Puerto Rico governor says U.S. shouldn't close Vieques base

AP | 1/16/03 | RICARDO ZUNIGA

[kattracks]

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- Puerto Rico's government hopes the U.S. Navy won't close its Roosevelt Roads Naval Station on Vieques Island after it halts bombing exercises there in May, the U.S. territory's governor said.

Gov. Sila Calderon, who had pressed for a halt to the training, said Wednesday that her government will lobby for the base to remain open. With some 4,800 employees and temporary contractors, Roosevelt Roads is one of Puerto Rico's largest employers.

"The people of Puerto Rico don't have any interest in the closing of the Roosevelt Roads base," Calderon said. "The government of Puerto Rico is interested in that base staying in Puerto Rico, for all the economic benefits."

The Navy says training now under way is the last scheduled on Vieques. It will abandon its firing range there by May 1, turning over the island's eastern third to the U.S. Department of the Interior to become a wildlife refuge.

The United States stopped all live-fire training in Vieques in 1999 after a guard was accidentally killed. It has used non-explosive bombs and shells since then.

Once the Navy leaves Vieques, all operations at Roosevelt Roads associated with Vieques will be discontinued, Navy officials have said. Adm. Robert Natter, commander of the Atlantic Fleet, went further last week, saying: "Without Vieques there is no way I need the Navy facilities at Roosevelt Roads -- none."

Other Navy officials said any decision about closing the base in eastern Puerto Rico would have to be made by an independent commission that has yet to begin its work.

The Navy estimates the base injects some $300 million each year into the Caribbean island's economy.

Training continued Thursday with two U.S. warships firing inert shells at the island. The USS Arleigh Burke and USS Cape St. George participated in the training, said Lt. Cmdr. Kim Dixon, a spokeswoman.

President Franklin Roosevelt ordered the base built in 1940, and it was used for World War II naval operations.

The Navy has trained on Vieques since 1947. Opponents say the exercises have damaged the environment and the health of the island's 9,100 residents, but the Navy denies the accusations.

[!1776!]

Gov. Sila Calderon, who had pressed for a halt to the training...

"The people of Puerto Rico don't have any interest in the closing of the Roosevelt Roads base," Calderon said. "The government of Puerto Rico is interested in that base staying in Puerto Rico, for all the economic benefits."

The U.S. Navy is neither a tourist or a charitable organization. They have a job to do, a very, very serious job to do.

Come on, this Governor has either got to be kidding, or worse, is actually too stupid to think that when you take away one of the only underlying values of a base, that the Navy is going to want to keep financially supporting it?

Give me a break.

I would rather the Navy used the $300,000,000 the base injects into the local economy for something that will help keep the brave men and women serving alive.

Governor Calderon, have fun enjoying the all the economic benefits of a wildlife refuge...

[Southack]

"We will just make up their 'loss' by increasing the amount of aid/welfare we send them. In the end the US taxpayer will not be better off."

Don't be such an idiot in public. PR's governor would hardly be raising such a stink if she thought that she was going to get the $300 million even without the naval base being left on her island.

Sheesh. What a thought process you must have... Not!

[afraidfortherepublic]

They are suddenly panicked at the idea that when our military withdraws they take $$$$millions$$$$ w;ith them.

[A2J]

Gov. Sila Calderon, who had pressed for a halt to the training, said Wednesday that her government will lobby for the base to remain open.

Excuse me, governor, but can you see which finger I'm holding up?

You'll have no one to blame but yourself for the failure of your economy.

[qwas]

We will just make up their 'loss' by increasing the amount of aid/welfare we send them. In the end the US taxpayer will not be better off.

Unfortunately you're probably right. The 18 billion we send them in food stamps and other aid will just go up. On the other hand, since we no longer have a military base stationed there, what exactly do we need Puerto Rico for anyway? Grant them independence and let them sink or swim according to their own devices. It's a nice place to visit, but why should we be burdened maintaining an island that is little more than a welfare state.

[Redleg Duke]

Actually, I think closing the base and rendering it unusable for the next 50 years would be a nice touch.

[A2J]

"The government of Puerto Rico is interested in that base staying in Puerto Rico, for all the economic benefits."

You should have thought about that before you bit the hand that feeds you.

What an idiot.

[TankerKC]

I agree with the previous statement:

We will just make up their 'loss' by increasing the amount of aid/welfare we send them. In the end the US taxpayer will not be better off.

[Karsus]

Having the base there is the better of the two options. It is a lot harder to close a base then it is to cut welfare payments.

[marron]

Unfortunely there are idiots all over the place

No kidding. Remember, half of America thinks Gore is a genius, and we elected Clinton twice. Twice.

So if half of Puerto Rico is leftist, that would only be par for the course.

And it is primarily the left that is complaining about Vieques, and mainly it is non-Puerto Ricans that are leading the charge. Puerto Ricans work there, and are dependent on the base for their employment.

The good governor is the equivalent to a US Democrat, and so has been trying to have it both ways, as Democrats normally do. The island's Republicans proudly display the flag, the US flag that is. It is only a small leftist sliver of mostly academics and similar types who are advocating independence, and even they are hedging their bets, telling people that they would be able to vote independence and retain their US citizenship, an obvious lie. Which should tell you that there is no real support for independence, and no real anti-Americanism there. Quite the contrary. They are very comfortable with their American citizenship. They are not going anywhere. They can easily look across the sound at the Dominican Republic, or south to Venezuela, to see where but by the grace of God go I... so to speak.

Don't make the mistake of buying into the left's propaganda. We are at this website because we know the press can't be trusted. Why believe them where Puerto Rico is concerned?

Puerto Rico has a vibrant economy, it is heavily industrialized, and most of the tax breaks that drew industry there years ago have been discontinued. They now face tough competition from Mexico as a result of NAFTA. NAFTA wasn't intended to hurt Puerto Rico, but that has been the effect. Still, the island flourishes, it is not anti-American (outside of college campuses), and it is a living rebuke to the rest of Latin America.

[ibbryn]

Since all the previous posters have expressed my thoughts so well, I'll just sit here and grin.

[Karsus]

We already send about 1,200,000,000 USD in food stamps to them. I do not have how much we spend in other assistance to PR but I am sure in is at least in the billion dollar range.

What makes you think the taxpayers will not get screwed in this deal?

(Very DU of you to call a person an idiot and insult their thought process)

[Sacajaweau]

If I remember correctly, Hitlery and crew went down there and told those people what was good for them.

We'll chalk it up to mis-information by the Democrats and the usual "take advantage" of people while utilizing anti-Bush rhetoric.

[lawgirl]

Gov. Sila: *thinking* wait a minute. No US base means no US protection in our backyard.......sshheeettt!!!!!!!! Come back America!! Come back!! ohh I am so sorry!!!!

[jammer]

Perhaps you meant, "She should have . . ." rather than "You should have . . ."

[Sacajaweau]

Not quite finished:

Looks like their leader is a "woman" and Hitlery must have become her new best friend. Wonder what kind of bene's her new best friend promised her.

Let's see if Hitlery pops up again on this one. She protested the use of the base at the time of her visit with "violent" rhetoric.

Does Puerto Rico have a vote?? I thought they did but not quite sure. If so, how did they vote??

[gundog]

Paging President Bartlett.

[wayoverontheright]

"Without Vieques there is no way I need the Navy facilities at Roosevelt Roads -- none."

I spent four years in Puerto Rico as a student and visit friends there often. I've also been to Roosevelt Roads and Vieques. Upon my visit to Vieques, being an American I was curious about how the locals viewed the presence of the Naval bomb training unit. They led me to believe (this was in the eighties) that they were fully aware that their economy benefitted greatly and were quite happy to have them there.

In my opinion, this thing was totally engineered by agitators from the outside. In Puerto Rico the left is represented by the "independentistas", an openly socialist faction that comprises maybe 4 or 5 per cent of the population, and, of course on our mainland the part of the left that took up the Vieques cause were the greens and the peaceniks. Actually Al Sharpton even got involved last year.

What you have to understand is that "Rosey Roads" is a huge naval base on an island that is 35 by 100 miles and the Vieques training effort is a very small contingent on an island one mile by two miles long. What the lefties wanted was the elimination of the target practice on Vieques but never dreamed it would cause the navy to yank Rosey Roads! I believe the Clinton administration gave them assurances that this wouldn't happen.

Is this under the category of "be careful what you wish for, or what?

[Southack]

"What makes you think the taxpayers will not get screwed in this deal?"

The fact that the PR governor started squealing once she figured out that she was losing all of the base money...

[AuH2ORepublican]

As a lifelong resident of Puerto Rico, I can assure that 95% of the population are proud and law-abiding U.S. citizens who have answered the call of duty in every military conflict since World War I. Governor Calderon does not speak for all 3.8 million U.S. citizens who live in Puerto Rico.

Personally, I believe that the Vieques issue has been handled in an alarmist fashion ever since that tragic day in 1998 when a civilian working for the Navy was killed due to an errant bomb. Instead of viewing this for what it was---a single fatal incident in the 60 years in which the Navy had used the Vieques bombing range---the governor at the time, Pedro Rossello (of the pro-statehood New Progressive Party), paid attention to the phony statistics provided by left-wing groups that claimed that Navy bombing was causing cancer in the civilian population of Vieques and declared that Navy bombing should stop (Rossello was actually a pretty good governor, but being a practicing pediatric surgeon, he was always a bit of a softy on health issues). Normally, the pro-American majority in Puerto Rico would have never been in favor of the Navy leaving Vieques; for decades, the only opponents to Navy bombing were the 3-5% of the population that claims to support independence for Puerto Rico (although, when push comes to shove, most of these dissidents wouldn't support independence any more than Alec Baldwin would really leave the U.S. if the Republicans keep creaming the RATS at the polls). But given the fact that Governor Rossello, who is as American as apple pie, announced that it was every Puerto Rican's right as an American to not have bombing in Vieques, hundreds of thousands of pro-statehood Puerto Ricans began to oppose Navy bombing.

As the 2000 elections approached, Rossello made a deal with Clinton to allow the Navy to keep using the bombing range until May of 2003. The opposition party (the pro-Commonwealth "Populares") immediately denounced Rossello as having "sold out," and Sila Calderon (who was the Populares' gubernatorial nominee) started making ridiculous claims that she could get the Navy to leave in 90 days after she took office. The pro-statehood candidate, Carlos Pesquera (Rossello had decided not to seek a third term), who had been way behind in the polls, ran a strongly pro-American campaign (albeit not going so far as asking for the Navy to continue bombing past 2003) and actually was poised for a big victory with a couple of weeks to go before the election. But then, after several high-profile arrests for corruption of pro-statehood party officials, Calderon caught up with Pesquera at the polls the day before the election and beat him 48-46%.

So then we were stuck with Governor Calderon, who wasn't smart enough to realize that she had aligned herself with anti-Americans just to win an election. She's said some stupid things about the effects of Navy bombing, filed some silly lawsuits, and generally made an a$$ of herself, and now the Navy has decided that it can train just as effectively off the Florida Keys and will actually leave Vieques. I'm not happy about it, and neither is any right-thinking Puerto Rican. The worst part is, because of politicians sucking up to the sheeple, now millions of otherwise fair-minded Americans believe that our island's 3.8 million people are anti-American and that not only should we not be allowed to become the 51st state of the Union, with the same rights and responsibilities of the other 50 states, but that we should be declared independent. I mean, we're not the state that teaches grade school children about fisting and other perverted sexual practices, Massachusetts is. We're not the state that elected a Senator who believes that Osama bin Laden is a humanitarian, Washington State is. We're not the state that allows homosexuals to marry, Vermont is. We're not the state whose university admits 95% of black applicants with a 3.0 GPA and 1000 SATs, but only 10% of whites with similar scores, Michigan is. We're not the state that has legalized prostitution, Nevada is. And we're not California (I don't believe I need to give any examples of why California's government is an abomination). Those states do things that are much more un-American than the admittedly ridiculous protests mounted by anti-bombing fanatics in Puerto Rico. So please refrain from lumping all Puerto Ricans into one pile and sending us off into the ocean. If you truly believe that the people of Puerto Rico are fair-weather citizens and don't wish to take on the responsibilities imposed upon citizens of the 50 states, then prove your point by offering Puerto Ricans to choose between statehood and independence. I bet you the percentage that votes for independence would be just as insignificant as if such vote was held in Montana or Texas.

So, in conclusion, I'm pissed off that the Navy won't continue to train with live ordinance at Vieques, and I agree wholeheartedly with the Navy's decision to scale down operations at Roosevelt Roads Naval Base. But I think you all should reconsider your position regarding Puerto Rico's place within the United States of America.