concessions made by the President's December plan were too small and the plan was "unacceptable for the people of Puerto Rico and the people of Vieques."

Control of Vieques, a 21-mile-long island off the coast of Puerto Rico, was acquired by the United States at the close of the Spanish-American War in 1898. During World War II, the western end of the island was used as an ammunition dump. The eastern end, containing most of the farmland that supported a lucrative sugar industry, was seized by the Navy in 1941 for use as a target during military maneuvers. One-third of the 9,000 inhabitants were forced to give up their land for an arbitrary compensation and were moved to St. Croix. The rest were settled in a central strip of land where the towns of Isabel Segunda and Esperanza are. The residents currently number about 10,000. There is a high rate of unemployment, and the island's promising tourist industry is hampered by the presence of the Navy, which bombs and shells scrap metal targets on the eastern end of the island as part of its training exercises.

Until last April, there were no direct casualties of the Navy exercises. Effects were more insidious and came from poisons in the environment. Three sources of contamination were chemicals in the explosive charges, particles of dust thrown into the atmosphere, and metallic residues left by the exploded projectiles. The end results have been a concentration of airborne particles that exceeds the federal standards for clean air; drinking water contaminated with TNT, oxides of nitrogen, and other poisons; and a landscape pockmarked with craters and littered with still-unexploded bombs.

In addition, the Navy admitted to having used napalm in 1993 and to having fired 263 rounds of shells loaded with depleted uranium in May of 1999. Radioactive debris and dust find their way into the air, water, soil, and food chain. Observers who noticed three sunken barges containing barrels that are leaking some unidentified substance even suspected that the Navy was dumping toxic waste off Vieques.

The measurable results of this assault on the environment are an incidence of cancer roughly 26 percent higher in the population of Vieques than elsewhere in Puerto Rico; an increase of rare diseases such as scleroderma and lupus; an increase in childhood asthma; and a higher rate of severe birth defects. Another problem is that Navy propellers destroy the buoys that show where fishermen have placed their nets. The nets stay at the bottom continuing to trap fish which die, decay, and threaten the ecosystem. Environmentalists and church groups, including the Methodist Church in Puerto Rico, have been objecting to the Navy's target practice on Vieques for decades, but the Navy's promises to stop were never kept.

The chain of events that turned a chiefly local protest into an international cause célèbre began in April of 1999, when a resident of Vieques named David Sanes Rodriguez, who worked as a security guard at the naval facility, was killed by two stray 500-lb bombs dropped over the observation tower that controls the bombing. Four other people were injured.

In July of 1999, the people of Vieques delivered an ultimatum to the Navy that all war exercises must cease, all personnel depart, and all toxic materials be cleaned up by the U.S. government. One of those signing the ultimatum was the Reverend Lucy I. Rosario Medina of the Methodist Church of Vieques. Other signers included representatives of the Episcopal Church of Puerto Rico, the Evangelical Church of Puerto Rico, cultural, labor, and political organizations, and the Alianza de Mujeres Viequenses (Alliance of Women of Vieques). The ultimatum was ignored until President Clinton produced his December 1999 compromise plan, which was rejected by Governor Rossello speaking for the people.

On January 31, 2000, the President tried again. He issued a directive that a referendum be held on or around May 1, 2001, offering the people of Vieques two alternatives: either (1) the Navy would cease training on Vieques by May 1, 2003, or (2) the Navy would continue live-fire training at the invitation of the Puerto Rican people! And what would motivate such an invitation? The President promised that the Office of Management and Budget would request of Congress $50 million in aid to enhance the infrastructure and housing on the western part of Vieques, the Navy would give up property to extend the runway at the Vieques Municipal Airport, and the land around the ammunition facility would be transferred to Puerto Rico by the end of 2000. If, on the other hand, voters in the referendum chose option one, the Navy would sweep the eastern end of the island for ordnance and transfer the land to the General Services Administration, from which the government of Puerto Rico could request a transfer. Until the time of the referendum, Navy training would resume for 90 days a year.

Apparently pressure was brought to bear on the governor, because he changed his position that all target practice must stop and accepted the idea of presenting the people with a choice between the two proposed alternatives in 2001. What made the governor change his stance on Vieques can only be guessed, but there are several examples of how the U.S. attempted to influence Puerto Ricans by applying pressure. One is that a White House staff member telephoned the Roman Catholic archbishop of San Juan, urging him not to lead his church in the peace march. The archbishop disregarded the warning. Subtle forms of threat such as to discontinue U.S. aid, to cut off food stamps, and to withdraw from other U.S. military installations in Puerto Rico also failed to intimidate the protesters. They felt it necessary to take their demands for an end of the target practice to a wider audience when the governor withdrew his support.

The governor tried to halt the demonstration by calling on Puerto Rican Christians to practice "religious disobedience" by refusing to march. He pointed out that church leaders are not elected officials and, since they were exceeding their authority when they intervened in political events, none of the faithful need obey them. The protesters were unimpressed by his reasoning.

Puerto Ricans are divided on the direction in which their land should go. Some are eager for Puerto Rico to become the 51st U.S. state. Others would like Puerto Rico to become independent of the U.S., and still others would like it to remain a self-governed commonwealth of the United States because they feel that they have the best of both worlds. Although Puerto Ricans have only a presence in Congress and no vote, they are born U.S. citizens and do not have to pay federal income tax. Mr. Acevedo-Delgado said that a good way to throw a smoke screen over the issue of Vieques is to stir up controversy over the statehood issue. Not even this succeeded for the governor. Puerto Ricans of all ideologies came together in the march.

On the issue of Vieques, Puerto Rican Catholics and Protestants have found a common cause. Both the Catholics and the Protestants have set up civil disobedience camps in the restricted zone on Vieques to prevent resumption of shelling by forming a human shield at the target area. Ten encampments have been established. The Protestant one is an ecumenical encampment run by the Evangelical Council of Puerto Rico and staffed by denominational and church representatives. Catholics and Protestants at the camps have worshiped together in a makeshift chapel and shared a common prayer for peace. Possibly because a large number and variety of people have risked arrest by camping out on the bombing range, no arrests have been made so far.

The protesters at the march and in the camps would like the referendum to take place before another shot is fired, and they want it to have the force of law. The Navy has broken promises in the past, and the promises of a U.S. President are not binding on his successor once he leaves office. They wonder why a referendum is even necessary, since the people have now declared their will and solidarity in the peace march. They say that, at the very least, the referendum should have a third option no more bombing. According to Mr. Acevedo-Delgado, organizers of the march hoped that a large number of people would show up in order to prove to the governor and the media that support for the Navy's evacuation was widespread. They calculated that at least 20,000 demonstrators would be needed to make the point; instead there were at least five times that many.

According to Bishop Juan Vera, the Methodist Church of Puerto Rico, which has two congregations in Vieques, was the first one in the country to demand that the Navy leave Vieques. It first spoke out in support of the people of Vieques in 1968. The United Methodist Church has also long expressed its solidarity. In 1980 and in 1996, the General Conference passed resolutions in support of the people of Vieques. Last October the General Board of Global Ministries (GBGM) passed a resolution calling on the Navy to end all military activities on Vieques and urging the Board to be an active participant in the struggle to stop military exercises, demand cleanup of the land, and return the land that was expropriated.

In December of 1999, a GBGM delegation led by director Joan Chapin of the Detroit Conference visited Vieques to show solidarity with the Methodist Church of Puerto Rico in its struggles to get the Navy out of Vieques. The protesters spent three days at the camps in the restricted area, and the GBGM planned to send more protesters. Hopes are that the numbers of protesters at the camps will continue to be refreshed by new volunteers and that the response of The United Methodist Church will continue to go beyond resolutions to actual presence.

"The only way to end oppression," said Mr. Acevedo-Delgado, "is to resist evil." The courageous people who joined the march and who live in the camps are doing just that.

February 22, 2000