> Dispute over Vieques is personal
>
> Ivan Roman
> San Juan Bureau
>
> Published in The Orlando Sentinel on Dec 13, 1999, 12:00AM.
>
> VIEQUES, Puerto Rico -- It was close to dawn and Emma Nieves,
> between songs and chants, stared down the military police on the other
> side of the main gate of Camp Garcia, as she had done all night.
>
> She was one of a handful of protesters from the crowd the previous
> evening, keeping up the vigil at the gate they had locked with chains and
> tension cables. Miles behind the checkpoint was the U.S. Navy target
> range, the focus of much negotiation, confrontation and anger since
> April.
>
> "Would you like a little [uranium] for breakfast?" she yelled at the eight
> men in camouflage fatigues and the attack dog resting with them. "A
> little napalm, perhaps? We have a lot here in Vieques. We can sprinkle
> some on your cereal."
>
> She was only half facetious, given the napalm and the bullets coated with
> depleted uranium the U.S. Navy and Marines dumped on the range's
> beaches and hills.
>
> For her, the Vieques dispute is personal, not just a confrontation
> between the Governor's Mansion and the White House.
>
> She pushed away another protester who wanted to calm her, who wished
> to avoid provoking the military police, saying it hurt their cause -- to get
> the U.S. Navy out of Vieques for good.
>
> "Leave me alone," she screamed. "They are killing my grandchildren
> and I'm going to say it."
>
> Nieves, 53, has had a lot of pent-up anger for a long time. Her
> grandmother was forced to leave Vieques when her mother was a child.
> They lived on the western part of the island-municipality expropriated
> by the Navy that now holds munitions.
>
> Her family spent decades in the United States. Nieves saw a television
> special by Geraldo Rivera in 1976 about Vieques that made her pack her
> bags and return to her grandmother's homeland.
>
> She lived with a fisherman and adopted fishing as her occupation. She
> saw dead fish floating in the sea after scores of bombs hit the water in
> each military exercise. She supported the fishermen when they defied
> orders not to cross into the target zone and she threw rocks at the Navy
> ships.
>
> So when security guard David Sanes Rodriguez was killed by a
> wayward bomb April 19 and subsequent hearings revealed the Navy had
> used napalm and bullets with depleted uranium, her rage was beyond
> words. Vieques has a high rate of cancer, although no studies have yet
> determined if the bombing exercises are the cause.
>
> "They are not going to drop any more chemicals on my family and my
> grandchildren and they are not going to rape Vieques any more. No
> more," she said. "And if the Puerto Rico government doesn't support us,
> then we'll fight them alone."
>
> Rafael Vega Gonzalez, also in tears, hugged Nieves.
>
> "I'm home. I'm home," said Vega, 60, who moved back to his native
> town of Corozal to retire after living in the United States since he was a
> child. For him, the Vieques situation is part of a larger Puerto Rican
> experience in which families were pushed off the island by economic
> forces created by the United States.
>
> "I came back to spend what's left of my life in my homeland," Vega
> said. "They're the ones who have to leave now. When I was in the U.S.,
> they used to tell me 'Go home!' Now they're the ones who have to go."
>
> For Nieves and Vega, the protest is about children. Vega blames history
> for his children being far away in the United States. Nieves' concern is
> closer to home. Her 2-year-old grandson and 6-year-old granddaughter
> in Vieques know she's protesting, although they may not understand
> why.
>
> Nieves broke from Vega's embrace and turned to the military police
> officer videotaping protesters.
>
> "We wouldn't do that to you, what you're doing to our children!" she
> yelled.
>
> Posted Dec 12 1999 7:27PM