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Vieques Support Campaign http://palfrente.tripod.com E-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] ______________________________________________________ NO TO RACISM & IMPERIALIST WAR! U.S. NAVY OUT OF VIEQUES & ALL OF PUERTO RICO! ______________________________________________________ The U.S. Navy resumed its bombing target practice in Vieques, Puerto Rico, on Monday, April 1, 2002. five women from the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP) were arrested as they attempted to enter the restricted military bombing range to protest U.S. military war rehearsals. Among them was Lourdes Maria Santiago, Vice-President of the PIP. A group of pro-U.S., pro-statehood advocates from a right-wing organization named �Estado 51� (51st State) attempted to block Vieques residents from entering and leaving the Peace and Justice Camp � a symbolic center of protest in Vieques. These thugs carried a huge U.S. flag as they provocatively shouted to Vieques residents that they were �not Puerto Rican but Americans.� The people at the Peace and Justice Camp forcibly removed them after a scuffle. Nilda Medina, of the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques said that �the people nearly lynched these pro-statehooders.� Military planes flew over Vieques all day trying to intimidate the people with coast guard ships coming close to beaches. U.S. Naval artillery bombings resumed in later afternoon. The Luisa Guadalupe Camp, another center of protest in Vieques, was brutally tear-gased as one woman was shot and wounded with a rubber bullet by Puerto Rico�s colonial police. Juan Fernandez, the Commissioner of Vieques was denied entry this morning to Camp Garcia where he is supposed to observe the Navy during the bombings. Solidarity messages were recieved in Vieques at the Peace and Justice Camp via internet and telegrams from Japan, England, Korea, Peru, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia and the Dominican Republic, among others. These messages all expressed their solidarity and announced demonstrations at the U.S. Embassies in their respective countries. In New York City, in a militant display, over 200 people, Puerto Ricans and their allies, protested the U.S. Navy bombing at the Federal Affairs Office of the Common Wealth of Puerto Rico at a demonstration called by the Vieques Support Campaign. Warm solidarity messages were made by representatives of the Palestinian and African American struggles. The resumption of U.S. Navy bombings in Vieques, despite repeated disapproval by the native inhabitants of the island, who attribute the severe cancer epidemic among the population to US. Military activities, points to the arrogance of U.S. colonial domination in Puerto Rico. And being that it is the U.S. government that supplies the criminal Israeli state with the weapons used for murdering Palestinian people, one does not need to guess the extent of barbarity U.S. colonial rulers are willing to exercise in order to safeguard their rule in Puerto Rico. But the human spirit to resist oppression and engage in continued struggle for freedom is unbreakable, as demonstrated by the determination of the people in Vieques & all of Puerto Rico, Palestine and everywhere in the world where U.S. imperialism causes oppression. It is precisely the peoples� struggle that can guarantee an end to wars, the U.S. Navy bombings in Vieques and mark the eventual doom of this global oppressive system.
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