What Vieques Means to Me

We recently had the pleasure of interviewing our new member Luis Mendez, an veteran activist in Puerto Rico. We are presenting it in two parts, this first focuses on the intimate relationship of Vieques and Puerto Rico. The follow-up part will be on Cuba.

LUIS: We still are a colony of the United States. The United States controls the communication, the money, controls the postal service. Controls, we are not free at this moment. Again they are recruiting Puerto Ricans into the army.

SW!: What prompted you to get active?

LUIS: In 1968 I was in my first year of university and they drafted me. At that time my family moved to San Juan to be closer to the University of Puerto Rico. I lived close to the poor of San Juan. From my window I started to see coffins, and I started to ask my mother what's going on? This person is probably coming from Vietnam. I saw a lot of trucks taking coffins to different parts of the island. I joined some movements, some groups at the university, to support no more war, to support opposition to the war in Vietnam. After that they drafted me. They told me, either you go to Vietnam or you go to jail! I was 17 at that time. What we heard in Puerto Rico is that the United States is a free nation, it's humanitarian, they don't kill people. When I saw what they did to the Vietnamese, to the country of Vietnam, I thought, For what am I fighting? I never saw discrimination in Puerto Rico. When I got back from Vietnam in 1971, I returned to school, joining a group against war, and became an activist against the war in Vietnam, an anti-imperialist from 1971 to today.

SW!: During the Vietnam War the U.S. taught pilots to bomb there at Puerto Rico and Vieques. What was the level of opposition to it back during the Vietnam War and how does it compare to now.

LUIS: In 1975 they used both islands Culebra and Vieques. The islands are not too far away from each other. In 1972 the university expelled 2076 students, one of them was myself. Because we were in opposition to the war in Vietnam and the Navy being in Vieques and Culebra at that time. We tried to stop the Marines and the Navy in the center of the island. Because Vieques is a tropical island, they tried to train Green Berets and rangers there for Vietnam. The students blocked the roads, and the Selective Service System offices. From 1972 to 1979 the growing opposition to the Navy got bigger and they moved out from Culebra at that time. When we were in Vietnam, the people who have been in Vietnam like you and me we developed like a sixth sense. We would feel when something was going to be happening. We predicted something. I've told a lot of people in Vieques and tried to make a chapter of Vietnam Veterans of America. I am co-sponsor of the Vietnam Veterans of Puerto Rico I am the first president of that organization in Puerto Rico. Now there are five chapters here on the island. I want to stay close to here, in the islands.

SW!: The Navy insists there's no other place like Vieques where they can train their forces. What do you think makes Vieques so special to them?

LUIS: The United States Department of War-that's what it is, it's not the Department of Defense.

We don't call it the second world war, we call it the first nuclear war. They dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese. The United States has billions of dollars to go anywhere around the world and pick an island to use it for training, and the technology they have today, that they used in the Gulf War, they don't need to drop bombs on any island, they use satellite information, they have electronic tanks, etc. Some of the first trophies of the United States Navy, when they were fighting the Spanish War, were Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines. That's one reason they don't want to give Vieques up. The other reason is they rent the island to other countries for military use, and they sell weapons and munitions to those countries. The Navy receives $84 million dollars for three months, and doesn't pay anything to the people there. They started using Vieques in the time of the Second World War.

SW!: Could you talk a little about the health effects on the people of Puerto Rico in general from the Navy's bombing of the island?

LUIS: The Navy dropped Agent Orange in two places: Todo Negro and El Yunque. They used Culebra and Vieques for contamination experiments of war. Because Puerto Rico is so close to Vieques, the dust and the toxins move to Puerto Rico on the wind and the ocean currents. A lot of people in Puerto Rico have skin problems, problems in the hair, respiration problems too. The people have received the impact of the bombs, the airplanes, for sixty years. Remember, you and I were in Vietnam for just one year; thousands suffered Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Think about the people, even children, living in Vieques and Culebra. I've been with Veterans for Peace on Vieques, and saw a young guy, 19 years old, who got a job with the Navy painting a wall, and the Navy was using radioactive ammunition. He has no hair any more on his body, and when he pisses, there's blood in it. He has cancer, sarcoma. People in Vieques get cancer more than anyplace else in Puerto Rico; the land is contaminated, the air is contaminated, people are exposed to cancer always.

Someday if you come to Puerto Rico I'll take you there, so you can see it yourself. I don't have words to explain it. You're going to see children with skin problems, They have no hospital on Vieques, just a small clinic. If you have a serious health problem, you must go to the big island. The last trip is at 6:00 pm. If you miss it, you wait until 9:00 am.

SW!: Do you have anything else you want to say?

LUIS: We want to live in peace, not only for ourselves, but with you people too, of the United States. We would like to be all the time your brothers, all the time your friends. We want to be together, to make peace; not only for our generation, but for future generations; not only for Puerto Rico, but for the United States country and people.