From: | Robert Rabin <bieke@tropicweb.net> |
Date: | Mon, 22 Mar 1999 16:27:36 -0800 (PST) |
Reply: | cpeo-military |
Subject: | Vieques Update |
Warm and fraternal greetings from the Island of Vieques, Puerto Rico. Here´s a recent article on the situation here. En Solidaridad, Robert Rabin The Battle of Vieques Continues The arrival this year of elements of the Southern Command to Puerto Rico will produce a noticeable increase in military activity and in related serious problems. For more than 50 years the people of Vieques have been affected by bombing and other activities of the U.S. military forces and those of other countries who "rent" the U.S. Navy facilities on the island of Vieques, PR. That is why the people vigorously protested 2 years ago the news of the transfer of the Southern Command to Puerto Rico. In a press release on August 2, 1997, the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques opposed the decision to locate some elements of the Southern Command in PR because "it will mean an increase in war activities on Vieques and it will constitute an attack on the efforts of the community to get back the 33,000 acres of land (3/4 of the land mass of Vieques) controlled by the US Navy since the decade of the 1940's". In the same communiqué the Viequenses stated that "the horrible consequences of the more than 50 years of military presence, both for the people and for the environment of our "little island," forces us to oppose this increase in the militarization of PR." In the form of a notice to the Puerto Ricans on the "big island", the leaders of the Vieques struggle explained that "the presence of the U.S. Navy has not brought any benefit whatsoever, either economic or social, to the inhabitants; that the 6 decades of military presence on Vieques have been characterized by continual confrontations between the military and civilians, the strangulation of the local economy, the forced emigration of thousands of Viequenses, and an ecological disaster with grave consequences for the environment and the health of our people." Dr. Rafael Rivera Castano, member of the Executive Board of the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques, stated in the communique that Vieques suffers from a higher than 50% unemployment rate, that 72% of the population live below the poverty level, and that there are an alarming number of cases of cancer and respiratory illnesses. These concerns of the Viequenses have been confirmed with the publication of the Environmental Assessment for the Relocation of the Special Operations of the Southern command and Selected U.S. Army elements from the Republic of Panama to U.S. Naval Station Roosevelt Roads, PR and Other Locations. (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile District, Tetra Tech, Dec., 1998) The name of Vieques-- along with other places in Puerto Rico which will feel the effects of this military move-appears in the document before the introduction and figures prominently throughout the text of more than 200 pages. In the section entitled Environmental Consequences, the document states that on Vieques the activities of these special operations forces will result in direct adverse effects both on the air quality and the noise level caused by military vehicles, planes, and helicopters. In addition, the arms and explosives used by the Special Operations Command, South (SOC South) will cause an increase in air and noise pollution. The soil of Vieques will also suffer an increase in damages caused by the military activity. According to the Environmental Assessment of SOC South, maneuvers and training with live ammunition will have a direct adverse impact on the vegetation and the soil, increasing the problem of erosion in the affected areas. In the same section of the report, they describe the direct adverse effects they expect on biological resources. (Do they include us, the people?!) It states that helicopter flights- identified in the document as the principal source of the increase in air pollution caused by emissions of volatile organic compounds and carbon monoxide-the movement of land troops and the use of live ammunition, will "disturb" the vegetation and the wild life of the island. The Environmental Assessment concerning the relocation of SOC South describes in Section 3.0 the multiple tasks of its operations. The Special Operations Forces (SOF), the document states, "are specialized military units designed to carry out a great variety of missions in support of national policy, both in peace time and wartime. Missions of the SOF units include direct actions; strategic reconnaissance; unconventional warfare (military or paramilitary operations in enemy territory in support of forces fighting against an established government); internal defense of foreign countries (organization, training and assistance to military and paramilitary forces of a host country); civil affairs (relations between the military and the civil authorities); psychological operations (influencing public opinion); contra-terrorism; and more. The Southern Command, and its various elements, is related historically to U.S. military intervention in the internal affairs of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. The Southern command, in coordination with the CIA, other military forces in the White House, is in charge of maintaining in power those governments who respond to the economic and political interests of the U.S. Anyone who dares to defend the interests of his own country or who is perceived in Washington as a threat for any reason, gets a visit from the Southern Command. In 1973 President Salvador Allende, elected by the Chilean people, was assassinated by Chilean military forces-organized, trained, equipped and aided by Special Operations Command South. The most horrendous dictators of the Americas, Pinochet, the Duvaliers, Trujillo, Batista and the Somoas, to name a few-were kept in power with the support of the Southern Command, or by similar military forces. The U.S. interventions in Cuba (1961), Santo Domingo (1965), Granada (1983)and Panama (1989) form part of a long history of the kind of military operations which the Southern command will now carryout from Vieques. These documents themselves justify the concerns of the Vieques community. There will be more bombing, more practice with different types of weapons; more noise of helicopters, planes and explosions; more pollution of water, air and land; more destruction of the biology and the geology of the island; more restrictions on local fishermen; more destruction of fish traps, and fishgin grounds, more deaths of sea turtles, manatees, whales, more military vehicles in the streets of Vieques, more confrontations between military and civilians, more cancer among our people. In these times when the struggle against the military presence on our "little island" is heating up again, with the serious situation of cancer, the economic crisis brought on by the closing of General Electric, the construction of ROTHR radar on the island, we can be sure that the training and the practices of the Special Operations Forces of the Southern Command on Vieques will spread out beyond the barbed wire fences of the base. For years "psychological operations" (propaganda) have been used against the struggling people of Vieques. Now, however, we will have the specialists in those practices right here in our own back yard. We can be sure that among the next missions of the Southern Command there will be one with the name: THE BATTLE OF VIEQUES. Written by Robert Rabin Member of the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques March, 1999 | |
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