On Vieques, A Wary Wait for Navy Exit

VIEQUES, Puerto Rico, June 14 -- Some residents of this scenic, and as yet largely undeveloped, island today were already beginning to envision a day when the Navy would no longer occupy the most beautiful of their beaches -- and when low-flying military jets on maneuvers would no longer disturb their sleep.

But they also said they have waited too long and been disappointed too many times by the military and the U.S. government to count on a trouble-free departure of the Navy from its training facilities in Vieques in 2003, as President Bush promised today.

"This should be an island paradise," said Deputy Mayor Henry M. Gonzalez Vega. "We are concerned that they are going to return the land clean, without contaminants."

The Navy owns two-thirds of Vieques, one of the smaller islands of Puerto Rico, and for 60 years, has used it as a simulated war zone in the training of hundreds of thousands of sailors in the Atlantic Fleet. Until two years ago, when a civilian guard was killed during a bombing exercise, the Navy used real ordnance instead of dummy bombs, as it does now, and residents have complained for years about high cancer rates, respiratory problems and harm done to Vieques' tropical forests and beaches.

The military and the 9,000 islanders have never been very interdependent, and in recent years, with increasing demonstrations about the military presence, the relationship has grown less cordial. Because Camp Garcia and the other Navy installation on Vieques are largely training facilities, where personnel are brought in for short, intensive exercises and then depart, they never gave rise to the kind of community nightlife and businesses catering to the military that usually spring up around a U.S. base. And since the 1999 death of civilian guard David Sanes Rodriguez spawned more heated protests, Navy personnel have been restricted to the clubs and beaches on Navy grounds.

Nor was the Navy ever a very large employer on the island. "A hundred people tops," Gonzalez Vega said. "The problem here is they had the chance to increase the economy of the island for 60 years and they never did it."

Before Vieques became identified with Navy bombing exercises, it was home to five sprawling sugar plantations, he said. Back in the 1930s, there were 30,000 residents, he said, but the military's use of the island discouraged new arrivals and others left out of fear and economic hardship. A potential tourist industry also has stumbled because the island's reputation as a military outpost belied its tall palms, winding country roads and pristine stretches of sand.

Vieques tourism director Maria L. Leguillou said about 300 people a month visit Vieques, some of them day travelers. She hopes the numbers will swell once the Navy is history here, and laments the fact that the largest, nicest beaches -- Red Beach, Blue Beach -- are Navy property. Until two years ago, residents were periodically allowed in those areas, but that, too, halted with Sanes's death and the stepped-up protests.

"A lot of times, we get calls from people who say, 'Are they bombing around the hotels?' And we say, 'Oh no, they are at the base, far from the hotels.' But there is a certain fear on the part of people to come here," she said.

At the same time, she said, other callers say they fear coming to an area that has been the target of so many protests. Vieques has become internationally known for the struggle to oust the Navy, attracting celebrities to the protest lines.

Leguillou said that the Navy can stay or go, "as long as they stop the bombing." She said she will appreciate it when military jets do not fly over her seaside home: "At 2 o'clock in the morning, you can hear the jets," she said. "When my grandson was a baby, they made him nervous."

At his El Patio restaurant in Isabel Segunda, the larger of Vieques' two towns, Edgard Parilla said he would love to see more tourists discover the island. He would love to see more hotels and tourist-related businesses spring up, and more customers sitting down to eat his steamed chicken with rice and beans -- but only to a certain point.

"Once the Navy leaves, I think our tourism can only increase," Parilla said. "We would probably end up with more hotels, more everything. But we've got to have controlled economic development. We've got to make sure we don't lose this natural beauty of Vieques."