[CPEO-MEF] Informe Especial re ATSDR (a-g)

[bieke@coqui.net]

ENGLISH VERSION



Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques

P.O. Box 1424 Vieques, Puerto Rico 00765

Tel. (787) 741-0716 E mail: bieke@coqui.net



15 March, 2001



Special Report



Viequenses paralize ATSDR proceedings




On Wednesday, March 14, a large group of Viequenses, representing diverse
sectors of the community, paralized the proceedings of the Agency for Toxic
Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) in Vieques. The agency arrived on
Vieques as part of the US Navy=B4s public relations program designed to
discredit the arguments of our envirnomental scientists and silence our
denunciation of the negative impact on our health from military
contamination.



During five hours officials of ATSDR waited to receive people from the
community to offer their 'orientation' about the lack of military
contamination of our waters. Nobody showed up!. In solidarity with the call
from our organizations for NO COOPERATION with the federal agency, our people
rejected ATSDR's invitation. The only visit they received was from around 150
Viequenses - men and women, mothers, grandmothers and great grandmothers,
fishermen, teachers, young people, students, doctors, civic, political and
religious leaders - who entered the Multiple Uses Center to denounce the
agency's presence here and the health crisis caused by the Navy.



The protesta action was organized by the Committee for the Rescue and
Development of Vieques (CRDV) with the active participation of the Vieques
Women=B4s Alliance, Vieques Youth United, the Federation and Association of
Teachers of Puerto Rico (Vieques locals), Horsemen for Peace, Vieques
Veterans for Peace, Peace and Justice Camp, Luisa Guadalupe Camp, the ex
Mayor of Vieques, Radam=E9s Tirado, Association of Fishermen, among others.


A procession of people carrying crosses with names of victims of cancer or
military violence, heavy metals and other chemical contaminants began the
entrance to the meeting hall. Then four people carried in a wooden casket
that was placed in the center of the room, followed by about one hundred
citizens with crosses and signs about contamination and deaths due to cancer.
With litanies, chants, hymns and several brief messages, the group clearly
and firmly expressed the community=B4s rejection of intervention by this
agency whose history is one of serving the industrial and military interests
accused of contaminating. Harry Felix sang a song he recently wrote dedicated
to Milivy Adams, a 4 year old viequense girl with cancer who has become a
symbol of the cancer crisis here.



Among those holding crosses were Fela Garc=EDa, cancer patient whose cross
had the name of her husband - don Angel Navarro - also a cancer victim; don
Suso Berm=FAdez lifted high a cross with his daughter=B4s name - Minerva -
died of cancer at the age of 20; also with a cross was the family of Liza
Rosa, who died at the age of 16 with leukemia. Fishermen=B4s Associations
leaders Carlos Ventura and Carlos Zen=F3n also participated, as did Education
Department officiales and members of the Municipal Government.



With an impressive discipline and strength of expression, the protesters
filed out of the Multiple Uses Center, leaving one by one the sixty crosses
(one for each year of the Navy presence) on the ATSDR information table. We
stayed outside the Center until at 5 PM, the hour to end the Public Audience
- that never took place!!



We must thank our environmental scientists-advisors for their important help
in creating awareness about ATSDR and for helping us to critically analyze
the agency=B4s report suggesting no Navy contamination of Vieques drinking
waters. Sara Peish (Center for Environmental Action), UPR chemist, Jorge
Col=F3n (Technical and Professional Group in Support of Vieques), chemist
Jos=E9 Sep=FAlveda, spokesman for the Villa Cristiana community in Puerto
Rico that suffered terrible mercury contamination and expected health crisis,
although ATSDR certified their neighborhood as "safe".


All aspects of the protest were discussed in two community meetings at the
Peace and Justice Camp, the second with the participation of more than forty
people representative of the diverse segments of our civil society. The tasks
were divided and a program of action prepared to carry out what was proposed
and discussed with the intention of paralizing the ATSDR proceedings in
Vieques. Everyone did their work - and this collective action ended in a
small but signficant victory in defense of our health and against military
contamination.



The struggle for Peace on Vieques has received great impulse recently: the
excellent work of the People=B4s Lobbyists in Washington, D.C.; declarations
of solidarity from public figures like the Governor of New York, the ex
president of Costa Rica, Hillary Clinton, the Bishops of Puerto Rico and of
Chiapas, actor Martin Sheen, Ricky Martin; the Governors statement that the
health of our people is not negotiable.



All of these actions are important. However, it is the organized and militant
work of our people in the streets of Vieques, our fishermen in the sea, our
constant protest in the Navy's face at the gate to Camp Garc=EDa, and actions
like the paralization of the ATSDR - with the participation of diverse
sectors of our community - that send the strongest message to the Navy: that
the days of military tyranny on Vieques are over; that no more bombs will be
dropped here; that here lives a people with dignity and willing to make the
necessary sacrifices to defend their right to live in peace.



R. Rabin, CRDV



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