U.S. continues to bomb site

BY JUAN O. TAMAYO

 VIEQUES, Puerto Rico -- One protester was arrested on a U.S. Navy target range
 Monday as warships offshore continued practice bombings expected to lob
 130,000 pounds of nonexplosive munitions at the range.

 Navy spokesman Lt. Jeff Gordon said he was ``very confident that the Navy has
 secure control of the range'' and does not bomb until it is convinced that no
 protesters are inside when its ships and warplanes fire their munitions.

 But protest leaders continued to insist Monday that five men have been hiding
 since last week in the low brush of the 920-acre Live Impact Area in an attempt to
 block the Navy's bombardment.

 One man was arrested on the range early Monday, but it was not known whether
 he was there when warships' cannons fired on the range Sunday, said Roberto
 Nelson, spokesman for the Roosevelt Roads Naval Base in Puerto Rico.

 Five other protesters on horseback were also arrested Monday, Nelson added,
 but they were spotted in a Navy-controlled, 11-mile-wide buffer zone between
 civilian areas and the Live Impact Area on the eastern tip of Vieques.

 Navy officials have reported the USS George Washington Battle Group would fire
 up to 130,000 pounds of dummy airplane bombs and artillery shells on the range
 in two to five days of exercises that may run through July 2.

 Although the dummy munitions carry no explosives, their sheer weight and speed
 can shatter the rocky ground and send debris flying for yards. The munitions
 range from 25-pound ``marker'' shells to air-dropped 1,000-pound bombs packed
 with cement.

 Demonstrators have been sneaking into the buffer zone and the target range since
 a civilian range guard was killed by a stray bomb in April 1999. About 500 have
 been arrested, including about 110 in the past week alone.

 The Puerto Rican Independence Party announced it would stage a major invasion
 of the range this week to block the exercises by the Washington Battle Group,
 and top party leaders flew to Vieques on Monday.

 Vieques fishermen said Monday that they plan to use 18- and 20-foot boats to
 deliver protesters to the range and escape through shallow waters, where bigger
 Coast Guard and Navy patrol boats will find it hard to follow.

 ``I can run them aground on any of three shoals between here and the range,''
 boasted one fisherman at the main pier in Isabel Segunda, the main town on this
 21-mile-long island of 9,400 people.

 Local fishermen waged a guerrilla campaign against the Navy bombardments from
 1979 to 1983, delivering protesters to the range and then running off to avoid
 having their boats impounded.

 The campaign ended with a 1983 agreement by the Navy and the Puerto Rican
 government to help improve the economy on Vieques, where unemployment is
 rampant.