ISLAND ARRESTS SPARK STATESIDE RESISTANCE

At the White House on May 4, U.S. Representative Jose Serrano, a native Puerto Rican, held a red and white sign reading "Peace for Vieques," as he slipped inside the compound when a gate opened for a work truck to exit. He was persuaded to demonstrate outside, and was then soon arrested as he stood in the protest-exclusion zone directly in front of the mansion. "It is never a great feeling, being part of the government and then protesting against my government, but the government is wrong," Serrano told a reporter. He was cited for unlawful protest and released.

That afternoon at a large demonstration in San Francisco, fifteen people were arrested for trespass after taking over the Navy recruiting station. They were released after marchers left the rally and converged on the police station where they were being held. They were to appear in court on June 8.

On Friday, May 5, 200 people gathered outside the Navy recruiting office in downtown Philadelphia, snarling traffic with a sit-in on Broad Street. City Councilman Angel Ortiz was among 15 people arrested after about an hour in the street.

That night in New York, the Yankees-Orioles baseball game was interrupted during the top of the fifth inning when seven Vieques activists entered the field at the same time from all sides, waving Puerto Rican flags and carrying a "U.S. Navy Out of Vieques" sign. Before security guards could subdue the protest, two Puerto Rican ballplayers on the field were given a Puerto Rican flag and a Vieques t-shirt. Many fans shouted and clapped in support. The seven were charged with trespass and spent 27 hours in police custody. They will next appear in court September 1.

Then on June 7, three young New York City activists, representing the Welfare Poets and Sisters in the Struggle, chained themselves to the statue of the bull in Bowling Green, Manhattan. Héctor Luis Rivera, Stacey Toro, and Mari Cruz Badía took their protest to this Wall Street landmark to illuminate the connection between speculative global finance and the military domination of oppressed communities such as Vieques. They were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. Badía and Rivera were released the next day, and Toro just past midnight on Friday, June 9.

In Chicago on June 10, thirteen people sported a letter or two each on a T-shirt, and arranged themselves on board a visiting Navy warship for the tourists to see their message: "No Navy in Vieques!" They were eventually ejected from the ship without arrest - "Tour over!" - and arranged themselves later on the dock for waiting tour groups to see.