STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- ListBot Sponsor -------------------------- Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [Via Communist Internet... http://www.egroups.com/group/Communist-Internet ] . . ----- Original Message ----- From: Downwithcapitalism <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2001 12:55 AM Subject: [downwithcapitalism] Vieques: activism works Associated Press. 19 June 2001. Vieques Protesters Credit Tactics. VIEQUES -- Some sneak onto the bombing range by boat. Others don camouflage and use the cover of night to cut through fences. The idea is to halt bombing practice on Vieques island and being arrested is part of the deal, even for the nephew of President Kennedy and the wife of the Rev. Jesse Jackson. "We are not violent criminals even though we have endured the act of shackles and have been treated as common criminals," an indignant Jacqueline Jackson told a federal judge Tuesday. She was jailed because she refused to pay $3,000 bail. Activists working to end the U.S. Navy's six decades of bombing exercises on Vieques claim their peaceful guerrilla tactics succeeded in repeatedly pausing the military maneuvers and contributed to President Bush's surprise announcement last week that the Navy must withdraw in two years. "The people of Vieques have defeated the most powerful military apparatus in the history of humanity," activist leader Robert Rabin said Tuesday. Another protest leader, Ismael Guadalupe, said the Navy wasn't bombing Tuesday because protesters were on its prized firing range -- a claim the Navy quickly disputed. "Our courage has turned Vieques into a world stage of peaceful protest," Guadalupe said. On Monday, as Navy jets dropped dummy bombs, Jackson walked through a quarter-mile of thick underbrush and woods to breach a Navy fence. She was arrested soon afterward. Protesters say they want to reach the 900-acre beachside bombing range that is on 12,000 acres the Navy owns on the eastern end of the island. The Navy land is protected by a nine-mile arc of fencing that is regularly cut and then repaired. Seven protesters were arrested near the firing range Monday night, said Navy spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Katherine Goode. She said they were caught after they launched several flares, an hour before the Navy began its bombing runs. Protesters use flares to alert the Navy to their presence, and then retreat to avoid arrest, said Luis Angel Torres, a spokesman for the Socialist Movement of Workers. More Navy exercises were scheduled for Tuesday. But Goode said they had not started by late afternoon because fighter jets were performing defensive maneuvers. Vieques Commissioner Juan Fernandez, who observes the exercises for the Puerto Rican government, said the maneuvers were delayed as Navy security rounded up activists. * * * * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
