In the distance a roar was heard. Judith Conde Pacheco, a 55-year-old teacher, thought it was the sound of thunder. She thought that she had to run out to get the clothes that she had just hung in the patio of her house. But not, In reality, that had been the noise of two bombs that, with their detonation, changed forever the place where he lived for more than three decades.
It all happened on April 19, 1999 in Vieques, an island municipality in eastern Puerto Rico that the US Navy used as a firing range for more than 60 years.
There the most powerful army in the world, as well as its NATO allies and private companies, tested weapons and carried out military maneuvers.
While this was happening, the Viequenses figured out how to continue with their day to day.
Between the noise of the bombs and the bullets, before the irruption of the amphibious vehicles that emerged on their paradisiacal beaches, and the jets and helicopters that crossed the sky, they went to school, visited their markets and played baseball.
Some locals resisted the military presence for years. Others, like Judith, had learned to live with it.
“One saw the military vehicles, the red flags that mean that one could not enter the beaches because there were maneuvers, it was a gigantic operation, a scenario of total war that passed before us, but to a certain extent we normalized it,” he says.
For this reason, on April 19, 1999, he thought it would rain when the sound of the bombs reached his ears.
But in reality it was a military exercise that used the death of David Sanes Rodríguez, a 35-year-old security guard who worked that day guarding a US Navy observation post.
A miscalculation by a soldier who mistook the facility for a target caused both 500-pound bombs to fall near him. He died instantly. The commotion among the Viequenses -and the rest of Puerto Rico- was also immediate.
“Suddenly the calls begin. My parents, my friends, asked me if I was okay, because a bomb had fallen and killed a Viequense,” says Judith, who moved to the town in 1991 for a job opportunity and later moved to the town. she became a recognized activist to achieve the demilitarization of the territory.
What followed was a social movement the likes of which had never been seen on the island up to that time.
Puerto Ricans, a society deeply divided around its reality as a Commonwealth of the United States, came together to peacefully confront the US army until they managed to stop the military maneuvers in 2003.
“We thought: ‘Who can beat that military power'”, recalls Judith.
The ceasefire, however, marked its 20th anniversary on May 1st.
Trauma
The US Navy arrived in Vieques, a town that currently has about 9,000 inhabitants, in the early 1940s. Thousands of people were expropriated and displaced. The military territories occupied 75% of the.
“Due to the defensive problems of World War II and after the Cold War, Vieques played an important role as a military training base for the US army, but also as a very narrow bridge from the Caribbean to the largest US facilities. in Latin America,” explains Carlos Severino Valdés, a doctor in geography who was the representative of Vieques before the central government of Puerto Rico.
That of the army to Vieques, as well as to Culebra, another island municipality that was used as a military base, was a “traumatic” event for the locals, continues the professor, who was also rector of the main campus of the University of Puerto Rico in San Juan.
“The noise was terrible [el de los bombardeos] every moment and obviously many people were suffering from nervous breakdowns, prolonged stress and other mental health illnesses.
But the damage, activists and experts have denounced, also affected the environment and the physical health of local inhabitants.
“The terrestrial and underwater landscape also suffered from the constant detonations of live weapons,” explains the academic.
In addition, among the residents of Isla Nena, as Vieques is also known, there have been high rates of cancer, hypertension, and respiratory conditions, compared to the rest of Puerto Rico.. An epidemiological study cited by the British newspaper The Guardian indicates that Viequenses are 30% more likely to die of cancer.
Some in Vieques allege that these records are related to the population’s exposure to weapons that allegedly contain chemicals such as napalm, depleted uranium, and lead.
Nevertheless, the US Navy has contradicted these claims for years. In a written statement, this military branch assured that a study carried out between 2003 and 2013 by the Agency for Toxic Substances and the US Disease Registry found no risks to public health as a result of the bombings.
“The residents of Vieques have not been exposed to harmful levels of chemical substances resulting from the training activities of the Navy,” says the military body in an email sent to BBC Mundo.
In 2022, the government of Puerto Rico presented a request to the US Congress for the Department of Defense to carry out a new study, in the face of constant complaints from the Vieques, because many, no matter how much time passes, reaffirm their complaints.
And, as Judith affirms, they also claim to be marked by the abuses of some of the members of the Navy, which include racist attacks and sexual violence.
a peaceful fight
Decades before the death of David Sanes Rodríguez, says Ismael Guadalupe, one of the longest-serving activists in the fight for demilitarization, the people of Viequenses had already carried out civil disobedience and protests against the army.
At 78 years old, he recounts with a tone of pride from his home in Vieques that you no longer remember times he went to jail for trespassing the restricted territory of the Navy or for fighting with soldiers during his youth.
“When the drunken soldiers came to town and tried to disrespect the women, we faced each other with stones. I don’t use any organization,” she says.
But the 1999 accident, he says, “brought the last straw.”
“Journalists arrived, all of Vieques was crowded. The people were bothering, fed up with the abuses by the Navy.”
Citizen groups set up camps in prohibited areas and tried to interrupt military maneuvers. They lobbied the US Congress and organizations like the United Nations.
The protests were joined by trade unionists, students, political figures of all ideologies, well-known artists and activists, such as the Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu, singer Ricky Martin and the Reverend Al Sharpton.
In February 2000, more than 150,000 people gathered in San Juan to march in favor of the army’s departure from Vieques.
According to the local press, between 1999 and 2003, some 1,000 people were imprisoned for acts of civil disobedience in Vieques.
Faced with public pressure, on June 14, 2001, US President George W. Bush announced that military tests would cease in two years, as they finally did.
“The residents don’t want us there,” he told a news conference at the time.
The news was received with jubilation, but also with caution. And that distrust, affirms Ismael Guadalupe, was well founded if the current state of Vieques is analyzed.
“The Navy has not left,” he has argued on several occasions.
the present
Ismael says that the claims of the locals were not fully fulfilled.
Although much of the militarized land has been passed on to US and local agencies, some has been contaminated and government work to clean it up has been slow.
The US military recently said that the decontamination process would last until at least 2033.
“That they stopped these bombings, those military practices that in physical and emotional terms could have caused so much damage, is very important,” says Judith.
“But there are still bombs to collect. They put them on a mountain, light them in an open fire and detonate them. In addition, the presence of the same military continues, they have not left Vieques,” he adds, referring to several observation radars located on the island controlled by the US Navy.
Regarding the open detonation process, the Navy says that it is the safest way to eliminate the weapons that still remain on the Vieques land. It also claims that by making it comply with the regulations of the US environmental protection agencies.
“The Navy uses open detonation in remote areas to safely destroy munitions on Vieques. During open detonation, explosive chemicals are consumed, releasing a powerful shock wave, metal fragments, and non-toxic gases that are naturally present in the atmosphere,” they say.
According to data provided by the army, in the past two decades they have removed some 129,000 munitions and other related objects from Viequense soil.
Both Ismael and Judith opined that until there is a “complete demilitarization” their claims against the US army continue, although they acknowledge that this is a request of a political nature, Puerto Rico being a territory whose defense falls to the US, as It happens with other core issues of the island’s government.
In Vieques, says Professor Carlos Severino Valdés, the constant threat of bombs has faded, but 20 years after the noise and fire ceased, other dangers surfaced.
The latest US census reveals that more than 50% of the population of Vieques lives in poverty in relation to national standards. Successive governments have failed to promote the development of the island after the departure of the military, which had a direct impact on the local economy.
The people of Viequenses also face enormous transportation problems, given the constant failures of their barge system. And they lack a hospital since the facility they had was destroyed in 2017 with the passage of Hurricane Maria.
And, recently, there has been an increase in violence and drug trafficking.
“The vacuum that was created in all those huge pieces of land has been filled by drug traffickers who use them as a springboard to Puerto Rico, and has created a situation of insecurity in Vieques, which is exacerbated by its geographical position. [como entrada al Caribe]”, expose Professor Severino Valdés.
“With the departure of the Navy, a great problem ended, the doors were opened to many possibilities, but the door was also opened to many negative realities,” he says.
Judith, who is part of the non-profit organization Alianza de Mujeres por Vieques, nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 for her extensive work in education and activism, comments that it will not be possible to work to overcome all the challenges of the municipality. .
Vieques is not his hometown, but no other place can be called home. When he became aware of the problem of the Navy bombings, he got it: “I can’t leave here, it’s a citizen’s responsibility.”
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BBC-NEWS-SRC: IMPORT DATE: 2023-07-08 16:00:06
Ronald Avila-Claudio – @ronaldavilapr
BBC News World
