The Guns of May, the Sounds of Countrymen

By Tim Padgett/Vieques

Jose and Julio Rosa say they are just humble Puerto Rican fishermen. But the brothers know how to hook marlin-size political symbolism. Last Thursday, when they heard that 216 of their protesting compatriots were rounded up by U.S. federales for occupying the Navy bombing range on the small Puerto Rican island of Vieques, the brothers Rosa jumped into their 38-ft. lobster boat--aptly named Garata, or Quarrel. The two men, each in his 40s, headed for a Navy installation on mainland Puerto Rico. Their mission: to pick up the detained demonstrators who had been removed from Vieques after their arrest. The Rosas wanted to ferry them back to Vieques in proper triumph.

A few miles out, as they tied Puerto Rican flags to the bow and played cat and mouse with Coast Guard ships patrolling the channel, the Rosas saw more than 15 other Vieques fishing boats slicing through the translucent blue water to join them. "This is the Borinquen I want to see," said Jose, using the indigenous name for Puerto Rico. "We're learning to stand up for ourselves, for once."

Last week, for the second time in 13 days, Washington was forced into a standoff on America's tropical fringe. But while the Elian raid has torn Miami asunder, the Vieques episode could help Puerto Rico unify. For the past century, the island has been a U.S. commonwealth--a hybrid that gives its 4 million people many of the benefits of Yankee citizenship, such as U.S. military protection, but without the full burdens of citizenship, such as federal income taxes. It has also left them with a murky political identity, fractured among those who want independence, statehood or the status quo. Vieques, and the crusade to halt the bombing there, "marks the first time Puerto Ricans have formed a consensus on anything," says demonstrator Jose Antonio Rivera, 51, a music teacher. Puerto Rico's status won't change anytime soon, and the standoff was in many ways a radical-chic stunt by Puerto Rico's small pro-independence movement. But something has changed: now, Puerto Rico wants to speak more of its own mind.

Since the time of the Korean War, Vieques, an island of some 9,500 inhabitants, has been a prized military range. Recent studies, though, show that the bombing has hurled haunting levels of toxins into Vieques' air, water and fishing grounds--which some believe is why the cay has a 27% higher cancer rate than the main island. And because Vieques has some of the Caribbean's most exquisite beaches, locals complain that the Navy exercises have blighted tourism. Julio Rosa's sister Carmen, lost a breast to cancer a decade ago. (She lived a few miles downwind from the explosions.) He looks out from the helm of the Garata and says simply, "We have real-life issues here."

And there are death issues too. David Sanes was a close friend of Jose and Julio's; he played first base on their local baseball team. When Sanes, who worked as a security guard, was killed by a stray Navy bomb in April 1999, it galvanized Puerto Ricans--including U.S. Congressmen up in El Norte--whose protests shut down the Navy's Vieques operations for more than a year. Last January, Bill Clinton, who feels Puerto Rico's pain--especially now that Hillary needs the votes of New York's Puerto Rican emigres--made an agreement with the island's government. Puerto Rico would let the Navy stay until 2003, using only dummy bombs. In return, Puerto Rico would get, essentially, a bribe: some $40 million in additional Washington aid. But most Puerto Ricans tell pollsters they want the Navy out now. Indeed, Vieques residents may soon pass a referendum that could void the three-year pact. That is one reason why demonstrators persevered until they were peacefully herded off last week by Janet Reno's boys.

Many insisted they would return to protest. And some still defiantly wore their plastic handcuffs as they were ferried by fishermen back to the small island. They arrived to cheering crowds and celebratory flares. It's the kind of politics that Borinquen is learning to embrace.