Smithsonian Vieques article

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

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The following is the abstract of an article by Shane Dubow in the January,
2004 edition of Smithsonian. For information on obtaining the entire
article, go to
http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issues04/jan04/vieques.html

Vieques on the Verge

The Navy is gone; the bombing has stopped. What happens to Puerto Rico's
Vieques now?

The Puerto Rican island of Vieques stretches out like some outsize
plantain, all lush green on the west end where the U.S. Navy stored bombs
until 2001, all crater-pocked and yellowed on the east end where, until
February 2003, it practiced exploding them. And in between, the speckled
clusters of two small beach towns, Isabel Segunda and Esperanza, are
linked by a few lonely roads. To the north lie the outbuilding of the
island's first big resort--the Wyndham Martineau Bay Resort and Spa--now
open after four years of delays. And all around, in bodegas and cantinas,
villas and casitas, hammocks and beach chairs and benches in the shade,
we've heard people call Vieques a place on the verge. But on the verge of
what? The only consensus we've found, after many days of driving around,
is that each person's views on Vieques' future seem to depend on where
that person sits.

In the 1940s, U.S. control of the Caribbean was thought to be essential
for the purposes of training American troops. And Vieques, as part of
America's Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, afforded the perfect solution. Over
the ensuing decades, various groups of Vieques would gather to protest
what was sometimes called the Navy's "colonial occupation," but it wasn't
until the death of a civilian security guard at an observation post
overlooking the bombing range in 1999 that the Navy's presence prompted
attention from stateside observers. Demonstrations followed and after more
than 60 years of occupation, the Navy abandoned its bombing range, leaving
behind a trail of contamination and shell-shocked residents pondering the
future of their island home. With the Navy's departure and the opening of
the resort, there is hope that together these events will spur new tourism
and development without destroying the sleepy frontier life that so many
people came looking for in the first place. As Charlie Connelly, Vieques
Times publisher, concludes, "Until we can get the Navy to clean this place
up, we'll just have to keep an eye on Martineau Bay, see how it goes over
there, because as far as future developments, that will set the stage."

--
Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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