wfn.org | NCCCUSA Human Rights Award to Vieques, Puerto Rico

[CAROL_FOUKE.parti@ecunet.org (CAROL FOUKE)]

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.
Internet: news@ncccusa.org

Contact: Wendy McDowell, NCC, 212-870-2227
  PHOTOS AVAILABLE!

3NCC1/7/99

"MAURICIO AMILCAR LOPEZ" AWARD TO PEOPLE OF VIEQUES, 
PUERTO RICO, HIGHLIGHTS NEED TO DEPOLITICIZE HUMAN RIGHTS 
STRUGGLES
Church Leaders Draw Attention to Decades-Long "David and 
Goliath" Story

By Wendy McDowell

Daily life for the fishing community whose home is 
Puerto Rico's balmy Vieques island usually is punctuated 
by the whir of helicopters and the explosion of shells -- 
launched by U.S. Navy ships and planes conducting 
military exercises that have used the island for target 
practice over the past 50 years.

But Vieques, a 30-minute flight southeast from San 
Juan, was uncharacteristically quiet on December 17, the 
day an international group sponsored by the National 
Council of Churches presented a human rights award 
honoring the decades-long struggle against the U.S. Navy 
occupation of some four-fifths of the island's 33,000 
acres.

Islanders speculated that the lull in the usual 
cacaphony was due to the U.S. strikes against Iraq, 
pulling the Navy from its exercises to engage in the real 
thing.  They noted the irony that it takes a war 
somewhere else to allow a moment of peace and quiet in 
their own land.

 "We heard they were preparing for the Gulf, so it 
was very busy, then all at once it became quiet," said 
Radames Tirado, a former mayor of Vieques.  He is the 
brother of "Lula" Tirado, whom the NCC honored 
posthumously for her part in the struggle to persuade the 
U.S. Navy to leave Vieques.  "We do not get many days of 
quiet here."

 "The people of Vieques have not known a lasting 
peace since 1940," when the U.S. began to use the island 
for military exercises and test shellings, explained the 
Rev. Dr. Rodney Page, NCC Associate General Secretary and 
Executive Director of Church World Service and Witness, 
New York, who was part of the delegation.

Decades of military exercises have left thousands of 
craters and cracked houses and disrupted the local 
fishing industry.  "Locals like to say that Vieques has 
more craters than the moon," said the Rev. Oscar Bolioli, 
Director of the NCC's Latin American and the Caribbean 
Office, New York.

Struggle is "David and Goliath" Story

 Fishers and other inhabitants of the island began 
organizing in the late 1960s and `70s to get the U.S. 
Navy to withdraw, employing tactics like placing their 
small, fragile boats in the path of warships and lining 
the shore with a human chain so that the ships could not 
land.  Many protesters were arrested and there were 
reports of police brutality.  A young man, Angel 
Rodriguez Cristobal, died in prison, further galvanizing 
the movement.

 "My first image of Vieques was a newspaper picture 
showing a fisherman with a bow and arrow shooting at a 
monstrous navy boat," said Bishop Rafael Malpica Padilla, 
Chairperson of the NCC's Committee on the Caribbean and 
Latin America (CCLA).  He is the Latin America and 
Caribbean Director for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in 
America in Chicago.  "That image has always reminded me 
of the biblical story of David fighting Goliath."

It is because of the "David vs. Goliath" nature of 
the story that the NCC granted the award to the people of 
Vieques.  

The award is named for Mauricio Lopez, a professor 
and ecumenical leader from Buenos Aires.  "He became a 
martyr of the ecumenical movement in the region after he 
was kidnapped and assassinated by a military commando in 
Argentina in 1977," Rev. Bolioli said.  "It seemed only 
fitting to honor a group of fishermen and local people 
who have confronted a big power in a nonviolent way in 
order to defend their livelihood and their natural 
resources."

"Four people were chosen who represent all the 
people of Vieques," Rev. Bolioli said: Ismael Guadalupe, 
longtime activist; Carlos Zenon and Carlos Ventura, past 
and present representatives of fishermens' organizations, 
and Luz Delia Tirado ("Lula"), from the Vieques Women's 
Sector (Posthumous Award - she died of cancer this past 
year). 

The NCC's CCLA created the Mauricio Amilcar Lopez 
Human Rights Award in 1995 to recognize people carrying 
out exceptional work for justice in Latin America and the 
Caribbean.  Dr. Carlos Reina, Former President of 
Honduras and current President of the Central American 
Parliament was the first recipient in 1996 and attended 
this year's celebration.  Argentine Methodist Bishop 
Federico Pagura was the 1997 recipient.

Church Leaders Stress Need to Depoliticize Human Rights

"The CCLA chose to recognize the people of Vieques 
this particular year because this is the centennial of 
the U.S. invasion in Puerto Rico," said Bishop Padilla.  
Yet the church leaders repeatedly stated that they do not 
wish to intervene in the internal politics of Puerto 
Rico, but only to highlight the strong case of the people 
of Vieques.

"Although there is always the tendency to make this 
cause a political act, for those of us conferring the 
award, a group which includes pastors and church members, 
the struggle of the people of Vieques is a human rights 
struggle," Bishop Padilla said.  "It is a struggle for 
the dignity of the people, for people's control over 
their own economic and social growth so they can have 
better health and education."

 The need to depoliticize this and all struggles for 
human rights was echoed again and again in the awards 
ceremony and worship services which took place December 
16 and 17 in San Juan and on Vieques.

 Bishop Francisco Sosa of the ELCA's Caribbean Synod, 
who has a church in San Juan, stressed in a sermon that 
taking a stand for the people of Vieques is a Christian 
act.  "It is not a political act, but an act of peace and 
justice to support our brothers and sisters in Vieques," 
he said.  "Every human being must face God's judgment.  
We must speak out for those who are oppressed and 
tortured and speak to those who oppress and give them a 
chance to repent."

"The problem here in Puerto Rico is that speaking 
out at all automatically pits you against the 
government," explained Bishop David Alvarez, Episcopal 
Church, San Juan.  He explained that every statement is 
immediately analyzed in terms of where the speaker stands 
on the status of Puerto Rico.

The issue was particularly conspicuous the week this 
award was given, since it was only days earlier that 
Puerto Ricans cast ballots in a U.S.-backed plebiscite 
about the future of the commonwealth.  Although the Dec. 
13 plebiscite was non-binding, U.S. and Puerto Rican 
politicians were said to be keeping a close eye on the 
outcome, which resulted in a majority opting for the 
"none of the above" category.  There were five choices on 
the ballot: remaining a commonwealth, becoming a state, 
becoming a free associated state, becoming an independent 
nation, and none of the above.

 Political analysts have interpreted this result in a 
number of ways, but Bishop Alvarez said many people 
believe it was a statement that the plebiscite was poorly 
timed, taking place so soon after Hurricane Georges.

In the case of Vieques, Bishop Alvarez said, whether 
Puerto Rico is a U.S. state, commonwealth or independent 
nation should not be the issue.  "No matter what the 
status of Puerto Rico, what has happened and continues to 
happen to the people of Vieques should not be allowed to 
occur," he stressed.

 "We are all political people," Bishop Alvarez 
further explained,  "so I do not mean that the church or 
its members should be beyond politics.  But the church 
needs to speak from a place that is beyond partisanship."  
The awardees, all lifelong residents of Vieques, 
concurred.  "Party politics have been the cause of so 
much pain in Vieques," said Mr. Tirado. 

 "The struggle itself has lost a lot of steam and its 
best ideas because of partisan politics," said Carlos 
Zenon, former President of the Fishermens' Association 
who was one of the leaders of the struggle in the `70s. 

 "Our struggle is not a political struggle, but one 
for dignity," said Ismael Guadalupe of the Rescue and 
Development Committee for Vieques, one of the stalwart 
activists on the island.  "It has become a crime to 
breathe our own air because it is not our own anymore.  
People get cancer at a higher rate" than do residents of 
mainland Puerto Rico.  "The army has marched into 
civilian areas and killed people.  Meanwhile, the Puerto 
Rican government has used Vieques as a cornerstone of 
(U.S.) government projects."
 
 Likewise, Bishop Alvarez said, people do not have to 
be pro-independence to support the rights of Puerto Rican 
political prisoners who have been unfairly or 
disproportionately detained.  "There are 16 Puerto Rican 
political prisoners in the U.S. who have been detained 
for longer periods than others for the same crimes and 
have received longer probations," he said.  "This is also 
a human rights issue."

 Church leaders and Vieques residents said they look 
for a time when human rights will drive politics and not 
vice versa.  "Unfortunately, human rights always gets 
mixed with politics," said Dr. Reina.  "I believe for the 
next millennium, the standard for all leaders should be 
someone who believes in justice." 

Recipients Hope Award Will Reinvigorate Struggle

 According to awardees, the struggle in Vieques was 
alive and well into the 1980s and has only flagged since 
Hurricane Hugo devastated the island in 1989 and 
attention turned to rebuilding.  "Hurricane Hugo revealed 
the underlying poverty in Vieques, just as Hurricane 
Mitch is doing in Honduras and Nicaragua," said Rev. 
Bolioli.  About 70 percent of Vieques' 8,200 inhabitants 
live under the poverty level and 50 percent are jobless, 
he reported.

 But the awardees expressed the hope that the NCC's 
award will reinvigorate the struggle.  "I hope in the 
next millennium, thanks to this award, people will know 
that Vieques can be free," said Ismael Guadalupe.

 "This award will recharge the people of Vieques," 
said Mr. Zenon.  "Their memories have nothing to do with 
party politics.  This is a struggle of the people."  Said 
Carlos Ventura, leader of the Vieques Fishermen's Rights 
Committee, "This award will uplift the people who have 
been tortured throughout the years." 

 For their part, the church leaders visiting agreed 
to bring the story back to their own lands.  "This will 
make an echo in the churches of the NCC and the people of 
the Caribbean," said Rev. Moises Rosas, General Secretary 
of the Evangelical Council of Churches of Puerto Rico, 
San Juan.  "This is a struggle for all of Puerto Rico and 
for all of Latin America."

Dr. Reina said he had not known the story of Vieques 
before this trip, but promised to bring it back to 
Honduras.  "We must continue to proclaim this struggle so 
that the whole world will know the experience of the 
people of Vieques," he said.

 Attorney Noemi Espinoza from Honduras, Vice-
Chairperson of the CCLA, stressed the role of women in 
the Vieques struggle and said she would keep the story in 
her heart and share it as she goes about ministering to 
the tragedy in her own country wrought by Hurricane 
Mitch.

 Other participants in the two days of celebration 
included: Rev. Felix Ortiz, Christian Church (Disciples 
of Christ), Puerto Rico; Bishop Juan Vera Mendez, United 
Methodist Church, Puerto Rico; and Mrs. Wanda Colon, 
Coordinator for the Caribbean Project on Justice and 
Peace, based in San Juan.

 At least two of the award recipients said they 
planned to bequeath the awards - each received a plaque 
and a cross made of Honduran wood -- to the Fuerte Conde 
de Mirasol Museum in Vieques so that all the people of 
the island, especially youth, could see it.

In the museum, where the awards ceremony was held, 
there was an exhibit by artist Juan Angel Silva, who was 
born and grew up on the island of Vieques.  The visiting 
church leaders and awardees alike were drawn to his 
paintings, many which take on political subjects.

At one point, several people were gathered around 
one allegorical painting which shows a blindfolded man 
perilously poised on a tightrope between two sides 
representing Puerto Rican statehood and independence.  
Everyone uttered sounds of recognition and resonance.

The people of Vieques know this tightrope well, but 
continue to hope for a time when they can walk on solid 
ground again, free of craters in their earth, military 
planes in their sky, and warships in their sea.  They 
pray for a day when they will not have to feel guiltily 
relieved because a war somewhere else has granted them a 
temporary peace.

-end-
 -0-