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hands off vieques!
The resolution below was passed by the International Executive Committee of the Fourth International in February 2000.
We are profoundly troubled by the situation imposed on the people of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques due to the presence of the U.S. Navy and its activities on the island.
For the last fifty years, the U.S. Navy has occupied more than three quarters of the territory of Vieques. This they have done, not only without consulting the people of Vieques, but in fact, against the will of the people of both Vieques and the rest of Puerto Rico.
Since then, the U.S. Navy and its allies in NATO have used Vieques as a stage for military manoeuvres. For more than five decades the U.S. Navy has bombarded the waters and land of Vieques and has installed a huge arsenal on its territory.
This has had and still has terrible effects on the ecology, the health, the economic and cultural development and the archaeological heritage of the people of Vieques.
Vieques has no peace and the survival of its people is in danger.
However, Vieques has not resigned itself to its own disappearance. For decades, sectors of Puerto Rican society have resisted the presence of the Navy and its effects.
In April 1999, a Navy plane dropped two bombs which missed their target and caused the death of David Sanes, a resident of Vieques. His death has provoked an explosion of indignation among the Puerto Rican people.
Since that moment, the movement against the U.S. Navy presence has grown to include all the political, social, religous sectors, as well as the labor movement.
Hundreds of demonstrators have set up camps in the areas controlled by the Navy. Their presence there has made it impossible for the Navy to renew its bombing exercises.
The demonstrations have taken on such magnitude that the President of the U.S., William J. Clinton, has been forced to name a special commission to study the situation. The Navy persists in its intnetion to continue occupying Vieques.
Faced with this dramatic example of colonial imposition, militarism, misuse of resources, and disdain for human life and for nature, we express our full solidarity with the struggle of the people of Vieques for demilitarisation, the return of the land to the people, the clean-up of the environment, development and peace.
The struggle for Vieques is our struggle because this struggle is not just about Vieques. This is a struggle for the dignity of our peoples, for the self-determination of Caribbean nations, for the protection of the environment, for demilitarisation and to ensure that the material wealth generated by the people may be used for the benefit of the people.
We demand that the government of the USA and its military allies respect the will of the people of Vieques and Puerto Rico and turn over the lands in Vieques.
