Massachusetts native an unlikely leader for Puerto Rican anti-Navy protesters

                  VIEQUES, Puerto Rico (AP) -- They call him "The Gringo," but with affection.

                  Among the many protesters trying to evict the U.S. Navy from its bombing
                  range on Vieques Island, Massachusetts native Robert Rabin -- a de facto
                  spokesman for the movement -- is considered something of a Puerto Rican
                  patriot.

                  "He's as much a Vieques native as any of us by now," Vieques protester William
                  Dick Otero said of the man whose walrus mustache and bushy explosion of hair
                  have become a fixture on Puerto Rican TV screens. "He's a perfect leader, and
                  we have accepted him as one of us."

                  A 46-year-old native of Everett, Mass., Rabin studied Spanish at the University
                  of Massachusetts and taught history at a high school before coming to Vieques
                  in 1980 for three weeks of research on a master's thesis on government
                  expropriation of Latin American lands.

                  Fascinated by the Puerto Rican island of 9,400 people and its uneasy relationship
                  with the Navy, which purchased two-thirds of Vieques 60 years ago, he soon
                  returned, got a job teaching social studies at a local high school and joined the
                  anti-Navy cause. He never finished his thesis.

                  "I overstayed a little," Rabin jokes now. Twenty years later, he is married to a
                  Puerto Rican and is director of the Vieques history museum, housed in a former
                  Spanish fortress.

                  When security guard David Sanes Rodriguez was killed in an accidental bombing
                  inside the Navy's training ground last year, Rabin helped set up a protest camp
                  outside the main gate to the range. He remains one of its most dedicated
                  caretakers -- bringing in food, organizing rallies, greeting visitors from abroad
                  and giving interviews to an endless stream of reporters from Puerto Rico and the
                  U.S. mainland.

                  U.S. authorities reportedly were planning a raid this week to arrest the activists
                  and allow the Navy to reclaim its prime live-fire Atlantic training ground. The
                  protesters are blocking implementation of an agreement by President Clinton and
                  Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Rossello to order the Navy out of Vieques by May 2003
                  if island residents vote in a referendum to expel them. Until the vote, expected
                  next year, the Navy can resume limited exercises without explosives.

                  Rabin has been at the center of clashes with Navy authorities at the range. At one
                  point, he led protesters in chaining the gates shut, forcing Navy security guards
                  to toss supplies and food over the fence until the two sides reached a
                  compromise on whom protesters would allow to enter. Last week, he and other
                  protesters scuffled with guards who tried to bring in a vehicle full of off-island
                  contractors.

                  On Saturday night, he presided over a weekly protest rally and led 80 people in
                  chants of "Vieques, yes! Navy, no!"

                  It's a role that has put Rabin at odds with local supporters of the Navy, some of
                  them fellow U.S. transplants.

                  "I think what he's doing is infantile," said Helen Greenblatt, a longtime Vieques
                  resident from Boston who employed Rabin at her inn as a handyman. "He's very
                  intelligent and he should be using it to do some good here instead of writing
                  'Navy go home' on the beach."

                  Even among Navy opponents, not everyone has welcomed Rabin's participation.
                  Some grumble about the frequent television coverage his protest camp gets
                  compared to the more remote -- and dangerous -- protest camps deep inside the
                  bomb-littered Navy range. As he comforted a sister of Sanes after a recent
                  service commemorating the guard's death, Rabin was confronted by a protester
                  shouting, "Out with all Americans!"

                  Others suspect he's a U.S. infiltrator.

                  "People suspect me, and they should. It would be unreasonable for them not to
                  be suspicious of an American like me," Rabin said. "I just tell people that I must
                  be the slowest undercover agent in the world, since I've been here 20 years and
                  still haven't cracked the case."