EDITORIAL
Stop bombing Vieques
Puerto Ricans fighting to stop the U.S. Navy's bombing of
Vieques have pushed this struggle to a new level and forced
some of the top U.S. and Puerto Rican capitalist politicians to
offer concessions. Yet at the same time arrogant U.S.
militarists insist they must continue to use this small island
for target practice, even at the risk of stirring up widespread
rebellion in Puerto Rico.
That's the first lesson of the news that a Pentagon
commission has recommended that the U.S. Navy cease bombing
Vieques--but only after a five-year period. This
proposal--unacceptable to the Puerto Ricans--has turned the
spotlight both on U.S. colonial relations in Puerto Rico and
toward militarism and aggressive imperialist policies in the
United States.
For progressives in the United States, there is no question
what position to take. Demand that the Navy stop bombing
Vieques and turn over the island to its people now. The need to
support self-determination for Puerto Rico--in this case
independence from U.S. rule--demands this position. The need to
oppose U.S. military adventures also demands it. Still, a
review of this question reveals much about Washington's
position and its weaknesses, as well as its arrogance.
The Navy's abuse of Vieques and its inhabitants has always
been an especially sore point in Washington's colonial policy
toward Puerto Rico. The Pentagon grabbed two-thirds of the
island, pushed the island's 9,300 people to the other third,
bombed the island, polluted it and its waters, and ruined the
local economy. As a result, 25 percent of the people are
unemployed on what should be a Caribbean paradise. And last
spring--while practicing for the raids against
Yugoslavia--killed an inhabitant with a stray bomb.
The ensuing anger brought the struggle against the Navy to
new heights. People from Vieques occupied the target zone, that
is, they put their bodies right on the target. And tens of
thousands of Puerto Ricans demonstrated both to free political
prisoners and to get the Navy out of Vieques.
But it was the reaction of the mainstream capitalist
politicians that showed that the hostility to the Navy had gone
deep and spread wide in the Puerto Rican population. Even Gov.
Pedro J. Rosselló, a champion of statehood and therefore
an extremely pro-U.S. official, has called on the U.S. to stop
bombing. Only the knowledge that he must take this
posture--even testifying as such before a Congressional
committee--could make Rosselló take this position.
Recognizing the need to at least appear to make concessions
to the Puerto Rican people, President Clinton and others in his
wing of the Democratic Party have said the Navy should look for
an alternate target site. New York's Senator Charles Schumer
and candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton also criticized the
panel's report that insisted the U.S. test there five more
years.
Of course both the president and the Senate candidate are
capable of flip-flopping on this issue. They've done it before.
But their current position shows they fear an angry reaction
from the Puerto Rican masses--both on the island and in the
U.S.--should the Navy resume bombing.
The militarists on the Pentagon panel ignored this
consideration. For them, one goal was paramount: the unfettered
development, testing and perfection of the U.S. war
machine--and damn the population.
The Pentagon claims that the testing range is critical to
preparing Navy and Marine Corps aviators and warship gunners as
they depart on worldwide deployments. It claims Desert Fox
bombers who trained in Vieques were 20 percent more accurate
with the bombs they rained on Iraq last December than pilots
who didn't. It has used Vieques to prepare for every war since
1945--even renting it out to allies--and wants to use it to
prepare for new imperialist wars, be they in Colombia, Korea,
the Middle East, Africa or Central Asia.
A senior defense official admitted to reporters that the
Pentagon was concerned that other areas with U.S. training
sites--specifically, Hawaii and Okinawa--were watching to see
if the U.S. military was forced to abandon Vieques. It's
remarkable that U.S. imperialism first seized all three of
these sites in war. Now it makes the population an unwilling
accomplice in further imperialist adventures.
We have to fight to make the Navy stop bombing Vieques and
to get out of Puerto Rico. We have to support the heroic
fishers and others from Vieques who are putting their bodies on
the line. But the Pentagon official has a point--we must also
stop the Pentagon from bombing Okinawa and Hawaii as it
prepares new imperialist wars.
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
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