wfn.org | End Vieques Bombing, Don't Relocate It: Ecumenical Leaders

[carolf@ncccusa.org]

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.
Contact: NCC News, 212-870-2252
3/22/01 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PUERTO RICO, U.S. ECUMENICAL CHURCH COUNCIL LEADERS
ASK END TO NAVY'S VIEQUES EXERCISES, OPPOSE SHIFT TO ST. KITTS

	March 22, 2001, NEW YORK CITY and SAN JUAN - Leaders of ecumenical 
councils in the United States and Puerto Rico today criticized as unethical 
a proposal to shift U.S. military exercises from Vieques to another 
inhabited island.

They were responding to a Reuters News Service report that the Federation 
of St. Kitts and Nevis, in the Eastern Caribbean, was considering a request 
from members of the U.S. Congress to provide the American military with an 
alternative to the disputed bombing range on the island of Vieques in 
Puerto Rico.

St. Kitts and Nevis is a tiny island of 104 square miles.  Close to 
one-third (30.3 percent) of its 40,000 population is under age 15 (Source: 
The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2001).  Its nearest neighbors are 
Antigua and Barbuda.

"Whatever benefits might accrue to St. Kitts and Nevis for opening its 
small island to U.S. military exercises would be more than offset by the 
sacrifice of health and life on the part of its citizens, especially its 
children, and the polluting and destruction of its environment," said the 
Rev. Dr. Bob Edgar, General Secretary of the (U.S.) National Council of 
Churches.

"The toll on the physical and mental health of the people of Vieques and 
the damage to the island's ecology is well documented," said Dr. Edgar, who 
led an NCC delegation to Vieques in June 2000 and who has carried forward 
the Council's long-standing demand for the U.S. military to withdraw from 
Vieques.  "This month's suspension of those exercises, while welcome, is 
not enough," he said.  "The military exercises must be ended."

The Rev. Heriberto Martinez, Executive Secretary of the Evangelical Council 
of Churches, which represents most evangelical and some mainline Puerto 
Rican churches, said, "Our council is very clear in its position that what 
is wrong for us is also wrong for others."

Puerto Rico's churches - including Catholics, Protestants and Pentecostals 
- have joined forces in an unprecedented ecumenical coalition against 
continued use of Vieques for U.S. military exercises.  "We don't want these 
'signs of death'," the Rev. Martinez said.  "Not in Vieques.  Not 
anywhere."
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