CPTnet
January 28, 2001
Puerto Rico: Twenty-seven Member Delegation travels to Vieques Island

On January 25, 2001, twenty-seven people from the U. S., Canada and Puerto
Rico joined
a ten-day delegation with Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) to Puerto Rico's
Vieques Island. The delegation will support the local people who are working
to
end the U.S. Navy's target practice and military maneuvers on their lands.

Vieques Island (pop. 9,400) is twenty-one miles long by five miles
wide and lies about eight miles east of the main island of Puerto Rico. The
U.S. Navy
has taken over the eastern and western sections of the island and has
evicted
over 3,000 residents from their lands. Both the land and the ocean waters
on the eastern third of the island are seriously polluted with the remains
of the armaments exploded in tests for the last sixty years.
years. This pollution has seriously affected the livelihood of many
island residents who fish for a living.

On Vieques Island, members of the CPT delegation will live at the
Peace and Justice Camp located just outside the gates to one of the
entrances to the Navy's bombing range. To highlight the Navy's abuse of
the land and the people, the CPT delegation will join with residents in
nonviolent direct actions. These actions may be some of the first
confrontations that President Bush will face.

For more information, contact Christian Peacemaker Teams main office in
Chicago at 312-455-1199, www.cpt.org/ or e-mail: cpt [at] igc [dot] org.