Feminism and Nonviolent Resistance in Vieques

Feminism Movement for the Peace of Vieques

In this essay I will write about how the feminism movement in Puerto Rico contributed to stop the Navy bombing in the island of Vieques. Many brave women had sacrifice themselves to be part of the bombing opposition. Those women founded an organization in which they made civil disobedience and got arrested in the restricted area. The leader of this women movement is the Vice-President of the Puerto Rican Independence Party and she is also a prominent lawyer. Those women also educate people about the situation and make other people for other countries know about the suffering of Puerto Ricans due to the Navy continuous bombing on Vieques.

After 400 years of Spanish colonial rule, Puerto Rico became a possession of the United States as a direct result of the Spanish-American War of 1898. Right after the invasion the US established a military government, which lasted to 1900; thereafter, the Foraker Act of 1900 authorized the President of the US to appoint a civilian governor. In 1917 the Jones Act granted US citizenship to all island residents. In 1948 Puerto Ricans were allowed to elect their own home-grown governor for the very first time. Today, after 101 years of direct economic, political and military rule, Puerto Rico continues to be a US colony. Given its geographical position, Puerto Rico has always played a key strategic military role for the US.

In 1938 the US Navy began using the island municipality of Vieques, right off the eastern coast of Puerto Rico, for military practices. In 1941, during the height of World War II, the Navy initiated a campaign of forced expropriation of territory, which ultimately ended in their possession of over two thirds of the island’s most arable land, thereby displacing thousands of families and seriously jeopardizing their basic means of subsistence. The Navy arbitrarily set the price for the expropriated land giving the island residents very little say, if any, in the matter. Resistance became an exercise in futility, for the Navy issued the following ultimatum: Either you accept the price set by the Navy or prepare to be evicted, by force, if necessary, within 24 hours. The net effect of these policies was the clustering of the entire civilian population of Vieques into a small strip of land right in the middle of the island. Thus the US Navy took control of over 75% of this tiny island.

Vieques has a population of approximately 9, 400 inhabitants. It has an unemployment rate of almost fifty percent by most conservative estimates. General Electric, which is one of the few large companies in Vieques, will end its operations this summer. Fishing is the only industry in the island of Vieques with any truly viable economic significance. This is obviously due to the Navy’s expropriation of the most fertile lands in the island that formerly sustained a respectable agricultural activity. Carlos Zenón, the former President of the Fishermen Association, said that when the US Navy ships enter the one hundred foot deep waters where the fishermen have their traps, the ships propellers destroy the buoys that indicate where the traps are. When that happens it is hard for them to find the nets. As a result, the nets stay at the bottom of the sea for eight or twelve months, attracting many fish that ultimately die in the traps. The US Department of Agriculture conducted a study of these traps and found that a single net collects from 4, 500 to 5,000 pounds of fish in ten months, which poses a severe environmental threat to the fragile marine ecosystem in that region.

The immediate effects of the bombing in Vieques are the destruction of delicate ecosystem in the island, which supports hundreds of species of plants and animals that are killed instantly upon the direct impact of the projectiles during military target practices. Furthermore, these bombings and military maneuvers lead to serious contamination of the environmental consultant Rafael Cruz Pérez identified three ways in which the military’s bombings pollutes the environment in Vieques: 1) Chemicals in the Missiles’ explosive payloads, 2) Dust and rock particles released into the air as a result of the impact and/or explosion of missiles, and 3) Metallic residues left by missiles after they detonate, and the junk and scrap heap they use for target practice. According to information provided by the Navy, this material is never removed. Under the effects of additional explosions and sea breezes, metals are oxidized or decomposed, turning in accelerated fashion into leachiest that pollute the environment. He also referred to a scientific study by the Navy, which says that the sources of drinking water in Vieques’ Isabel Segunda village and Barrio Esperanza are polluted with toxic chemicals, like TNT, tetryl and RDX. Cruz Pérez commented that the study doesn’t explain how these substances got to the water sources, located more than fourteen kilometers away from the shooting area. In the 70’s the US Environmental Protection Agency sampled Vieques’ air and soil. After studying samples, the EPA determined that the air has unhealthy levels of particulate matter and the ground has iron levels above normal.

The people of Vieques suffer from high levels of cancer and other serious health problems. Studies carried out by the Puerto Rico Department of Health have shown that from 1985 to 1989 the rate of cancer in Vieques rose to 26 percent above the rest of Puerto Rico. Rafael Rivera Castaño, a retired professor from the University of Puerto Rico’s Medical Sciences Campus, has documented an increase in extremely rare disease, like, for example, Scleroderma, lupus, thyroid deficiencies, and not so rare ones, like asthma, which is significantly affecting Vieques’ children.

After David Sanes Rodriguez’s death on April 19, 1999, a group of civilians gathered in the area of the “accident” to protest the bombardments. This show of outrage and civil disobedience was a frontal challenge to the US Navy’s ill-gotten authority. On April 21 a group of 15 boats gathered at the place of the bombings, placed a large cross and named the area Mount David, in memory of Mr. Sanes. Mount David is a very dangerous place peppered with live ammunitions on the ground. In spite of the great dangers, many people organized protest behind the gates of the Navy’s restricted areas. All these protests have successfully detained the bombings since Sanes’s death.

In May 8, the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP) established a second campsite in Playa Carrucho. The President of the party, Senator Rubén Berríos, vowed to stay in the campsite until either the Navy gets out or he is arrested. A scenario of confrontation was set. Once again, David faced Goliath eye to eye. Many other Encampments of Civil Disobedience were established over the course of that year in the target range. At the beginning of May 2002, there were about 14 of them with over one hundred people living permanently in such harsh conditions. This women organization is contributing to promote and send this message of justice and peace to others.

Even before the attacks of September 11, decision-making in Congress and the White House regarding the Navy’s continued bombardment of Vieques was at a critical point. It still is. All these important women will continue seeking for peace no matter what the Congress and the U.S. government position is about this situation.

These women intentions to obtain peace are due to the fact that some of them are mothers and they want their families to life in a secure place. Other important thing is that they are concern about the future generations and their welfare. The feminism movement in Puerto Rico is so strong that a woman went to the United Nations to fight for Puerto Ricans civil rights and other example is that the actual Puerto Rico governor is a woman. I am very proud of the work that this women organization is doing and also for the feminist movement in general.