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Calderón's election and hardline stance has won nothing from President Bush, but a few post-inaugural crumbs.
Related Gully Coverage
Calderón Hangs Tough... For Now
Puerto Rico at the Crossroads
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Out of Her Depth? by Toby Eglund
Since bombing resumed Friday, more than 138 protesters have been carted off, including U.S. Representative Luis Gutierrez of Illinois, members of the Puerto Rican Senate, and the mayor of Vieques.
Candidate Calderón As San Juan Mayor, and candidate, she scored big points with voters at the White House meeting when Clinton was attempting to make a deal with then-Governor Pedro Roselló to allow bombing in exchange for development funds. She was reportedly the only opponent, telling the President, 'Our vote is not for sale.' The quotable quote was a real crowd-pleaser. She was also at the ready for cameras last year when the FBI ousted the encampments of anti-Navy protesters set up after Puerto Rican civilian David Sanes was killed by an errant Navy bomb on April 19, 1999, extolling how the "dignity and prudence" of the protesters showed the entire world how the peaceful people of Puerto Rico loved "freedom and democracy."
Governor Calderón On March 2, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld promised Governor Calderón to suspend the Navy bombings for a few weeks until the U.S. Department of Health could review a new local health study showing that Vieques residents have a high rate of heart abnormalities caused by noise from the Navy's practice bombs. But two weeks ago, the Pentagon unsurprisingly dismissed the health study, and said the more pressing issue was military readiness. A federal court dealt Calderón a further blow by refusing to issue a restraining order. The judge, Gladys Kessler, said health concerns should be explored more fully, and a hearing is scheduled for next month, but a legal victory is as likely as a George Bush signature on the Kyoto Treaty.
The Opposition Others, already wary of her party's support for a pro-U.S. Associated Commonwealth status for Puerto Rico, will denounce her as a traitor if she moves one conciliatory inch towards the colonialist power, especially if she has to break a campaign promise and call in Puerto Rican cops to quell protesters. Calderón shouldn't have been caught by surprise. Figuring out how to square the circle between the nationalism which suffuses both the right and the left in Puerto Rico, with the real politick needed to cope with the mainland giant to the north, has been the eternal conundrum of all Puerto Rican governors since the time of Muñoz Marín, who is alternately hailed as savior and derided as a traitor. Supporters say Muñoz Marín, the first elected governor of the island, by cutting a commonwealth deal with the U.S. in 1951, saved the island from Haiti-like poverty or a Cuban revolution. Detractors say what he cut was the legs out from under the nationalist movement (with some help from the FBI), setting a trend of repeated capitulation to American colonialism, which according to Farrique Pesquera, an independence advocate, has destroyed Puerto Rico's self-esteem. Puerto Ricans "have been brainwashed to think that they can't survive without America, that all our air comes from the north," he told the New York Times.
Rising Emotions And as emotions rise on both sides, so does the likelihood of a serious accident, if not a deliberate disaster. The Navy military police at Camp García has fired pellet-bags at demonstrators, injuring a woman, a baby, and Vieques' Catholic priest. Protesters report that on Friday, during a religious service, tear gas was sprayed without warning. A sailor and two demonstrators were injured in violent confrontations that day. On the main island of Puerto Rico on Thursday, anti-Navy protesters roughed up a U.S. Army recruiter near his office in Aguadilla on the west coast. On Saturday, a police bomb squad detonated an explosive device found at a U.S. post office in north coast Arecibo, authorities said. On the walls of the post office someone painted one word, "Vieques."
On the other hand, the death of any Navy personnel may bring violent reprisals from the U.S. government, and a level of repression not seen in Puerto Rico since the seventies.
End Game And no way through the morass can be found without confronting the monster at the center of the maze, the United States, which holds out the promises of wealth, democracy, and safety. Related links: For Vieques: Bombs Have Killed Many Civilians. For up-to-the-minute info on Vieques protests go to Vieques Libre. For the U.S. Navy's viewpoint regarding Vieques.
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