Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Most of the hilly western part of the refuge is open for business, and includes a
lonely swath of colorful wildflowers and scores of (mostly sealed) cavernous military-style
bunkers that were used to store ammunition.
Perhaps the finest
Giant Ceiba Tree
in Puerto Rico is situated on the right-hand side
of the road as you head toward Green Beach, adjacent to the Mosquito Pier. Rumored to
be 400 years old, the tree resembles a gnarly African baobab, which is probably the reas-
on why it was venerated so much by uprooted Afro-Caribbean slaves. The Ceiba is Puerto
Rico's national tree.
THE NAVY-VIEQUES PROTESTS
In a country where the national status is more often a topic of apathy than anarchy,
the 1999-2003 protests against the US Navy presence on the island of Vieques were
something of a wake-up call. First requisitioned by the US military in 1941, Vieques
was originally intended to act as a safe haven for the British Navy during WWII,
should the UK fall to the Nazis. But after 1945 the US decided to keep hold of the
territory to use as a base for weapons testing during the ever chillier Cold War. Tak-
ing control of more than 70% of the island's total land in the east and west, the milit-
ary left the local population to live in a small strip down the middle while they
shelled beaches and dropped live bombs on offshore atolls. On average the military
bombed Vieques 180 days a year and in 1998 alone dropped a total of 23,000 explos-
ive devices on the island.
With the public ire raised, things came to a head on April 19, 1999, after
Viequense civilian guard David Sanes Rodríguez was accidentally killed when two
225kg bombs missed their target and exploded near an observation post he was man-
ning. The incident triggered a massive campaign of civil disobedience that reached
far beyond the shores of Vieques, recruiting Puerto Ricans and non-Puerto Ricans
worldwide. The most common form of protest involved demonstrators entering the
military base illegally and setting up makeshift encampments. The campaign gained
international notoriety in May 2000 when more than 700 protesters were arrested for
trespassing, including notable celebrities such as Robert Kennedy Jnr and Rubén
Berríos, leader of the PIP (Puerto Rican Independence Party). Other names who
threw their weight behind the cause were Jesse Jackson, Ricky Martin, boxer Felix
Trinidad and Archbishop of San Juan Roberto González Nieves.
As in Culebra 25 years earlier, the pressure and publicity finally paid off; in 2001
Puerto Rican Governor Sila María Calderón brokered a deal with US President Ge-
orge W Bush promising that the US military would leave Vieques by May 2003.
