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The Fight to Protect Vieques & Culebra

 



The Fight to Protect Vieques & Culebra

by Marisa de la Villa

Imagine young children playing outside at recess and adults forced to go about their daily routines as automatic weapons were heard going off in the nearest town plazas [1].



Vieques Island, Puerto Rico (Jun. 26, 2000) -- The guided missile cruiser USS Normandy (CG 60) fires her aft MK 45 5-inch/54 caliber lightweight gun mount during training held in the Puerto Rico operating area. U.S. Navy photo by Photographer's Mate 2nd Class Shane McCoy. 


This was just an average occurrence in Vieques, Puerto Rico. Not too many years ago, the rallying cry rang out: ¡Que se vaya la marina! The Puerto Rican people were clear in their message—“we want the U.S. Navy out!” Boricuas would chant this loudly, hoping the U.S. military would stop the bombing of Vieques and Culebra, two municipalities in the Puerto Rican archipelago. Many people are aware of the 1999 protests on Vieques island, where the accidental death of David Sanes Rodríguez provoked and rekindled public denunciation of Naval presence in Vieques. However, many years before that, in 1971, a series of demonstrations against U.S. military involvement in the coasts of Culebra were taking place [2].

Luis Rivera Pagán, along with twelve other Puerto Ricans, took part in a set of peaceful protests across the coast of Culebra, targeting the specific areas where Naval bombing was occurring. U.S. soldiers violently arrested the protesters, taking them to San Juan in helicopters, and sending them to trial, where they were sentenced to three months in federal prison. After his release, Rivera Pagán was investigated by the FBI, where all of his information, as well as the information of the twelve other protesters, was filed into what is known as a carpeta. Because of his involvement in these protests, the government continuously spied on him, taking note of wherever he went, all he did, his family records, political affiliation, and bank accounts, among many other personal things [3]. 

Long before its establishment as “the Commonwealth” in 1952, Puerto Rico had been set under a military regime, where the U.S. Navy established bases in San Juan and Culebra. After officially becoming a part of the U.S., the army returned, and re-established its military headquarters in Culebra. Over the span of WWII, the U.S. Navy was using the island as a key base of operations, mainly to have more cover and defense over the Caribbean, as a way to protect the Panama Canal, and as a training and bombing range [4]. In 1941, President Roosevelt had ordered the airspace existing above Culebra to be used exclusively by the U.S. military– this included a radius of water, specifically targeting 1,700 acres of the island, meaning the navy had full control over one-third of Culebra’s land, and all of its coastline. This land was used as a bombing range, with little to no care for the island’s civilian population. Culebra was constantly used for intensive practice by the military, mostly serving as the target for naval gunnery and missiles. Because of this constant firing on the island, and because of the shooting range’s close proximity to residential sectors, there were multiple misfires and stray shots that found themselves landing on residents’ private homes as well as in public beaches that were quite popular spots [5]. The U.S. kept control over it even after WWII, and throughout the Cold War, displacing the local population and paving the way for future health and environmental issues that still haunt Puerto Rico today. So, in 1971, thirteen brave Puerto Ricans took it upon themselves to protest against this blatant disregard for both the Puerto Rican citizens living on Culebra, and the island itself. The United States military  gave up its occupation of Culebra in 1975, but remained in Vieques [6].

Almost 30 years after these protests, in 1999, people began to make some noise on the coasts of Vieques island. Between 1941 to 1943, the U.S. military took control over 75% of the island. 21,000 acres of Vieques were used as storage bases for hundreds of explosives and military weapons, such as bazookas, tanks, and ships, and as a practice range, where jets, tanks, and helicopters were used to test out firing capabilities, weapons testing, and land maneuvers [7]. The island is only 33,000 acres of land. That means its residents were forced into the middle of the island, only being able to inhabit 12,000 acres of something that was originally free in its totality, surrounded by consistent bombings [8]. 

 

From 1983 to 1998, the U.S. navy dropped approximately 17,783 tons of bombs on Vieques [9]. This led to severe pollution of the environment, as well as health complications for the Viequense civilians.  A grand majority of the contamination in Vieques came from this constant military activity. The soil of these bombing zones was contaminated with heavy metals, cyanide, arsenic, depleted uranium and radioactive materials, among other toxic things, which all lead to health complications among the local population, such as cancer, heart disease, and breathing and nervous system disorders [10]. 

 

Eventually, on April 19, 1999, the accidental death of David Sanes Rodríguez was the last straw– the biggest protest the island had seen against the U.S. military was underway. A Navy jet had mistakenly dropped a 500 pound bomb on a military observation post, a mile away from the intended target range, killing the thirty-five-year-old Vieques resident and on-duty guard [11]. This tragedy inspired the protests that would rise all over the island of Puerto Rico. On February 21, 2000, thousands of Boricuas gathered in the expressway Las Americas in Hato Rey to protest and march against the military invasion of the United States in Vieques. Ruben Berríos, president of the PIP (Puerto Rican Independence Party), as well as José Aponte, the mayor of Carolina from the PPD (Popular Democratic Party), and senator Norma Burgos from the PNP (New Progressive Party), though each wanting different things for the island (independence, remainder as the commonwealth, and statehood), rallied together to protect Vieques, and were incarcerated for doing so. Despite the many arrests, these protests eventually led to the permanent shutdown of Vieques’ Naval Base after over 60 years of operation in 2003 [12].





Notes:

  1. Pantojas-García, Emilio. Review of The Puerto Rican Paradox: Colonialism Revisited, by Christina Duffy Burnett, Burke Marshall, Mario Murillo, Katherine T. McCaffrey, Amílcar Antonio Barreto, María E. Pérez y González, and Jorge Duany. Latin American Research Review 40, no. 3 (2005): 163–76.
  2. Luis Rivera Pagán, Interview.
  3. Ibid
  4. Picó, Fernando. “Historia General de Puerto Rico (4a Ed.).” Digitalia. Accessed December 10, 2024. https://www.digitaliapublishing.com/a/28728/historia-general-de-puerto-rico--4a-ed.-. 
  5. Christina Duffy Burnett et al., The Puerto Rican paradox: Colonialism revisited, accessed December 10, 2024, http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/essays/18791076/puerto-rican-paradox-colonialism-revisited.
  6. “Research Guides: A Latinx Resource Guide: Civil Rights Cases and Events in the United States: 1999: Vieques Island Protests,” 1999: Vieques Island Protests - A Latinx Resource Guide: Civil Rights Cases and Events in the United States - Research Guides at Library of Congress, accessed December 10, 2024, https://guides.loc.gov/latinx-civil-rights/vieques-island-protests.
  7. Berman Santana, Deborah. Resisting toxic militarism: Vieques versus the U.S. Navy - document - gale academic onefile. Accessed December 10, 2024. https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA93211946&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=10431578&p=AONE&sw=w&userGroupName=anon~a359d107&aty=open-web-entry. 
  8. Ibid
  9. “Research Guides: A Latinx Resource Guide: Civil Rights Cases and Events in the United States: 1999: Vieques Island Protests,” 1999: Vieques Island Protests - A Latinx Resource Guide: Civil Rights Cases and Events in the United States - Research Guides at Library of Congress, accessed December 10, 2024, https://guides.loc.gov/latinx-civil-rights/vieques-island-protests.
  10. Berman Santana, Deborah. Resisting toxic militarism: Vieques versus the U.S. Navy - document - gale academic onefile. Accessed December 10, 2024. https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA93211946&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=10431578&p=AONE&sw=w&userGroupName=anon~a359d107&aty=open-web-entry. 
  11.  The Associated Press, “Navy Attributes Fatal Bombing to Mistakes (Published 1999),” The New York Times, August 3, 1999, https://www.nytimes.com/1999/08/03/us/navy-attributes-fatal-bombing-to-mistakes.html.
  12. “Research Guides: A Latinx Resource Guide: Civil Rights Cases and Events in the United States: 1999: Vieques Island Protests,” 1999: Vieques Island Protests - A Latinx Resource Guide: Civil Rights Cases and Events in the United States - Research Guides at Library of Congress, accessed December 10, 2024, https://guides.loc.gov/latinx-civil-rights/vieques-island-protests.

 

Works Cited:

 

Associated Press. “Navy Attributes Fatal Bombing to Mistakes (Published 1999).” The New York Times, August 3, 1999. https://www.nytimes.com/1999/08/03/us/navy-attributes-fatal-bombing-to-mistakes.html. 

Berman Santana, Deborah. Resisting toxic militarism: Vieques versus the U.S. Navy - document - gale academic onefile. Accessed December 10, 2024. https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA93211946&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=10431578&p=AONE&sw=w&userGroupName=anon~a359d107&aty=open-web-entry. 

Luis Rivera Pagán, interview and text message communication, November 2024.

Pantojas-García, Emilio. Review of The Puerto Rican Paradox: Colonialism Revisited, by Christina Duffy Burnett, Burke Marshall, Mario Murillo, Katherine T. McCaffrey, Amílcar Antonio Barreto, María E. Pérez y González, and Jorge Duany. Latin American Research Review 40, no. 3 (2005): 163–76.

Picó, Fernando. “Historia General de Puerto Rico (4a Ed.).” Digitalia. Accessed December 10, 2024. https://www.digitaliapublishing.com/a/28728/historia-general-de-puerto-rico--4a-ed.-. 

“Research Guides: A Latinx Resource Guide: Civil Rights Cases and Events in the United States: 1999: Vieques Island Protests.” 1999: Vieques Island Protests - A Latinx Resource Guide: Civil Rights Cases and Events in the United States - Research Guides at Library of Congress. Accessed December 10, 2024. https://guides.loc.gov/latinx-civil-rights/vieques-island-protests.


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