CNN
July 14, 2001

Sen. Clinton in Puerto Rico in support of Vieques protesters

 
                 SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton
                 arrived in Puerto Rico on Saturday to visit environmental activist Robert
                 F. Kennedy and a New York labor leader jailed for protests against Navy
                 bombing on Vieques island.

                 Clinton has said her one-day visit is a "gesture of solidarity" with protesters.
                 Kennedy, nephew of former President Kennedy, and labor leader Dennis Rivera
                 are serving 30-day sentences for trespassing connected to an April 28 protest.

                 Her visit comes as the Navy has notified local government it will begin a new
                 round of exercises on Vieques August 1.

                 Acting Gov. Ferdinand Mercado, who made the announcement Friday, said the
                 timing is "insensitive and lacking prudence" because it would follow a July 29
                 nonbinding referendum the local government is holding to gauge if and when
                 Vieques' 9,100 residents want the Navy to leave. One option will be an
                 immediate end to bombing.

                 Clinton, a Democrat who supports an immediate halt to the exercises, arrived in
                 the capital, San Juan, on Saturday morning. She did not speak to media at the
                 airport before leaving in a motorcade for the federal detention center in
                 suburban Guaynabo.

                 Clinton also planned to meet with Archbishop San Juan Roberto Gonzalez
                 Nieves after leaving the prison on Saturday afternoon.

                 The former first lady will not travel to Vieques -- an outlying Puerto Rican
                 island.

                 President Bush plans to have the Navy out of Vieques by 2003. But that promise
                 has not appeased many Puerto Ricans, who claim six decades of bombing has
                 harmed the health of islanders. The Navy denies those claims.

                 Many New York politicians have traveled to Puerto Rico to lend support to the
                 Vieques cause -- some say to win votes among New York's estimated 1 million
                 Puerto Ricans.

                 On Friday, New York legislator Adam Clayton Powell IV was released after
                 being sentenced to time served in a San Juan federal court. He was arrested
                 June 28 for trespassing on Navy land.

                 In April, Clinton met with New York civil rights leader Al Sharpton at a
                 Brooklyn detention center. Sharpton is still serving a 90-day sentence for
                 trespassing.

                   Copyright 2001 The Associated Press.