GLI USA NON SONO ONNIPOTENTI

CON UNA GRANDE LOTTA DI MASSA DURATA DECENNI I PORTORICANI CACCIANO VIA DAVIEQUES LE NAVI AMERICANE

Un esempio di questi giorni nella lotta contro le basi americane. Le navi americane debbono andarsene da Vieques in Portorico, dopo anni e anni di lotta coraggiosa di quella popolazione. Le base di Viques, dove erano state testate armi all'uranio impoverito, portava ogni sorta di nocività a quel territorio. Questo caso è la dimostrazione che l'imperialismo Usa non è onnipotente, che si può lottare e come si può lottare. Con una grande mobilitazione di massa fatta su obiettivi chiari, con costanza. E' un grande insegnamento per noi.

Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the May 15, 2003
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------

ROUND ONE GOES TO THE PEOPLE: U.S. NAVY PULLS OUT OF
VIEQUES

By Berta Joubert-Ceci

Even as the Bush administration projects its military might in the
Middle East and sends troops back to the Philippines, it has had to pull
its Navy out of a small island in Puerto Rico.

After more than six decades of living under U.S. Navy bombardments,
strafing and many other military exercises in their territory--and
suffering the abuse of soldiers who ventured into the civilian part of
the island--the people of the island of Vieques finally celebrated the
end of this violence on May 1. Thousands joined in the celebration,
traveling from the rest of Puerto Rico and parts of the United States.

At midnight, the deadline set for the Navy to leave the Camp García
base, hundreds of activists began a massive entrance onto the firing
range. They smashed the fence with sledgehammers, wire cutters and
whatever they could use to break down the barrier that for years had
kept the islanders from stepping onto their own land.

Soon the rage felt against the U.S. military was manifested in action.
So many years of contempt, so many deaths by cancer widely believed to
be the product of military toxins, the terrible devastation of their
economy, unemployment, separation of families by forced emigration, lack
of health care services. In sum--the island's lack of development, held
hostage to the Pentagon, exploded in a people's catharsis.

Structures were hammered down. So were military vehicles. Minutes later,
those vehicles were set afire with chants of "Free Vieques--the Navy is
gone, at last."

The first round of this David and Goliath struggle of tiny Vieques
against the U.S. war machine had finally ended and the people had won--a
victory cherished not only by Viequenses but by the world as well at
this dangerous time when U.S. imperialism is spreading its fury all over
the planet.

For also at this time, as the international mobilizations against the
war have demonstrated, the people are taking their rightful place in
history. As the people in all of Latin America are saying, "The sword of
Bolívar is running throughout the continent."

It is interesting to note that the only place in the Puerto Rican
islands visited by Simón Bolívar, the great 19th-century Venezuelan
leader of anti-colonial struggles, was Vieques, where his statue
presides over the main plaza. Here, too, his sword has extended.

NEXT, DECONTAMINATION, DEVOLUTION AND DEVELOPMENT

But the struggle has not ended. The Committee for the Rescue and
Development of Vieques, the main organization fighting for the ousting
of the military, demands what it calls the four Ds: demilitarization,
decontamination, devolution of the land and development.

Of these, only demilitarization has been accomplished.

The continued colonial domination of Puerto Rico by the United States
makes the transfer of the land to the people an insult. Two-thirds of
the territory had been occupied by the Navy--the western part for
weapons storage, and the eastern for military maneuvers and a bombing
range.

The people's forceful, committed struggle to liberate their land forced
the U.S. to close its base in the western part in April 2001 and
transfer most of that land to the municipality of Vieques. However, 100
acres were kept by the Pentagon for a radar facility that targets
Colombia and neighboring countries.

The eastern part, where Camp García is located and most of the
demonstrations were held, will not revert to the people of Vieques, nor
even to the Puerto Rican government. With their usual imperialist
arrogance, Wash ington and the Pentagon have simply decided to transfer
it to the U.S. Depart ment of the Interior.

The Department of the Navy will pay for decontamination of these areas--
but there are already signs that this will also be a most difficult
struggle. The Navy has so far only allocated $2.3 million--a
ridiculously small amount for the contamination it has left behind.

Consider that napalm, depleted uranium and countless other heavy, toxic
metals have been contaminating not only the soil but the underground
water supply and the surrounding ocean for decades. Decontamination is a
life-and-death demand for the people.

The intense contamination of the air, land and water has caused serious
health problems in Vieques, where the cancer rate is 26 percent higher
than in the rest of Puerto Rico and more likely to be fatal. The people
hold the demand for decontamination as a very high priority, since their
lives depend on it.

For years, while they organized actions to oust the military, they also
carefully planned for their future. They learned the lesson of Culebra,
a smaller sister island also used by the U.S. Navy where a struggle in
the 1970s kicked out the Pentagon. The people's militancy won, but they
made no plans for the disposition of the land. Today, regretfully,
Culebra is still very poor, still contaminated and its land in the hands
of speculators.

The Viequenses are making sure not to follow that path. They have
assembled panels of experts in every field to make sure that they are
part of the decision-making process that ultimately will revert clean
land to its rightful owners, the people of Vieques.

The U.S. government, of course, does not want them to have any role in
deciding their own future, and has included the Puerto Rican government
in the process merely as a diplomatic gesture, without yielding any
decision-making power to it.

The courageous people of Vieques have put up a relentless struggle
against the imperialist giant, showing once more the power of the people
united. In this new phase and challenge, it is crucial that the
progressive movement in the U.S. continue to support their struggle for
self-determination and independence.

- END -