5/05/00 11:35 a.m.
Dateline: Vieques, Puerto Rico
A Case Study in Clintonism.

By Jim Boulet, Jr., Executive Director, English First

ational security always plays second fiddle to politics in the Clinton-Gore Administration. The Administration’s approach to continued Navy training on the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico, is but another reminder of this sad truth..

American troops have trained in Vieques since World War II. The Navy purchased the land at market rates at the time and has trained there ever since. The Navy’s training range is worth considerably more these days, especially if the Navy could be expelled and the land sold for resort hotels and gambling casinos.

The accidental death of a Puerto Rican civilian, employed by the Navy as a security guard, during an American live-fire exercise on Vieques on April 19, 1999, moved Puerto Rico to the front burner of the Clinton-Gore White House.

Anything that was a concern in Puerto Rico was likely to become a big concern to Bill Clinton for two reasons: (1) Governor Rossello is an official in Al Gore’s presidential campaign and (2) Hillary Clinton needs lots of Puerto Rican votes in her N.Y. Senate race. (Both Al Gore and Hillary Clinton have called for withdrawal of the U.S. Navy from Vieques.)

Puerto Rico Politicians Agree: U.S. Out of Vieques
The Clinton Administration’s first offer, to close the bases after five years, was publicly rejected during an Armed Services Committee hearing on October 19th. Puerto Rico’s politicians of all three major parties (Statehood, Independence, and Commonwealth) demanded that the Navy leave immediately. Even the island’s supposedly pro-statehood governor played the nationalist card to the hilt.

Rossello flatly stated that "not one more bomb" could be dropped. When he was asked directly, by Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), about his willingness to remove the protesters from Navy’s firing range, the following exchange took place:

ROSSELLO: It's a federal law. It's the federal government that has to act if it wants to act. Sometimes it is not wise to act. And all I'm saying is, I'm giving you what I think is good advice. Don't push it. . .

INHOFE: Let me give, also, some good advice, since he's giving me advice, Mr. Chairman. Let me give you advice, Governor. You have people down there, because I've seen them, I've seen them walking around playing with live ordinances that have been there for some 57 years some of them. Someone's going to die doing that. Very likely that could happen. And my advice to you is to say something, something discouraging to this type of trespassing or that blood will be on your hands. That's my advice.

ROSSELLO: Somebody has already died, Mr. Senator.

WARNER: All right, we understand.

ROSSELLO: If the bombings continue then the blood will be on your hands.

Inhofe and other pro-military Republicans attempted, without success, to allow the Navy to resume its training through various legislative efforts during the remainder of 1999. Meanwhile, Rossello even asked the United Nations to "support [Puerto Rico’s] inclusion in the list of U.N. colonial territories and to withdraw the U.S. Navy from the Puerto Rican island of Vieques." Rossello sought support from Communist Cuba for this project, prompting this comment from a statehood supporter:

Imagine the governor of Tennessee or California suggesting that maybe Fidel Castro could help out with a dispute between his state and Washington.

Vieques: Crown Jewel of U.S. Military Readiness
President Clinton’s ability to simply give away Vieques ran into a snag. The U.S. Navy has flatly stated that the training facilities on the island of Vieques are irreplaceable. The island is the only place in the Western Hemisphere where the U.S. Navy and Marines can receive needed combined live-fire training prior to being sent into harm’s way.

Christopher M. Lehman, who served as a national-security aide to President Reagan, fired a major warning shot across the Administration’s bow in a December 17th op-ed in the Washington Times. Lehman argued that should President Clinton effectively surrender Vieques, high-profile resignations from, say, the chief of naval operations and the commandant of the Marine Corps should follow. Lehman was not the only person talking this way.

Governor Rossello himself reportedly alluded to the resignation option, according to a January article in El Nuevo Dia, Puerto Rico’s largest newspaper. Rossello darkly hinted that President Clinton was confronted with a mutiny: "The governor . . . accused the Naval military high command of sabotaging the President’s desires on Vieques."

Faced with a collision course between domestic politics and national security, the Clinton Administration held many January meetings. The subject of Vieques (and Puerto Rico statehood efforts) were the subject of a January National Security Council meeting, according to the President of Puerto Rico’s Senate, Charlie Rodriguez. The President’s Council of Economic Advisers and the President's Domestic Policy Council also met on the issue.

On January 31, Governor Rossello and President Clinton made an agreement on Vieques, in which the United States made several guarantees and Puerto Rico offered a few easily broken promises.

President Clinton agreed to hand over $90 million in cash, and land worth at least $180 million, to Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico’s part of the bargain was considerably more limited. They need only allow a vote on continued Navy training at its base on Vieques. Puerto Rico also agreed not to "initiate litigation that would constrain use of the range" and to "provid[e] complementary support" should Federal officials wish to remove any protesters from the range.

Today, the Administration did clear the training range of protesters, with some limited help from Puerto Rico. That looks like the only promise that Puerto Rico will keep.

And Puerto Rico no longer needs to initiate litigation. On April 18th, Robert Kennedy Jr. of the Natural Resources Defense Council announced a lawsuit against the Navy over further training on Vieques.

What this means is that even if Congress pays Puerto Rico the money, and even if the Navy wins the referendum in Vieques, further military training on Vieques will continue to be a matter for U.S. courts.

Vieques and the Statehood Question
During the 1998 debate on Puerto Rico statehood, statehood backers proclaimed that the "pro-American, conservative people of Puerto Rico" would be "another Oklahoma."

Is this true? Let’s compare. In Fort Sill, Oklahoma, live-fire military training takes place 320 days per year 1.2 miles from nearby Lawton, home to roughly 100,000 people. In Vieques, live-fire training takes place 180 days per year, 9.7 miles from the island’s population of 9,300 people. (The Puerto Rican National Guard trains at Fort Sill.)

One training range is the subject of demonstrations, sit-ins and visits from Jesse Jackson. Hint: It isn’t the one in Oklahoma.

These days, the only American flag being waved in Puerto Rico had skulls replacing the 50 stars. On July 4th, San Juan Star columnist Maximo Cerame Vivas wrote: "Today, in Puerto Rico, we celebrate the anti-Fourth of July, anti-Roosevelt Roads, anti-Navy, anti-USA."

Statehood politicians have spent millions attempting to win statehood for their island and the increased federal benefits statehood would bring. The latest news from Puerto Rico, of American flags being booed and 80,000 protesters marching against the Navy are, in Washington-speak, a major public-relations problem.

Vieques is a reminder that the motto of a 51st state of Puerto Rico might as well be "Yankee go home."