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TITLE: US Navy Asks For Riot Police to Quell Vieques Protests |
AUTHOR: |
PUB: New Zealand Herald |
DATE: April 30, 2001 |
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The United States Navy has urged Puerto Rican authorities to send out riot police to quell protests on Vieques which are increasingly hampering its military exercises on the island. Dozens more activists protesting against the training on Vieques, a small island off the US Caribbean territory, made their way on to the Camp Garcia naval base at the weekend. The protesters say the exercises damage Vieques residents' health and the environment. The Navy rejects the charge and says the exercises - involving amphibious landings, ship-to-shore shelling and air-to-ground bombing - are necessary for US military preparedness. The Navy said it would halt the exercises, which began on Friday, for Sunday only as a mark of respect for the Catholic Puerto Ricans as they celebrated the beatification of a Puerto Rican - a step towards sainthood. By late Saturday afternoon, the Navy had spent more of the day trying to clear its camp, including the target range, of civilian protesters trying to act as human shields than working on the job it wanted to do. Training did not begin properly until mid-afternoon. The Navy said 128 people had been detained from Thursday up until Saturday afternoon - about half of them during Saturday. Rear Admiral Kevin Green wrote to Puerto Rican Governor Sila Calderon asking her to call out riot police to calm an "increasingly dangerous situation." But the Governor has been a firm critic of the Vieques exercises since she was elected last November. Green wrote: "A significant number of protesters have cut a large portion of our fence and the number of trespassing incidents continues to escalate." Puerto Rican police said that environmentalist lawyer Robert Kennedy jun, actor Edward James Olmos, local singer-songwriter Robi Draco, and US Congressman Luis Gutierrez were among activists detained on the base at the weekend by Navy police and handed over to US federal marshals for arrest. The Navy repeated a charge that Puerto Rican police have stood by as protesters break the law. The US has used Vieques, a 13,355ha island, as a bombing and shelling range for more than 50 years. But protests swept Puerto Rico after a civilian security guard died during a botched bombing run two years ago. END |