U.S. Navy bombing exercises start in Vieques amid protests muted since Sept. 11 attacks

Monday, April 1st 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

VIEQUES, Puerto Rico (AP) _ U.S. Navy planes began dropping inert bombs Monday on the firing range here for the first time since October, as military police handcuffed and detained five women who invaded Navy land.

Although the protests surrounding what is expected to be three weeks of war exercises have been muted since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, small bands of demonstrators have launched protests on the outlying Puerto Rican island since this weekend, erecting barricades and holding vigils.

The five women reportedly broke through the fence line around 5 a.m. and were detained about four hours later. They were led by Independence Party Vice President Maria de Lourdes Santiago.

After their detention, the women sat cross-legged with their hands in plastic manacles, sometimes pumping their fists into the air and shouting ``Vieques, si. Marina, no. Fuera la Marina!'' _ Navy get out!''

The detentions came as the Navy began air-to-ground exercises at 8 a.m. Exercises were last held in September and October.

On Sunday night, a group of protesters from the Independence Party said they were gathering for a peaceful protest at Camp Guadeloupe near the Navy's Camp Garcia when security personnel fired pepper gas and rubber bullets into the crowd. One woman was reportedly hit in the buttocks, said activist and party leader Abdel Guadeloupe.

Navy spokesman Lt. Corey Barker denied that Navy security forces fired at the crowd but said demonstrators had thrown rocks at an all-terrain vehicle and had put spikes in the road.

The Navy posted an order Friday declaring its Vieques range would become ``hot'' on Sunday _ a warning to fishermen and beachgoers that waters around the eastern half of the island are restricted.

In the past, the Navy and protesters have made counterclaims about incursions into the camp and its inner seaside bombing range, which hundreds of protesters invaded periodically last year, often forcing the Navy to halt or postpone exercises.

But the protest movement has lost vigor and support since Sept. 11.

Only about two dozen cars and fewer than 100 activists turned out Sunday for a car cavalcade through civilian areas of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques.

Car horns blared, the island's blue and white striped flag flapped from windows, loudspeakers blasted salsa songs urging the Navy off ``la Isla Nena,'' the ``darling little island,'' as Vieques is known.

The movement finally got the attention of the world when it led protesters to invade the Navy's bombing range after two 500-pound bombs fired off target from a Marine jet killed a Puerto Rican civilian guard working on the range in April 1999.

Activists occupied the range for a year, preventing exercises until they were forcibly removed by U.S. Marshals.

Current Gov. Sila Calderon, who was elected largely because of a promise to force the Navy to leave immediately, now shies away from outright criticism. She says she backs a deal, endorsed by President Bush, for the Navy to leave by May 2003.

Even that may be jeopardized by a post-Sept. 11 law allowing the Navy to use Vieques until it finds an alternative.

The Navy says there's no other one place where it can do what it does in Vieques where, simultaneously, planes drop bombs, ships lob shells at the shore and Marines practice amphibious landings.

The agreement that led to the ouster of the protesters cut back Navy exercises to 90 days a year, down from about 180, and limited ammunition to inert bombs.

In January, the Navy relocated exercises scheduled for Vieques to North Carolina's Camp Lejeune and Florida's Pinecastle range. Those exercises used live bombs, which the Navy said was essential before deployment in Afghanistan.