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Para ver esta página en español, oprima aquí. Leaders Upset With GovernorCalderon Talks With BushBush Administration Supports Current Vieques AccordThompson Asked To Back Vieques StudiesGovernor Critical Of D.C.Practices Not ConditionedNavy Hires Sanes' Brother***** Leaders Upset That Calderon Did Not Talk To Bush About Vieques February 27, 2001 SAN JUAN (AP) - Several pro-Vieques leaders in Puerto Rico were disappointed with Gov. Sila Calderon because they said she wasted two opportunities to talk to President George W. Bush about the Vieques situation. Southern Vieques Fishermen Association President Carlos Ventura said the Viequenses expected the governor to bring news about Vieques and specifically about what is going to happen with the military maneuvers scheduled for March. "Many people wanted her to touch the Vieques situation and to bring news on Bush's position on Vieques - whether there will be some kind of change in the presidential directives on Vieques and whether there will be bombings in March," Ventura said. Puerto Rican Independence Party Sen. Fernando Martin criticized the governor for failing to show firmness in relation to the Vieques situation in Washington. "The decision to maintain the referendum law, to not file a bill regulating the sound and noise accepted by the Puerto Rico Environmental Quality Board, and to not file the case in the courts against the U.S. Navy projects weakness, and the U.S. knows how to read these messages," Martin said. He said because of her actions in Washington, the Navy and Bush know that Calderon "will not be a major obstacle if they decide to resume the bombing." He said the only way to avoid the resumption of bombing is to demonstrate that the governor and the government of Puerto Rico are willing to do whatever it takes to prevent the bombing from restarting, because that will not be achieved by only discussing the health issue, which he said is "very fragile." ***** Puerto Rican Governor Initiates Talks With Bush Jose A. Delgado February 26, 2001 Washington - Puerto Rican Gov. Sila Maria Calderon initiated talks with the White House Monday about her economic plan and announced that she will also discuss the U.S. Navy's controversial training exercises on the island of Vieques. Calderon said she spoke with U.S. President George W. Bush about her plan to increase incentives offered to U.S. manufacturers on the island. "He liked my general focus. We didn't get into the details of my (economic) plan, but he told me that his government would be willing to hear me and that we would speak in the future," Calderon told reporters. The governor will present her plan to offer new investment incentives to U.S. manufacturers in Puerto Rico. However, White House Office of Management and Budget director Mitch Daniels said Sunday that the new budget he will present to Bush this week will not include new incentives for U.S. corporations in Puerto Rico, but will rather remove benefits. Furthermore, Calderon noted that she chose not to discuss the Vieques issue directly with Bush during their talks because it is an issue that "I will bring up appropriately ... in the next few days." ***** Bush Administration Supports Current Vieques Accord February 26, 2001 SAN JUAN (AP) - White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card reiterated the Bush administration's support to the current accord on the U.S. Navy's practices in Vieques. "There is an accord and we respect the accord," Card said in published reports when asked whether Bush would be willing to renegotiate the agreement. The accord, signed between former President Bill Clinton and former Gov. Pedro Rossello, provides for the Navy's exit from Vieques by 2003, if Viequenses vote to that effect in a referendum this year. ***** Puerto Rico Gov. Asks U.S. Health Sec'y To Back Vieques Studies February 24, 2001 Washington, Feb 24 (EFE).- Puerto Rican Gov. Sila Calderon Saturday asked U.S. Health Secretary Tommy Thompson to support studies into possible links between U.S. Navy exercises on the island of Vieques and the high incidence of cancer among residents. Calderon revealed that she had appointed a special task force in Puerto Rico to expedite research into health problems on Vieques and that she has asked Thompson to instruct his department to formally collaborate in that inquiry. "I believe I have left the matter in good hands," she said after a brief discussion with the health secretary at the winter meeting of the U.S. Governors' Association in Washington. She said that she did not ask Thompson to request the White House or the Pentagon to delay resumption of military maneuvers until the results of the health studies are released. "It's up to me to make that request," said Calderon, who expects to meet President George W. Bush when she and her fellow governors visit the White House next Monday. ***** Calderon Critical Of Washington In N.Y. Speech February 23, 2001 New York, Feb 23 (EFE).- Puerto Rico governor Sila Maria Calderon, speaking at a forum in New York for Hispanic journalists, gave a fiery speech in which she harshly criticized the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Navy which maintains a base on Vieques . "The naval exercises on one side of Vieques and the bombings on the other have become intolerable for the inhabitants and must cease immediately," she affirmed. "We Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens, but above all and after all we are Puerto Ricans and it will be as Puerto Ricans that we die," she said in Spanish, which she mixed freely with English in her address to more than 200 guests at the annual banquet for the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and its Ruben Salazar Fund. The fund offers scholarships to Hispanic students studying journalism. "I am determined to put an end to the military maneuvers" by the U.S. Navy, that for sixty years have been controlling Vieques where "there is the lowest birth rate, where 50 percent of the inhabitants suffer from some type of pollution" due to the military maneuvers with live ammunition, "and where in every house there is someone sick with cancer. This is impossible!" she insisted. Besides Vieques - "which is a problem for Puerto Rico but also for the U.S. government and a human rights matter," another big challenge for her administration will be to generate "immediate solutions" to the unemployment problem. "Unemployment has a name and a last name, a face and a heart," and 60 percent of Puerto Ricans live below the poverty line, she stressed. But on her visit to Congress next week in Washington, the governor promised: "I won't ask for charity." ***** Navy Practices In Vieques Not Conditioned To Health Study February 23, 2001 SAN JUAN (AP) - U.S. Defense Department spokesman Douglas Spencer said plans to resume military practices of the U.S. Navy in Vieques are not conditioned on the results of a preliminary study into the health effects of the practices on residents. Meanwhile, Navy spokesman Brian Cullin said despite the fact that they will train in March in the Atlantic, "we haven't decided whether we will use the firing range" in Vieques. ***** U.S. Navy Hires David Sanes' Brother February 23, 2001 SAN JUAN (AP) - The U.S. Navy on Jan. 22 hired one brother of David Sanes Rodriguez, who was killed April 1999 by a bomb accidentally dropped in an observation post within the Vieques firing range. Enrique Sanes confirmed that he has been working at repairing fences in the Roosevelt Roads Base in Ceiba. Sanes, a retired public servant, said he accepted the post because he feels he is "a hundred percent American." He also said he didn't blame the Navy for his brother's death because it was an accident related to his duties. His 16 brothers and sisters have different opinions on whether the Navy should leave or stay on Vieques. "The oldest has my same opinion, but the young ones are against the Navy because they've been convinced by fishermen and a whole lot of lawyers who came to the house and brainwashed them. But they haven't been able to brainwash me," Sanes said in a radio interview. He also accused some Vieques leaders of profiting from his brother's death. Still, he agreed with the petition of another group of Viequenses, who work with the Navy, who asked the U.S. Congress to give the island self-government, apart from Puerto Rico, but still under U.S. sovereignty.
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