MIAMI HERALD
Hard Lessons In
Vieques
October 20, 1999
Copyright © 1999 MIAMI HERALD. All Rights Reserved.
The special panel's report on
Vieques bombing this week is sure to please no one. And therein
lie the reasons why it should be accepted and implemented.
The report recommends that the Navy stop using the island
off Puerto Rico as a live-ordnance practice range -- but do so
after five years. In the meantime, the Navy should sharply curtail
bombing on the island and transfer the exercises to other locations,
the report says.
To critics of the practice, a phase-out isn't good enough.
Puerto Rico's governor demands an immediate halt to the bombing.
Activist groups are camping out on the range, setting themselves
as human targets to dissuade firing from Navy planes and ships.
President Clinton would do well to heed the panel's Solomonic
rationale -- the report notes that the Navy's 58 years on the
island have produced mixed results.
Undeniably, Vieques plays a crucial role in training U.S.
forces. Those exercises must be continued. But they should happen
elsewhere.
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THE ORLANDO SENTINEL
Another Slap At
Vieques
October 21, 1999
Copyright © 1999 THE ORLANDO SENTINEL.
All Rights Reserved.
A special presidential panel
has decided to slap Puerto Ricans in the face -- again. It recommended
this week that the United States Navy resume using live bombs
at a base on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques.
The panel's recommendation for the Navy to leave Vieques in
five years made sense. That would go a long way toward restoring
Puerto Ricans' faith, giving them a concrete time frame for getting
their island back.
But the panel's call to resume using real explosives suggested
no sensitivity, either for the dead or for the living aggrieved
by live-ammunition tests gone awry.
A better alternative would allow the Navy to continue tests,
using non-explosive ammunition, while preparing to withdraw in
five years. That would serve the Navy's training needs and provide
a date certain for the Navy to leave.
President Bill Clinton should make the moratorium on
live testing permanent and plan for the Navy to get out in five
years.
That would resolve the dispute and stop insulting Puerto Ricans.
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THE
PROVIDENCE JOURNAL
National Interest
Comes First
October 24, 1999
Copyright © 1999 THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL.
All Rights Reserved.
Many Puerto Ricans are demanding
that the Pentagon cease using government-owned property on the
island of Vieques as a live firing range for Navy and Marine
training exercises.
[W]e urge President Clinton to place the national interest
above understandable, but parochial, demands to close the range.
The firing range at Vieques is needed by the Pentagon. More
specifically, it's needed by service members trained there, who
are willing to risk their lives when sent into mortal combat
on orders from the President.
(Of course, if Puerto Rico someday decides to become an independent
nation perhaps the best long-term outcome for both the United
States and Puerto Rico Americans would gladly concede the need
to make other arrangements regarding American military training
sites.)
In June, President Clinton saw fit to appoint a four-member
panel of knowledgeable persons to examine the issue; on Oct.
18, it unanimously recommended maintaining the firing range in
Vieques.
Shouldn't the President listen to the basic point made by
the panel he himself appointed? Unfortunately, he might not.
The panel members could not ignore the obvious that Vieques is
needed but hedged the recommendation, which was to maintain Vieques
for now but to shut it down within five years.
Congress should demand that Vieques remain in operation until
a suitable alternative site is found, purchased and made ready
for appropriate training exercises.
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THE
WASHINGTON POST
The Pentagon and
Vieques
October 22, 1999
Copyright © 1999 THE WASHINGTON POST CO.
All Rights Reserved.
A PENTAGON-appointed panel,
the defense secretary and the president, pronouncing on the volatile
Vieques issue, urge the United States and Puerto Rico to continue
working to serve American military readiness on the one hand
and local safety, economic and environmental considerations on
the other. Well, yes: dialogue, compromise, work it out. But
the mismatch is painful. The U.S. government has the power, the
Puerto Ricans are left to protest.
The issue has generated intense nationalistic passion in Puerto
Rico , and a feeling of betrayal and no-confidence reigns.
Chairing a Vieques hearing Tuesday, Sen. John Warner said
that, doing their patriotic duty, his own constituents in Quantico
sit closer to an active live-fire range than do residents of
Vieques. But the senator failed to note that his constituents
command a powerful alternative device to ensure their safety.
They have a full role in the American political system; they
have Sen. John Warner. By contrast, the Americans who live in
Vieques cling to the fringe of the American system. They have
no voting or Senate representation. They lack a political status
-- statehood or independence -- that would give them a fair chance
to make their case.
The competing requirements of the American military and the
people of Vieques do need to be worked on harder. But the root
problem of modernizing a colonial connection now entering its
second century remains to be effectively addressed.
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CHICAGO
TRIBUNE
The Vieques Solution:
Buy It
October 22, 1999
Copyright © 1999 CHICAGO TRIBUNE.
All Rights Reserved.
There is an obvious answer to
the problems ostensibly posed by the U.S. Navy's use of the Puerto
Rican island of Vieques for live-fire exercises--so obvious that
it's clear the real issue must be other than what those protesting
the Navy's presence say it is.
The Navy controls about 22,000 of Vieques' 33,000 acres. The
obvious solution would be to buy the rest, something the Pentagon's
$267 billion budget ought to be able to handle. But purchasing
the island was not the recommendation of the presidential panel
that just finished studying what the Navy should do to satisfy
Puerto Rican protesters who claim the live-fire exercises pollute
the environment and endanger the lives of Vieques' 9,300 civilian
residents.
Instead, the panel urged that the Navy cut substantially the
number of days on which it conducts live-fire exercises and reduce
by half the amount of ammunition used. Do that right away, the
panel said, and close the range completely in five years.
But Puerto Ricans of all political stripes have said that's
not good enough. They want the range closed immediately.
Puerto Ricans who are sharply divided on other issues are
in agreement that the firing range must go. And it is evident
from the tenor of the debate on the issue that their concerns
are only secondarily about safety and the environment. Vieques
has become for them a cause, a defining issue, a rallying point.
An issue that achieves that emotional status generally is
immune to solution by rational means. Nevertheless, Secretary
of Defense William Cohen ought to give it a try: Make an offer;
try to buy the island.
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