Jesse Jackson helps Puerto Rico

[Steven Pollack <themissinglink@eznetinc.com>]

Jesse Jackson to intervene in Puerto Rico-Navy feud
9.12 p.m. ET (113 GMT) August 11, 1999

 By Eileen Mcnamara, Associated Press


 SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) The Rev.
 Jesse Jackson arrived in Puerto Rico
 Wednesday to take the island's side in an
 escalating feud with the U.S. Navy over
 use of a military training ground.

 Jackson said he wanted to show support
 for Gov. Pedro Rossello, who is urging the
 Navy to leave the training ground on the
 outlying island of Vieques after recent
 accidents at a bombing range there.

 "I urge our government to stop the
 violence, the bombing,'' Jackson said.
 "Now is the time to put commitment to
 demilitarizing Vieques. ... Give the land
 back to the people.''

 Jackson's visit coincided with President
 Clinton's offer of clemency to members of
 a Puerto Rican guerrilla group — a move
 some activists saw as a peace offering in
 the battle of words over the training
 ground.

 Jackson was to meet Rossello on Thursday and on Friday visit the
 bombing range, where protesters have set up camp amid unexploded
 ordnance to thwart further exercises.

 "No act is more noble and moral than the selfless act of putting one's
 body on the line so that others might live,'' he said of the protesters.

 Navy Secretary Richard Danzig spoke with Jackson on Tuesday to
 offer information about Vieques. During the conversation, Danzig said
 the Navy could consider a suggestion by Jackson that it clear
 explosives from areas occupied by protesters, according to Navy
 spokesman Cmdr. Brian Cullin.

 Resentment over the Navy's presence boiled over when a civilian
 security guard, David Sanes Rodriguez, was killed April 19 by two
 500-pound bombs that missed their target inside the range.

 Navy officials subsequently admitted to accidentally firing 267 rounds of
 bullets tipped with depleted uranium at Vieques in February and using
 napalm bombs on the island in 1993.

 The Navy owns two-thirds of the 51-square-mile island, while 9,400
 civilians live on the other third. Navy officials insist Vieques is the only
 place they can train the U.S. Atlantic fleet in air, land and sea
 operations with live ammunition. A Pentagon panel is studying the
 issue.

-end-

I remember an e-mail from a Colonel Richard Wright from the Pentagons Explosive
Safety Board stating that Depleted Uranium would never be used in domestic
training exercises.  This mistake is the perfect argument against using it at
all.

Steven Pollack