Bombing Exercises on Vieques to End, Navy to Leave by May 1st
Conference Called for Halt to Exercises, Return of Lands to Local Control in 1999
By Justin O'Brien
January 20, 2003
The Navy certified for the White House and Congress on January 10 that alternate training sites for live-fire assault exercises presently conducted in Vieques, Puerto Rico are available elsewhere. The Navy's use of Vieques will terminate on May 1 after exercises currently underway are completed. The certification ends 60 years of tension between the Navy and residents of the Puerto Rican island-municipality and more than 50 years of live-fire exercises involving simultaneous sea, land and air assault maneuvers, spelling relief for the more than 9,000 residents there.
Webb, Conference Supported San Juan, Puerto Rico Mayors
In 1999, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, led by then Conference President Denver Mayor Wellington E. Webb, lent Conference support to Puerto Rico's mayors in their stance that Vieques should no longer be used for the dangerous and destructive maneuvers. The Navy's use of Vieques for bombing and training exercises received heavy public criticism and scrutiny in the almost 4 years since April 1999 when David Sanes Rodriguez, a civilian security guard at the site, was killed by off-target bombs dropped by an F-18 targeted at the observation tower where Rodriguez was keeping watch. Protesters cite numerous historic agreements repeatedly broken by the Navy regarding employment and environmental stewardship resulting in consistently high unemployment in VSan Juan Press Conference
San Juan Press Conference
Insisting that the Navy cease its bombing and live-fire training on Vieques, Webb announced Conference solidarity at a press conference at San Juan City Hall on October 8, 1999, flanked by then-San Juan Mayor, now Puerto Rico Governor Sila M.Calder—n, and other mainland and island mayors. Webb said that he would urge President Clinton to support Puerto Rico's insistence that the Navy terminate operations in Vieques. On returning to the mainland, Webb wrote a letter to President Clinton on behalf of the Conference of Mayors urging the immediate cessation of the exercises in Vieques and the return of the lands to the control of local authorities. Calder—n hosted the Conference's 1999 Urban Water Summit as Mayor of San Juan.
Unacceptable Conditions in Municipality
Webb reiterated the Conference's support of policy opposing further Navy bombing on Vieques in a plenary address during the Conference's winter meeting in January 2000. He described the conditions in Vieques as "unacceptable for the mainland United States and unacceptable for the people of Puerto Rico and Vieques." Vieques residents have said repeatedly that they have shouldered more than their fair share of the national defense burden since the Navy appropriated two-thirds of the island in 1941.
Two thirds of Vieques land (22,000 of 33,000 acres) have been used by the Navy for the storage of live ammunition and live-fire military training exercises since then. The civilian population has been confined to the remaining 11,000 acres of the island situated between the Naval sites at both ends of the island. The Navy turned over the western third to the U.S. Department of the Interior in early 2000, and will turn over the bombing range on the island's eastern third when the current exercises are complete.
Decontamination Ensures Debate Will Continue
Debate continues regarding environmental clean-up and the Navy's threatened closure of the nearby Roosevelt Roads Naval base due to the closure of Vieques, as well as the cost of decontamination from chemical, explosive and radiological pollutants. Activists and protesters say that contamination has resulted from the use of napalm and chemical simulants, unrecovered depleted uranium shells as well as the existence of unexploded shells of varying types, and military hardware on land and in the surrounding waters.
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