Women’s History Month isn’t simply a matter of honoring women of the past and educating the public about them. We also highlight the activities of women who are engaged in struggles for justice today.
On the small island of Vieques, Puerto Rico, which has been called “the colony of the colony,” a life-and-death battle is being waged, and led primarily by women. They are demanding both reparations and action from the U.S. Navy (part of their own government, since Puerto Rican Viequenses are U.S. citizens) for the devastating scourge of cancer and other ills that have been visited upon them as a result of the 60 years of bombing of the island in Navy War games, and the continuing failures in cleaning up the area. I discussed some of this history in “The Puerto Rican Island of Vieques: War games, hurricanes, and wild horses.”
Several of my friends have recently been to Vieques to volunteer and try to help bring attention to the ongoing issues there. Given the lack of a sense of national urgency dealing with Puerto Rico as a whole, where there are still far too many residents without power (see the New York Daily News’ Puerto Rico days without power timer) and potable water, the situation on Vieques is even less visible. There are some rural residents on the big island who have been told by officials that they will probably not have power until 2019.
Let that sink in.
Without public pressure and awareness, the current situation on Vieques will continue to be ignored. The small island of Vieques, with a population of just over 9,000 residents, is rarely in the thoughts of mainlanders, most of whom don’t even know it exists.
Through a friend I was given an introduction to one of the women of Vieques, whose environmental health activism I have been following for some time. Now in her '80s, she is a grandmother and a cancer survivor who lost her beloved husband Charlie Connelly to cancer in 2014.
Sometimes the best way to get folks to pay attention to a place or an issue is for them to feel they have met someone who is being impacted, rather than simply reading about a set of statistics or numbers.
Meet Myrna Pagan and the community activists of Vieques.
This profile of Myrna Pagan was filmed before the death of her husband.
Myrna Pagan, Cancer Survivor and Health Advocate
This is from a portrait of Myrna Pagan, health advocate and cancer survivor from Vieques, Puerto Rico. She and many others believe that the high rate of cancer in Vieques is due to the decades of weapons testing that the US military undertook on the small island. While Vieques successfully evicted the Navy in 2005, they still struggle to get the US government to clean up the toxic waste from for more than 60 years of bombing
Pagan is one of the founders and spokespersons for Vidas Viequenses Valen (VVV).
For more than 60 years, about a trillion pounds of explosives and toxic substances were dropped on Vieques by the U.S. Navy, NATO and their allies. After decades of protest and a campaign of non-violent, civil disobedience, the US Navy was forced to close the base on May 1, 2003.
Although we celebrate the closing of the bombing range, the struggle continues because contamination and neglect continues to afflict our communities. Vidas Viequenses Valen (VVV) was established by the people of Vieques in September of 2015 to continue the fight for justice.
Here are their demands:
Vidas Viequenses Valen continues to work through educational forums, peaceful protest, media publicity, meetings with public officials to achieve the “4 Ds“: the historic demands of Vieques:
Demilitarization – Demilitarization will not be complete until the remaining military installations, the ROTHR radar facility and the Mount Pirata telecommunications center, are closed.
Decontamination – We demand that the Navy assign an adequate budget to carry out a complete cleanup of the land and waters that they themselves contaminated with “conventional” arms (bombs, grenades, projectiles) and “non-conventional” arms (napalm, Agent Orange, depleted uranium). We oppose the open detonation of unexploded ordnance (which is the cheapest form of removal) because it just continues poisoning us. We demand the use of detonation chambers to protect our community from further contamination. We oppose the Navy’s use of signage and fencing on contaminated areas because it leaves the contamination in place. The Navy must promote genuine community participation in the process of decontamination, so that the cleanup will be thorough and effective. Puerto Rican and Viequense companies must be granted the lucrative cleanup contracts which are now being given to U.S. companies.
Devolution (return of the lands) – We demand the return of all of the land which is currently controlled by the federal government – the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) – but first it must be restored to the condition in which it was found when it was expropriated in the 40’s. Residents still have restricted access to about half of our 33,000 acres.
Development: The type of development that is happening currently – which benefits primarily large scale projects and outside interests – gives little support to Viequenses. We support the Master Plan for Sustainable Development of Vieques which was approved by the Government of Puerto Rico in 2004. This plan was prepared following the directives of the community, and promotes agriculture and fishing, eco-tourism, small guest houses, social interest housing, archaeology, and historic and environmental research, among other things. Our people have been sickened by military toxics and suffer higher incidences of many diseases, including cancer, heart disease and diabetes. The federal government must compensate our people for the health problems resulting from the Navy’s activities. We need a modern hospital, early screening and adequate care for our illnesses. It is vital to establish efficient maritime and land transportation systems that respond to our needs, especially our needs to access health services in the main island of PR.
Here is Myrna speaking at a community meeting before Hurricanes Irma and Maria hit the island.
The cleaning of Vieques is a farce, nothing is being cleaned. What they are doing is open burning and detonations. Last week, on Tuesday, July 25 and Thursday, July 27, 2017 at about 9:00 am, we heard and felt explosions caused by the Navy and saw columns of smoke spreading toxic gas residues into the air from our windows and workplaces. These are some of the strongest explosions we have felt, but this is our daily bread. After six decades of bombardment and pollution, the people stand up to denounce this practice and demand the use of existing alternatives to clean our lands and sea," said Myrna Pagán, spokeswoman for Vidas Viequenses Valen. In the United States, the Armed Forces generate more toxic waste than any other company. The United States Government Accountability Office estimates that the military will have to dispose of some 505,302 tons of old ammunition in coming years
Support the demands of Vidas Viequenses Valen.
In 2016 The Nation posted this article titled "Puerto Rico’s Invisible Health Crisis.” It asked the question: “The island of Vieques has some of the highest sickness rates in the Caribbean. Is the U.S. Navy responsible?”
Arturo Massol Deyá, a professor of microbiology and ecology at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez, has spent 17 years conducting research on Vieques—the only independent scientist to do so. Through his research, Massol Deyá has analyzed vegetation, forage samples, crabs, lagoons, and other food sources on Vieques, finding high concentrations of heavy metals throughout the island.
In one of his most recent studies, Massol Deyá discovered that lead levels in manatee grass—the most abundant plant in affected areas of Vieques—were severely toxic in 2001, when the Navy began downscaling its operations on the island, but had returned to levels found in other Puerto Rican beaches by 2015. Nevertheless, he noticed a sustained increase of lead in the region’s plants, indicating the ecological impoverishment of the area.
Back on the island, residents have virtually no access to health services. There is one hospital on Vieques, which has one emergency room, no pharmacy, and one birthing room with spotty air conditioning. Myrna Pagán, a cancer survivor from Vieques, said there are a handful of primary doctors on the island, but no specialists who can treat the growing number of patients undergoing dialysis. To receive chemotherapy, cancer patients have to travel to San Juan—an 80-mile trip over sea and land. The small, comparatively sparsely populated island is simply not equipped to keep up with the increased demand for specialized medical service.
“Every time I go, people continue to die,” said Natasha Bannan, an associate counsel at LatinoJustice PRLDEF, formerly known as the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund. She is part of a group that filed a petition with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights against the U.S. government, alleging human rights abuses. “I hear stories of new people who died of cancer, of cirrhosis, of hypertension. Two of my petitioners—they’re children—were born with severe asthma,” she said.
On the phone with Myrna last Monday, March 5, she stated that the situation is far worse today, post-Irma and Maria. There is no hospital and the small emergency room clinic had to be closed because it was full of mold. She described the health care situation, such as it is, as "like a scene from M.A.S.H. ... with tents."
This tweet gives you a picture:
Dr. Spencer Sullivan, president and CEO of the Mississippi Center for Advanced Medicine, which was appointed the exclusive medical coordinator for medical research for the citizens of Vieques, wrote this January 2018 op-EC for the Orlando Sentinel titled "Helping the helpless in Vieques."
Washington has taken incremental steps throughout the years to make amends to the American citizens who call Vieques home. President Clinton supported a referendum allowing the residents of Vieques to have a say on the Navy’s activities on the island. President Bush followed through by shuttering military operations in Puerto Rico. Congress has repeatedly appropriated funds to clean up the dangerous contamination on Vieques. In 2004, the EPA designated Vieques a Superfund site, a classification for areas the government deems contaminated with hazardous pollutants. The contamination in Vieques made it eligible for the National Priorities List, which are Superfund sites requiring long-term cleanup
Congress should provide directed relief to the residents of Vieques, especially those suffering from the adverse health effects of contamination.
There is a proposal in Congress that would legislate a settlement of the claims of the people of Vieques. This settlement would provide the municipality with modest compensation to cover their extensive health-care and treatment costs, and would also fund carefully targeted research to hopefully end the cycle of sickness and suffering on the island.
Importantly, this proposal would utilize the Treasury Department's Judgment Fund, a unique fund for the purpose of settling lawsuits and claims against the government, thus not acting as traditional appropriations. This targeted relief would not impact nor diminish other important funding of hurricane relief for Puerto Rico.
This targeted relief for the people of Vieques was the right thing to do before Maria made landfall. In Maria’s wake, the situation has only become more ominous.
That's all well and good. However, this doesn’t take into account the Trump administration’s animus directed at Puerto Rico, cuts to the EPA, and slow responses by the government for Superfund site clean-up, not just in Puerto Rico but across the U.S. The hurricanes have made a bad situation worse, as detailed in "The Looming Superfund Nightmare."
In my conversation with Myrna, she spoke highly of the legal help they are getting from the mainland and pointed to the work being done on behalf of Viequenses by a formidable Latina attorney, Natasha Lycia Ora Bannan.
Natasha Lycia Ora Bannan
She is currently the president of the National Lawyers Guild, elected in 2015, and works for LatinoJustice PRLDEF (formerly the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund) a civil rights organization which you may or may not be aware of. Founded in 1972, it was modeled after the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor was a member of their board of directors from 1980 to 1992.
Bannan is ...
… an Associate Counsel at LatinoJustice PRLDEF, focusing on working with low-wage Latina immigrant workers as part of the organization’s economic justice platform, legal support in the face of the economic crisis in Puerto Rico and human rights advocacy before regional and international bodies. Natasha has worked on gender and racial justice issues, including access to reproductive health, sexual violence and violence against women in conflict zones. Prior to joining LatinoJustice PRLDEF, she worked in the International Women's Human Rights Clinic at CUNY School of Law and the Center for Reproductive Rights. She clerked for the Hon. Ronald L. Ellis in the Southern District of New York and was an Ella Baker Fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights. Natasha graduated from CUNY School of Law, where she was Editor-in-Chief of the CUNY Law Review and a Fellow at the Center for Latino/a Rights and Equality.
She wrote “Vieques 12 Years Later: Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied” in 2016
As a result of the extreme health and environmental damage caused by the Navy’s practices, Vieques was declared a Superfund site by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2005, meaning the site requires a special protocol for cleanup and decontamination procedures because of its level of toxicity. Despite such protocols, the Navy and its contractor, CH2MHill, engage in the use of open-air bombing as a means of detonating found munitions. They also engage in the questionable practice of open-air burning of vegetation as an economical means of finding munitions, both of which have been criticized as exacerbating existing environmental and health damage. There exists no adequate civilian oversight mechanism for a community of dominant Spanish speakers who have been isolated and disengaged from participating in the cleanup process and understanding its ramifications.
The United States has consistently maintained a position of non-liability for its actions in Vieques. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, part of the Center for Disease Control, has been heavily critiqued by scientists and Congress alike for it’s “finding” of no ‘’credible scientific evidence’’ to support a relationship between decades of military toxic use and civilian health consequences and environmental damage. The Navy continues to insist that open-air detonation of bombs does not contribute to air pollution since the chemicals released are already naturally occurring; however they are quick to caution residents and visitors not to approach or touch such munitions. They have been suspected of engaging in open-air burning of vegetation to quickly locate munitions at a fraction of the cost, an act that the EPA has said would be unlawful under local law (the Navy has admitted that even tearing up the dense vegetation to clear the remainder of the debris would hurt the nature reserve, much less burning it). In the many lawsuits filed against the United States, including one by LatinoJustice years ago, the government has consistently asserted the antiquated defense of sovereign immunity, insisting their actions are justified by national security reasons and therefore not subject to judicial scrutiny. There are no longer domestic forums available for Viequenses to seek justice, which is why we have asked the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an autonomous organism and quasi-judicial human rights body of the Organization of American States, to look into the situation.
After almost 75 years of exploitation, the people of Vieques have been very clear in their demands: return of all federally controlled lands to the people and municipality of Vieques; adequate and thorough decontamination of all land and water; demilitarization of their land; and locally controlled development. None of those demands have yet been met in full. Just this month, a group of independent scientists met in Puerto Rico to discuss their ongoing concern regarding the state of health and environmental damage in Vieques. And their concern is well-founded - the Navy estimated that they have so far removed 90,000 munitions items; 40,000 of which have been destroyed through demolition. However it has been estimated that the cleanup could take another 14 years, and even then the Navy presumes that not all munitions will be found, “regardless of the level of cleanup.” Instead, the Navy has proposed posting warning signs or fencing off areas from the public, which would limit any potential use of the land and relieves them of any responsibility for possible ecological damage that may surface in a toxic site left contaminated and unattended.
During a December 2017 hearing before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), attorneys and island residents presented their concerns.
Khiana Shalis Figueroa Guadalupe testified on behalf of the the people of Vieques, who had to face the health consequences of US military training for six decades.
"75 days after the hurricane, there is still no power anywhere in Vieques, beaches are contaminated with black water, debris deposited in clandestine landfills and the only hospital on the Island (municipality) is closed," said Figueroa Guadalupe.
In addition, she highlighted the problems of maritime transportation they have. As an example she talked about the case of her grandfather, a cancer patient who has missed "four sessions of chemotherapy for lack of communication and maritime transportation and his cancer has metastasized."
Last week Bannan tweeted out this photo of the community meeting held with lawyers to discuss moving forward in their quest for justice.
(Translation: Community meeting in #Vieques, talking about human rights, defending them and never giving up, ever)
When I spoke with Myrna on the phone I could hear the sound of waves lapping in the background. She was sitting out on a jetty where she could get a phone signal, which was impossible from her house.
She spoke softly of the great natural beauty of her home island and her deep sadness over the effect of the bombings, not only on humans and animals and plants. She is also heartbroken about the impact on the very bones of Vieques: the coral. She suggested I look into the research of University of Georgia’s Dr. James Porter, who is a professor of ecology and marine science. I did, and found his Ted Talk titled “Pick Up The Bomb” about Vieques coral to be both informative and distressing.
Thinking of her as I write this, I know we will probably never get the chance to meet face to face, though we will be speaking again soon.
She is truly a spirit sister.
Pa’lante, Vieques.
