Vieques, Puerto Rico Was Bombed for More Than 60 Years and Residents Are Still Impacted Today

On May 1, 2003, the United States Navy finally left the Island of Vieques, located east of Puerto Rico, after years of using the small island as a bombing practice range. But, the U.S Navy, over a 60-year stay, left a damaging impact on the island.

“Vieques was a scene of war…it was a kind of place that simulated conflict with live munitions and bullets, and this place was used as if it was a place to play paintball or games of war,” said Pedro M. Cardona Roig, a Puerto Rican journalist, and radio host. “This lasted for decades.”

Vieques is a beautiful island located five miles away from Puerto Rico. It is best known for its beautiful beaches and rich culture.  

But, it also has a shocking history of military roots.

“In my opinion, these exercises were examples of our colonial relationship with the U.S. and shows the true reason why the U.S. wanted Puerto Rico,” said Ricardo Fernandez, a Marquette Law student from Puerto Rico. “The U.S. didn’t invade Puerto Rico in 1898 to bring us liberty and democracy, but they did it to have a terrain where they could strategically control the resources of Puerto Rico.”

According to Environmental Conflict and Cultural Solidarity: The Case of Vieques, the U.S. Navy first established itself in Vieques in 1941 with the construction of a large military base, taking control of 26,000 of the 33,000 acres of the island. 

But on April 19, 1999, a security guard working at the Naval Training Center in Vieques was tragically killed after a military plane dropped a bomb in a failed military practice. This sparked a massive response from the people of Vieques and all of Puerto Rico.

“This is the best example of how the people of Puerto Rico organized through local leaders and also, community leaders that came from the U.S. to help mobilize and created a call to action to claim the lands that were constantly bombed,” said Cardona.

Protests, sit-ins and massive activism was in all of Vieques, with the main objective of getting the U.S. Navy out of the island.

One eye-opening and attention-grabbing moment from these powerful and historic protests was a famous revolutionary named Tito Kayak.

Tito Kayak is an iconic figure of Puerto Rico who is well-known for his actions in protests that are in favor of the people of Puerto Rico. In this case, to protest the exit of the U.S. Navy in Vieques, on Nov. 5, 2020, he, alongside others, climbed the Statue of Liberty in New York and placed a Puerto Rican flag right on top.

He wanted to signal how he wanted people everywhere to pay attention to the island and put a spotlight on the issues affecting Vieques and Puerto Rico. He was later arrested and charged by the police and served time in jail.

“The way in which the U.S. Navy was successfully drawn out of Vieques, was because of a claim of a jurisdiction that Puerto Rico had on territorial waters in which individuals evoked a lawsuit that prevailed and concluded with the agreement of the exit of the U.S. Navy in Vieques,” said Cardona.

Even though the U.S Navy suspended operations in 2001 and fully departed from Vieques in 2003, it left a negative and lasting impact on the health, environment, and future of Vieques residents. Most importantly, according to the article, “Military pollution and natural purity: seeing nature and knowing contamination in Vieques, Puerto Rico,” Vieques has one of the highest rates of cancer.

“Now, the high incidence of cancer and the psychiatric illnesses of the population of Vieques were terrible and lasted for a very long time,” said Cardona.

According to the article, the island of Vieques has residuals of toxic metals such as arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury, as well as chemical toxins, from military munitions and as a result of the bombs that were used. The research highlighted in this article, says how these toxic metals have been found in hair samples of the people in Vieques and were also found in the dust of people’s homes and in fields of land with deep-rooted plants.

“There are still people who are suffering from the consequences of those bombing from the U.S. Navy throughout all of those years,” said Cardona.

The main issue that the people of Vieques face now in 2022, is that since the island is contaminated by toxic chemicals and undetonated munitions, for the past years, the Environmental Protection Agency ordered a full cleanup, but it would not be completed until 2032.

“I’m just sick and tired of the United States using Puerto Rican grounds as experimentation, I just think it’s unfair because we are humans and we are getting these side effects,” said Ivelis Velazquez, a native Puerto Rican working in Milwaukee. “Experimenting in Vieques is like we don’t matter, as if let’s just experiment there because who cares about Puerto Ricans and that’s a big problem, you can’t just do that.”

The main resolution to “clean” Vieques was to use a method called Open Detonation and Open Burning. In this method, live munitions on the island are detonated without being enclosed in compartments and Open Burning includes burning material in the open air but in this way, it creates more problems for Vieques residents because of the toxins that these processes release to the environment.

“If you’re going to be using a section of the land for military purposes just to try things out, but there are effects that happened from that, you should be responsible for those things,” said Noel Acevedo, a Puerto Rican native living in Milwaukee. “I feel like this is wrong because it’s part of my island and they have to be held accountable, so for there to be cancer out of a lot of the things that happened, I think it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the right thing to do is to help people from the mistakes of the last 60 years.”

Open Detonation and Open Burning is a form of pollution that makes it even more harmful for individuals’ health.

Demands and complaints have been made for years by Vieques residents, and these residents and members of the Puerto Rican scientific community are still calling for better practices.