NEW YORK -- The General Board of Global Ministries is calling on the United States Navy to immediately end all military activities on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques.

At a meeting the week of Oct. 18, GBGM's board of directors resolved that GBGM would work "in favor of justice for the people of Vieques" and engage in an advocacy campaign by working directly with the Methodist Church of Puerto Rico.

In addition to calling for an end to U.S. military activities on the island, the board called for the decontamination of land and surrounding areas in Vieques and the return of all land expropriated by the U.S. government on the island.

Vieques has been used as a bombing range by the U.S. Navy since 1941, and has long been a source of friction between the United States and Puerto Rico. The death last April of a civilian security guard, David Sanes Rodriguez, by a U.S. bomb has sparked new outrage in Puerto Rico on the issue, something noted in the GBGM resolution. Sanes' death, the resolution said, "is a loud and clear reminder of the danger posed by the U.S. Navy and its allies' target practices in Vieques."

In its resolution, the board also cited the continued military exercises as endangering Vieques residents "by exposing them to accidents with live ammunition" and creating other health hazards "due to the noise and chemical contamination." It was also noted that residents of Vieques have had a high rate of cancer and has been linked by environmental groups to toxic materials related to the military presence and practices such as depleted uranium shells.

It has been clear for some time that the Methodist Church of Puerto Rico would be joining with other churches in civil disobedience to protest the continued U.S. bombing and shelling of Vieques when the United States resumes its shelling in December.

"The position of the people of Puerto Rico is that Vieques has endured for too long a situation of abuse and colonialism and that the island should no longer be used for live bombing and shelling," said Franklin Guerrero of GBGM, reacting to an Oct. 18 recommendation by a U.S. presidential panel.

That committee recommended that the U.S. Navy gradually withdraw from Vieques over the course of five years but that it still be allowed to continue its bombing exercises for the time being. President Clinton will ultimately have to decide the issue, and he reportedly has expressed sympathy for the efforts to get the Navy off the island. The Navy controls some two-thirds of the available land on Vieques.

The recommendation by the presidential panel was immediately criticized by a number of Puerto Rican officials and civic leaders representing a wide political spectrum. Ruben Berrios, who heads the Puerto Rican Independence Party, called the recommendation "totally unacceptable." He likened it to a domestic violence offender being told he "can continue abusing his wife for five more years,'' Berrios said, as quoted by Reuters. Also condemning the recommendation was the administration of Gov. Pedro Rossello.

Guerrero said the people of Puerto Rico have for too long endured "a situation of abuse and colonialism, and no longer should the island be used for live bombing and shelling."

"The report from the Presidential Task Force has valid points when it affirms that the Navy has to leave Vieques and that the Navy did not fostered good relationships with the Vieques citizens," Guerrero said. "However, it did not provide a closure to the situation when it extended the Navy stay in the island for five years."

Like Berrios, Guerrero called the recommendation "unacceptable" and said it could be "misconstrued as permitting the Navy to gain control of the momentum (over the issue)."

The issue of Vieques has united political factions within Puerto Rico that have often been at odds over the issue of Puerto Rico's political status, which has been in limbo for years. Puerto Rico is a U.S. commonwealth, but its citizens don't pay U.S. federal taxes and cannot cast ballots in the U.S. presidential elections.

Sanes' death has set off a formal campaign of protest by the Puerto Rican Independence Party on the naval grounds in Vieques. But that campaign, Inter Press Service reported, has reached down to all sectors of society. "The American military bombs us as if we were enemies of the United States," said Ismael Guadalupe, schoolteacher and spokesman of the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques told IPS. "That nation, that claims to be a defender of justice, human rights and democracy, tramples on those three values every day in Vieques."

The Puerto Rican government is likely to use all legal recourse to stop the bombing, and pressure will continue to mount from grassroots organizing that will include involvement of the church community, Guerrero said.

The Methodist Church of Puerto Rico is cooperating with Lutherans, Episcopalians, Baptists, Disciples, Presbyterians and members of the United Church of Christ in calling for peaceful civil disobedience. The Methodist Church has two churches on Vieques, and they are "not in support of the environmental and emotional damage caused by the bombing and shelling," Guerrero said.

United Methodists have taken a formal stand against U.S. military activities on Vieques before. The 1996 Book of Resolutions called for an end to military activities and said action was needed to repair the island's deteriorating environment.

The United Methodist Church is not the only U.S. church body that has condemned the U.S. presence in Vieques. In a statement issued last April following Sanes' death, the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. said: "We emphatically support the demands of the people of Vieques to withdraw the naval base from the island and return tranquility and the right to live in security and peace to the civilian population." "We join the governor of Puerto Rico, the Honorable Pedro Rosello Gonzalez, in his demand to President Clinton to cease military activities in Vieques."

The Rev. Oscar Bolioli of the United Methodist Church and Director of the NCC's Latin America and the Caribbean Office, said: "The U.S. Navy took over more than two-thirds of the island and conducts war games with live ammunition that take place contiguous to areas where people live."

The NCC noted that decades of military exercises have left thousands of craters and cracked houses on the island and have disrupted the local fishing industry -- in addition to the higher rates of cancer than the rest of Puerto Rico. It also noted that the anti-bombing campaign began with members of the island's fishing community and other residents of the island.

See also:

The Full Text of the GBGM Board of Directors Resolution:


Justice and Safety for the People of Vieques

A Puerto Rican Island's Fight for Freedom from Occupation
by Paul Jeffrey, New World Outlook, September/October Issue, 1999

October 25, 1999