US to resume bombing in Vieques

Editors, Asheville Global Report,

The small 33,000 acre island of Vieques off the east coast of Puerto Rico has been used as a Navy bombing range since 1938. The United States military controls 2/3 of the island, both the eastern and western land, with the civilian population of 9,500 sandwiched in between.

From 1940 to 1998, when they were stopped by the actions of a number of protesters who invaded the firing range and camped there for over a year, the Navy acknowledges that the number of bombs dropped on Vieques was 396,222. Napalm was used extensively. Agent Orange was used. Depleted uranium bullets were fired. A new health study indicates that 49 of 50 children studied on Vieques show heart disease attributed to sonic boom from the noise of the guns.

The new governor of Puerto Rico, Sila Calderon, who was elected on a platform of having the Navy out of Vieques in 90 days, led a delegation to Washington to request that the bombing of Vieques be halted until a further inquiry into the health of the residents was conducted. She obtained the support of 50 legislators as well as Governor Pataki. Consequently, the scheduled March Navy and NATO exercises did not take place off Vieques.

The Navy has just posted leaflets on Vieques that they will resume their bombing exercises on Friday, Apr. 27. Perhaps they believe that we are no longer concerned for the health of Puerto Rican neighbors or that we are no longer watching what is happening in Vieques.

Puerto Ricans, although they hold US passports, have no vote in Congress. The United Nations considers Puerto Rico a colony of the United States. I hope that the citizens of Asheville will join with the people of Puerto Rico in their struggle for Peace for Vieques. The Committee for the Rescue of Vieques has been nominated for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize and was last year’s recipient of the War Resisters Leagues’ Peace Award. Updates and information are available on the web at www.viequeslibre.org.

Elizabeth Eames Roebling
Weaverville

Greyhound, the police, and passenger privacy

Editors, Asheville Global Report,

I read with great interest your story about Amtrak’s collusion with the DEA (“Amtrak helps DEA spy on passengers”).

I had a recent experience on a Greyhoud bus that indicates a similar arrangement may exist between the US’s only national bus company and law enforcement authorities.

I took a Greyhound bus from Connecticut to Durham, NC on April 17-18. I have taken this same trip a number of times and nothing like [the incident] I am about to report has ever happened.

I arrived in Raleigh after an all-night trip at about 9:30 am on April 18. While there, a white woman dressed in faded denim boarded the bus. She proceeded to approach every passenger on the bus, announcing that she was a Raleigh police officer conducting a routine investigation, and asked us all where we had come from, where we were going, and where our baggage was. She did not show any ID. A white man, also dressed in old casual clothes, who also identified himself as a Raleigh police officer followed after her, occasionally flashing his ID so quickly that no one could read it.

After they got off the bus I observed the woman talking on her cell phone. She approached a man with long black hair, also dressed in plain clothes, wearing round dark glassed, who may have been white or Latino, and they engaged in an animated discussion. The woman then went in a door at the bus station marked “Authorized Personnel Only.” She emerged a while later and talked on her cell phone again, then appeared to report to the man with the long hair again.

My bus finally left and arrived in Durham about 10:40 am. I got off and was walking across the parking lot when a man in plain clothes approached me and identified himself as a Durham police officer. He flashed his ID at me but I couldn’t read it. He also had another plainclothes officer with him as backup. He asked me where I was coming from and where I was going to. I told him I’d just gone through the same routine in Raleigh. He asked if they’d inspected my luggage there and I said no. He then asked to see my ticket and ID, which I provided. He observed that they matched so he let me go. I asked what was going on. He told me they were looking for people coming from New York carrying drugs and guns.

I went home, wondering if I should leave the driving to them in the future. I think not.

Michael Steinberg
Durham, NC