Communist Web Friday 6th May 2000 9.30pm gmt No more bombs, peace for Vieques Special to the World VIEQUES, Puerto Rico - An Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO)/Pastors for Peace delegation is in Vieques to stand in solidarity with U.S. and Puerto Rican religious leaders in this U.S. military restricted area. They have been holding daily interreligious services, as U.S. Navy ships wait offshore intent upon forcefully removing more than 100 protestors encamped here. "We are not here to be arrested," said the religious leaders. "We are here to prevent the resumption of U.S. military bombing. But if the U.S. Marshals come, we are willing to be arrested ..." IFCO/Pastors for Peace, a 30-year-old ecumenical agency with a history of community involvement in the U.S. and abroad, is staying in the Evangelical Obedience encampment, organized by the Evangelical Council of Puerto Rico. The Evangelical Obedience encampment is one of 13 peaceful civil disobedience encampments located within the U.S. military restricted zone. For 60 years activists and clergy have been calling for the removal of the U.S. Navy from Vieques. The struggle was rekindled in April 1999 when civilian security guard David Sanes Rodriguez was killed by an errant bomb dropped by a U.S. warplane during a training exercise. The encampments were organized as a sign of protest. "The delegation's witness affirms our solidarity with the heroic determination of the Puerto Rican people and their leaders in the call for 'not one more bomb, not one more bullet,'" said IFCO staff person Corrine Kohut who is the leader of the delegation, which consists of clergy, city government officials and community leaders from several U.S. cities. The delegation arrived in Vieques April 29 and have visited the other encampments and traveled throughout the target range area, which is littered with un-exploded bombs, bullet ridden targets, and contaminated vegetation. Rev. Lucius Walker, executive director of IFCO/Pastors for Peace, said, "IFCO is very concerned about how the Justice Department is going to intervene here in Vieques. All the encampments are committed to peaceful civil disobedience. If anyone should be arrested here it should be the Navy for continuing to practice bombing in a populated community that has suffered the physical, ecological and emotional effects of living in a war zone." The IFCO/Pastors for Peace delegation will stay in the restricted zone through this week and plans to organize other delegations to Vieques to support the Puerto Rican people's demand that the U.S. Navy leave the island immediately and make restorations to the ecologically damaged island. What you can do: Call: Jeffery Farrow, White House aide on Puerto Rican affairs: (202) 456-2896; fax. 456-2889 Janet Reno, attorney general: (202) 514-2001; fax: 307-6777 President Clinton: (202) 456-1111; fax: 456-2461 Demand that they not remove peaceful protestors from the restricted zone. Remind them that the people of Puerto Rico, and millions in the United States and... http://www.billkath.demon.co.uk/cw/nomorebombs/nomorebombs.html
