Carlos Zenón Carlos Zenón, president of the Fishermen's Association, bore up as long as he could under the earthshaking bombing that had started at seven o'clock that morning. By ten o'clock he had come to the end of his patience. "This bombing will never stop!" he mused. Jumping into his little fishing boat, he confronted the USS Dewey. By then, the bombing was so loud he had to cut two pieces of cloth from his T-shirt to cover his ears. He thought his head would explode. As he maneuvered his boat in front of the cannon, the firing stopped. The U.S. Navy claimed it lost $25,000 that day because "someone halted its testing." But Zenón reflected on the amount of ammunition it had saved. This was but one of many acts of nonviolent resistance since the United States Navy took over three-fourths of the island of Vieques in 1941 for the storing of munitions and for bombing practice. The main resistance has been from the Fishermen's Association and the Crusade for the Rescue of Vieques. It is the fishermen who have been the hardest hit, since the bombing practice destroys the supply of fish and thousands of dollars worth of traps have been demolished. The last time we were on the island, the fish supply was so low that we observed men going out equipped for deep sea diving. This has its dangers in that there is no facility nearby to deal with the bends. The bombing practice threatens the safety of the people of Vieques. Zenón told us of an incident in which a young boy pushed against an unexploded bomb and was killed. Three others were crippled for life. Recently, he told us, a little girl found a live ordinance. An old man chased her to try to retrieve the bomb, but the bomb exploded. The man lost some of his fingers. The little girl is practically blind. The Navy offered the father $2,000 and a job in compensation. Divers have come across unexploded bombs which could go off if hit by an anchor. Zenón relates with amusement the time a group of Viequens caught the Navy literally with their pants down. A group of 150—fishermen, their wives, and others—stealthily entered the Navy base while the navy men were still asleep in their shorts. Pitching tents, they settled in with the singing of the Borinqueña. "What the hell is going on here!" was the cry of consternation when the invaders were discovered. Federal marshals, Puerto Rican police, and navy officers were called. Summons were dropped from helicopters, but Zenón shouted not to touch them. The invaders stayed two days, and then marched boldly out the front gate. In another incident, in which Zenón was involved, fishermen went out in their tiny boats to attack the navy ships with slingshots. The Navy retaliated with water hoses as they chased the elusive eighteen-foot boats about. Zenón and others once confronted a truck loaded with munitions headed for Camp García by sitting in the middle of the road. At least ten trucks attempting to leave or to enter the munitions depository were held off. Rev. Caleb Morales gave his blessing on the action with the following observation: "Christ identifies with the poor and the oppressed." At the Vieques hearings, sponsored by Congressman Ron Dellums and held in Vieques and Washington, Zenón vowed, "We are going to go to the water when we want to and not when they want." This he demonstrated one morning when he started out early for a day of fishing. A call came from the Navy ordering him to return to shore. There was going to be a naval operation in that area, they announced. "I also have an operation," he retorted, and he quietly continued fishing until early afternoon, holding off the bombing practice. Each year there is some form of resistance to the NATO operations, in which other countries pay a fee for the privilege of bombing Vieques. One such operation was Ocean Venture 81, which proved to be a trial run for the invasion of Grenada. The participants were instructed that they were to take the power from an "unfriendly" government and station troops on the island until an election could be called, and a government installed that would be friendly to the United Sates. The terrain of Vieques is similar to that of Grenada. The 75th Ranger Battalion, trained especially for rugged territory, was flown from Norton Air Base to Vieques for the maneuvers. Ocean Venture 82, an operation costing $12 million, represented a mock invasion of a mythical country known as "Brown," which had interfered with sea lanes and had shipped arms to El Salvador. Cuba seemed to be indicated. Zenón appeared in several hearings before the Decolonization Committee of the United Nations. In the 1979 hearings, he gave a long discourse in which he claimed that when the Navy left Culebra, it merely transferred its operations to Vieques, contrary to agreement. "We will continue the struggle until we obtain justice, until we have obtained the complete cessation of all military activity on the island, and we obtain the return of our land and our waters for our own use and enjoyment," he proclaimed. He called the military operations on Vieques abusive and illegal, showing how they have adversely affected the life and the economic development of those who live there. The Navy is in violation of the Declaration of Human Rights of 1947, he maintained. In the 1981 hearings, he told of how Vieques had served as a springboard for the attack on Guatemala in 1954, for the Cuban invasion of 1961, and for the invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965, and that boats had been sent from Vieques to the coast of Nicaragua during the Sandinista liberation. Though Zenón does not go into the issue of independence, one big step towards liberation would be to break the oppressive hold of the Navy on Puerto Rican territory. Vieques is the story of unfulfilled promises. The promises of 1982 signed by former governor Carlos Romero are still ignored: to give back some land to the people of Vieques, to limit the amount of noise, to reforest and preserve the ecology, to bring in industries to ease the unemployment. The first industry to come in was Dandle, which manufactured military uniforms. Founded in 1984, it collapsed in January of 1987. Attempts to enlist the "top ten" industries have not as yet borne fruit. These corporations, however, have the major contracts for production of nuclear arms in the United States and would endanger Vieques, making it a prime target in the event of a nuclear war. Meanwhile, unemployment estimated officially at 23% in 1986 is actually, according to El Mundo, closer to 40%. Continued occupation of Vieques, its inhabitants feel, can only bring about eventual extermination of the flora and fauna, and destroy the culture and the pride of Vieques. In our meeting with Zenón we commented on his bravery. "I have two sons," he told us. "I will continue the struggle regardless of personal danger. I want my sons to grow up to be proud of me."