The Value of Vieques
Murillo, Mario
In September of this year, over 2,000 protesters gathered outside the White House demanding an end to the U.S. Navy presence in Vieques, a small island six miles off Puerto Rico that has been...
...2. Garcia Mutliz, "U.S...
...While their main demand is to get the Navy out of Vieques, they also hope to call attention to the military's negative impact on that island and on all of Puerto Rico...
...3. From author interview, which aired on the radio documentary "Puerto Rico: Reflections on the Oldest Colony," broadcast on Pacifica Radio, July 25, 1998...
...The takeover of Vieques in 1941 was part of the U.S...
...And because nothing has fundamentally changed, peace and justice activists in Puerto Rico continue to mobilize...
...military role in their country, and about the dangers of involving Ecuador in Colombia's conflict...
...But the result is the same: U.S...
...He was a civilian security guard on the Vieques Naval firing range who was killed in April, 1999 by a bomb, dropped by Navy planes, that missed its target...
...8. Carmelo Ruiz Marrero, "La Estructura Del Comando Sur," posted on the viequeslibre.org website, June 2, 2000...
...On the east end-where David Sanes was killed-the Navy has conducted regular experiments with new weapons systems...
...strategy has shifted only rhetorically, from "fighting the Cold War" to "fighting the drug war...
...James Inhofe, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Military Preparedness, during the controversy in the wake of the death of David Sanes...
...They note that the Navy went an entire year during the peace encampment protests without using the island for heavyweapons bombing tests or other strategic maneuvers...
...Military Installations," p. 55...
...military out unless they join with other anti-interventionists throughout the region, including movements concerned with the growing militarization of the drug war, and with burgeoning U.S...
...Vieques is considered the key component of the Roosevelt Roads Naval Station...
...This is the only place that they can do an amphibious landing, giving naval surface to fire support...
...For example, SOUTHCOM operates at least 17 radar systems, ostensibly to track drug flights...
...In the middle reside the island's civilians, who have historically made their living by fishing...
...also, see "ROTHR: Un Radar Militar Que No Combate el Narcotrafico," report issued by Frente Unido ProDefensa del Valle de Lajas, Lajas, Puerto Rico, 1998...
...Navy's Atlantic Fleet as a training ground and bombing range for almost 60 years...
...base outside the continental United States...
...If 24NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 24 NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICASREPORT ON U.S...
...The Value of Vieques 1. Humberto Garcia Mufiz, "U.S...
...Several dozen people were arrested, joining hundreds of others over the previous 19 months who committed civil disobedience to draw attention to the Navy's effects on Vieques and the rest of Puerto Rico...
...national security interest could possibly be served by renting the island to other countries...
...Naval Station Roosevelt Roads and Other Locations," prepared for U.S...
...Cold War military strategy, both for its European deployments and for its numerous interventions, including Grenada and Panama in the 1980s...
...Leaving Panama," testimony from Ana Maria Salazar, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Drug Enforcement Policy and Support, US House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources, June 9, 2000...
...Army South (USARSO) and Special Operations Command (SOCSOUTH), a joint service command...
...teams in counterdrug installations on the Dutch-held islands of Curacao and Aruba, and for the controversial, U.S.-built "counternarcotics" airfield in Manta, Ecuador, just south of the Colombian border...
...Colonial Dilemma: Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Puerto Rico (Boston: South End Press, 1993...
...8 So, despite the end of the Cold War, Puerto Rico's importance to the United States as a military center has not diminished...
...Panama was the focus, and the occupation spread from Key West in Florida, through Guantanamo in Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, the Virgin Islands, Trinidad and Puerto Rico.' Among the most important installations constructed during World War 11 was the Roosevelt Roads Naval Station in La Ceiba, built to house the entire British Navy in case the Nazis invaded Great Britain, 2 Today it is the largest U.S...
...5. "Puerto Rico Becoming a Military Hub for U.S.," Miami Herald, July 6, 1999...
...These are Forward Operating Locations (FOLs), intended to support aerial counterdrug missions in Central America and the Andes...
...Navy presence in Vieques, a small island six miles off Puerto Rico that has been used by the U.S...
...Vieques is divided into three areas...
...In November, Puerto Rican activists climbed the crown of the statue of Liberty to hang flags in protest of the U.S...
...Army South and SOCSOUTH by U.S...
...military strategy in the region...
...This is where extensive bombing, amphibious landings and other war games are conducted almost year round, and where many of the Navy's global missions are launched to other parts of the Caribbeaina America, or to the Middle East and Kosovo...
...Their mandate includes "anti-drug" and "anti-terrorist" operations, training regional military forces, and so-called humanitarian missions such as emergency relief...
...Protest intensified, spotlighting Puerto Rico's role for U.S...
...In January of this year-aganst thear-against the will of Vieques residents-Puerto Rico's pro-statehood Governor Pedro Rosello agreed to President Clinton's executive order allowing bombing tests to resume in June...
...In November 1999, the United States and Ecuador signed a ten-year agreement allowing Manta to be used as an airfield for inter-agency counterdrug flights...
...Three such systems are in Peru, and another four are in Colombia...
...Recently it was discovered that the Navy was renting out part of the firing range to governments seeking to test new weapons systems...
...military forces maintain a firm grip on the region to make the hemisphere safe for Washington's interests...
...He and others argue that U.S...
...The east end has also been the site of the main protest against the Navy over the past 19 months...
...4 Though SOUTHCOM headquarters has moved from Panama to Miami, many of the military operations are carried out in Puerto Rico, making the island "the biggest player in the region," according to retired Army General Felix Santoni, deputy commander-in-chief for mobilization and reserves at SOUTHCOM in the early 1990s.5 Though many SOCSOUTH operations conducted at Roosevelt Roads are considered top secret, they are known to include Green Berets, Navy Seals and Marine Infantry Units that carry out all the special tasks under SOUTHCOM...
...The joint commands are housed in the principal U.S...
...The drug war has become the justification of the United States to maintain this military presence, all the while blurring the lines between civilian and military functions in law enforcement," says Jorge Rodriguez Beruf, a political scientist at the University of Puerto Rico...
...The protesters are part of a growing movement ignited by the death of Vieques resident David Sanes...
...Those interests often involve direct intervention, as with the growing U.S...
...occupation of Vieques...
...As a result, Puerto Rico has become the new home of the U.S...
...He is a member of NACLA S editorial board...
...POLICY BY MARIO MURILLO The Navy's comple at Puerto Ricar Vieques is said t( detecting air cocaine-producin Amazon U fl 11th 'thP :irnniPmpnt: - VVtion of the CarterTorrijos Treaty, which stipulated a U.S...
...Sanes' death sparked massive protests in Vieques, the rest of Puerto Rico and in the United States, rekindling resistance to the U.S...
...6 in ivarcn of tnlis year, tme x radar network United States signed a similar ten-year agreement with n sites such as the Netherlands for the FOL o be capable of on Aruba and Curacao, and with El Salvador for the use craft in the of Comalapa Air Base-also g jungles of the with considerable opposition from anti-interventionist basin, forces there...
...On the west end lies a vast munitions storage facility, holding hundreds of tons of explosives...
...Navy's occupation of the Caribbean as defense against the Germans during World War II...
...In fact, argue protesters, Vieques is not necessary for U.S...
...According to some observers, however, these activists will not get the U.S...
...Army Corps of Engineers, December 1998...
...7 These agreempnt' demonstrate that with Panama no longer in the picture, Puerto Rico has become the essential coordination and communications component of this regional military infrastructure...
...Officially, SOCSOUTH's main function in Puerto Rico is to provide intelligence and logistical support for the 500-member U.S...
...The rest are in undisclosed locations and come under the Air Force's Caribbean Basin Radar Network...
...Dozens of "peace encampments" were erected here, and stood for over a year, until protesters were forcibly removed by U.S, marshals...
...Military Installations in Puerto Rico: Controlling the Caribbean," in Edwin Melendez and Edgardo Melendez (eds...
...withdrawal from Panama, and with the relinquishment of the Canal to Panamanian authorities, the United States Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) was forced to leave Panama...
...4. From "Environmental Assessment for the Relocation of Special Operations Command, South and Selected U.S...
...national security under any circumstances...
...role in Colombia's war...
...As far back as 1902, the island of Culebra housed Camp Roosevelt, which later became a Naval station...
...Army South Elements from the Republic of Panama to U.S...
...major component of the Navy's Atlantic Fleet...
...Many Vieques activists questioned whether any U.S...
...But Vieques was not the first Puerto Rican territory expropriated by the U.S...
...6. "Miedo al contagio narco-guerrillero y a desplazados," El Tiempo, August 23, 2000...
...The arrangement drew considerable opposition in Ecuador from people concerned about a growing U.S...
...involvement in the Colombian conflict...
...Roosevelt Roads was instrumental in U.S...
...Add to these installations the Navy's much-touted Relocatable Over the Horizon Radar, or ROTHR-one in the south-central town of Juana Diaz and the other in Vieques-and the result is a complex radar network said to be capable of detecting aircraft in cocaine-producing jungles in the Amazon basin, and of giving fighter jets enough intelligence to intercept the drug-carrying planes...
...Pentagon officials see it as indispensable for U.S...
...bases in Puerto Rico, with some training operations conducted at Camp Santiago, operated by the Puerto Rican Army National Guard...
...3 The site is also used by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), as well as by Latin American and Caribbean military forces...
...military...
...military presence on Vieques since the Navy expropriated most of the island's 33,000 acres during World War 11...
...national security...
...This sentiment was echoed repeatedly by numerous Navy and Pentagon officials, as well as lawmakers, such as Sen...
...7. "Counter-Drug Implications Of The U.S...
...Today, they are surrounded by a Mario A. Murillo is an assistant professor of Communications at Hofstra University and the host and producer of Pacifica Radio's Our Americas...
...This is the premier range on the Atlantic fleet where they can bring all their warfarearreas together," said Lieutenant Mike Amis, the Atlantic Fleet's Inner-range Officer who coordinated the bombing tests in Vieques until 1998...
Vol. 34 • November 2000 • No. 3
