Puerto Rico Gov. Wants Navy Out

["cpeo@cpeo.org" <cpeo@cpeo.org>]

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"Puerto Rico Gov. Wants Navy Out"
By CHRIS HAWLEY Associated Press Writer
(SNIPPET)

... (Governor) Rossello said he considered a 1983 agreement between the
Navy and the
Puerto Rican government void because the Navy had not lived up to its
promises to protect the environment and the safety of the island's 9,300
residents.

Capt. James Stark Jr., commander of the Roosevelt Roads Naval Station
that oversees the training ground, declined comment on the report but
said the military is ``seeking solutions that will benefit the people of
Vieques while maintaining our obligation to train military forces to
defend our nation.''

The U.S. Navy took over more than two-thirds of the 18-mile-by-4-mile
island off Puerto Rico's east coast in 1940. It says live-fire exercises
there are essential.

Opposition to the Navy presence has flared since a civilian security
guard was killed April 19 when two 500-pound bombs were dropped
off-target. The Navy's admission last month that it had mistakenly fired
radioactive uranium-tipped shells at the island in February - in
violation of local and federal law - fueled concerns that the Navy may
have covered up similar accidents.

The commission's 300-page report details the dropping of five bombs
within one mile of homes in 1993 and the shooting of a government
vehicle by stray machine-gun bullets in 1997.

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