The atrocities of September 11 took the lives of hundreds of Puerto Ricans, including family and friends of many in Vieques. The community struggling to end Navy war games on the small island considered the situation and their own commitment to peace, and declared "a moratorium on civil disobedience actions as a show of solidarity with the victims and families affected... as well as concerns for the security of our people," who would confront military police on highest alert.

During the next round of Navy bombardment, September 24 - October 14, some dissenters took down 20 yards of the fence, but no arrests were made. The Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques, representing the broad spectrum of community groups and their supporting organizations on the main island, declared an end to the civil disobedience moratorium on October 31.

Preparations are underway to resist the next round of war training exercises, now expected to begin in January. The Navy has requested it be allowed to resume use of live bombs. Based on recent events and experience, the community expects more scrutiny and harassment from federal agents and Puerto Rican police as the date nears.

Through the summer months, scores of resisters, many who had never before been arrested, were sentenced to 20 or more days in prison for entering the bombing range in peaceful protest. A handful of mainland Americans served their sentences in camps nearer to home, but most did their time at the federal prison at Guaynabo, Puerto Rico.

Among those sentenced were pro-statehood Puerto Rican Senator Norma Burgos. She told Chief Judge Hector Laffitte that he should put the Navy on trial instead of peaceful protesters, and for being defiant he tacked another 20 days to her 40 day sentence. She was nonetheless released after 40 days. Laffitte told Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that the anti-Navy protests had brought near-anarchy to Vieques, and sent him and five co-defendants to prison for 30 days.

On July 29th, with an 80% voter turnout, sixty-eight percent of the people of Vieques voted for immediate cessation of U.S. Navy bombing of their tiny island. Ignoring the will of the people, the Navy resumed bombing on August 1.

The next night, police fired rubber bullets and tear gas on some protesters when they shook the bombing range fence. A large group of Vieques youth blocked a truck load of fence mending wire from entering the base August 3.

The presence of protesters in the restricted zone stopped the bombing for six hours on Saturday, August 4, and on Sunday, a flotilla of nine fishing boats outmaneuvered the Navy to land three resisters on the bombing range and help suspend shelling for the day.

On August 6, Hiroshima Day, Rev. Wilfredo Estrada told the press before joining others and entering the restricted bombing zone: "I believe the time has come for the leadership of this country that believes in this cause to accompany the people into the restricted zone to peacefully defend what the Viequenses valiantly expressed at the voting polls... I invite all those who feel the same to meet us in the bombing zone, later in the federal jail and after that, with our heads held high, the day of the great celebration of the liberation of Vieques."

By the time the exercises ended on August 8, over a thousand feet of fence had been removed, 65 people had been arrested on the range, and Puerto Rican police had arrested another four people, three for allegedly throwing firebombs at a military vehicle, and another for obstructing justice.

Nearly 1,500 people have been arrested to date in the campaign of nonviolent civil disobedience.

On August 14, the mayor of Vieques, Damaso Serrano, received the longest sentence of any first-time arrestee in the campaign to date, 120 days. The federal judge said he was "preventing that Vieques become a place of anarchy," incited by the mayor; the Governor of Puerto Rico called the sentence for last spring's protest "excessive."

Alberto "Tito Kayak" De Jesús Mercado, already serving a one-year sentence in Puerto Rico for Vieques probation violations, was taken back to New York for sentencing August 27 for his Statue of Liberty banner-hanging. The judge sentenced him to time served. Instead of returning him to complete his sentence near home in Puerto Rico, Tito Kayak has remained in custody at the federal detention center in Manhattan. A campaign to have him transferred back to prison in Puerto Rico to complete his sentence has so far been unsuccessful, and for several weeks after September 11, he was also placed in "the hole." His latest letter reports that he will be transferred to a half-way house in Puerto Rico in mid-January.

Pedro Colon Almenas was convicted September 10 in San Juan of assaulting a federal officer at an April 30 protest at the University of Puerto Rico's R.O.T.C. office. FBI agents arrested the socialist student activist on July 3 at his home. Colon Almenas faces up to three years in prison.

The FBI has visited a number of other students at home to question and intimidate resisters, their family, and friends. In early November, FBI agents arrested young fisherman Yabureibo Zenon Encarnacion at his home. He was taken to federal court for arraignment based on video evidence showing he and his father, Carlos Zenon, in separate boats being pursued by Navy vessels and a helicopter during the recent exercises. His father was not arrested at home, but walked into the court while his son's hearing was in progress. Both men were then arraigned, and both pleaded not guilty. They posted bail and were released under conditions of house arrest: ordered to stay at home from 6 p.m. to 7 a.m., and if the Navy is conducting training, ordered to stay home at all times. Carlos Zenon was also forbidden from fishing from his boat. He told the judge "I won't accept that," but was released anyway, pending trial at a date not yet set.

A Navy referendum on the future of their training in Vieques was to have gone before voters there November 6. Certain of defeat, even after September 11, the Navy has postponed the vote until January 25. Vieques residents spent election day collecting the signatures of a thousand residents (more than 10%) on a letter to President Bush demanding the immediate end to the war training on their island.

In New York, 46 advocates for peace on Vieques were arrested last May at the United Nations. Their case has been repeatedly postponed, most recently until January.

For more information, contact the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques, P.O. Box 1424, Vieques, PR 00765, (787)741-0716, bieke@prdigital.com and also Vieques Support Campaign, POB 350, Bronx, NY, 10468, (212)667-0619, viequessc@hotmail.com.

Letters of support should be sent to Alberto De Jesús Mercado, #19580-069, Metropolitan Correctional Center, 150 Park Row, NY, NY 10007. (Damaso Serrano was welcomed back from prison to Vieques on December 11.)