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[Not often reported is that the U.S. leases parts of Puerto Rico to NATO, where multinational NATO exercises are regularly held, often with cancer-causing depleted uranium weapons. One of the first victims of NATO's war of aggression in 1999 was Puerto Rican security guard David Sanes Rodriguez, killed by a 500 pound bomb during what was described in the press at the time as a "Kosovo excercise."] U.S. Navy to Resume Exercises on Vieques in April March 16, 2002 3:48 pm EST SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (Reuters) - The U.S. Navy will conduct a new round of training exercises on the island of Vieques in a few weeks, a move that protest groups said on Saturday would reactivate their civil disobedience campaign. A press assistant for the Puerto Rico governor's office said Saturday that Secretary of State Ferdinand Mercado received a letter from the U.S. Navy Friday informing him that it would conduct about 22 days of training from as early as April 1. Groups opposing the use of the 33,000-acre island as a Navy training and bombing range said they would try to disrupt the maneuvers through their campaign of sneaking onto the bombing range during the training. "We're ready. We've been ready for quite some time now," said Ismael Guadalupe of the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques. He said scores of volunteers had already signed up to take part. The protests would be the first since the civil disobedience campaign was halted after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. The Navy last trained on Vieques in October during the moratorium. The training will involve both ship-to-shore shelling and aerial bombing. But only inert ordnance, or dummy bombs, will be used. Under a presidential order, the Navy has refrained from "live fire" training since civilian security guard David Sanes Rodriguez was killed during a botched Navy bombing run in April 1999. President Bush has pledged to end the training on Vieques, an island off the coast of Puerto Rico that is home to 9,600 people, by May 1, 2003. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Sports - live college hoops coverage http://sports.yahoo.com/ --------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
