Nota: l'isola di Vieques, nei Caraibi, è occupata in parte dalla marina USA che la utilizza come poligono per le armi all'uranio impoverito. Kennedy, uno dei tanti politici contrari al DU, chiede di smettere.

Kennedy urges end to Vieques bombing
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2000/10/10112000/ap_vieques_32434.asp?P=1
Wednesday, October 11, 2000
By Associated Press

Environmental activist Robert Kennedy Jr. asked a federal judge in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Tuesday to stop U.S. Navy exercises on Puerto Rico's outlying island of Vieques, charging that six decades of explosions have harmed endangered sea creatures and contaminated land.

Kennedy, acting as senior counsel for the New York-based National Resources Defense Council, filed a 55-page complaint and hundreds of pages of evidence asking for a temporary restraining order as the Navy prepares for a new round of exercises around Vieques this month.

Kennedy told reporters his case contended that the Navy had violated the Endangered Species Act with its bombing. "The law is so clear … there is no doubt that the Navy broke the law," he told reporters after a three-hour meeting in the chambers of federal Judge Juan Perez Gimenez to argue the case with U.S. attorneys.

"They wouldn't get away with this in the U.S.," he said. "If they tried to do this in New York, people would be all over them."

Kennedy said Perez Gimenez promised to decide by today whether to issue the order and scheduled an in-depth hearing Oct. 20.

Navy spokesman Jeff Gordon called the accusations unfounded.

"Attempts to portray the Navy's land as destroyed or the Navy's operations as destroying the environment are completely out of proportion and inappropriate," he said.

Kennedy said that during the meeting the Navy agreed to shut down a pit used for disposing unexploded bombs on the Vieques bombing range. The lawsuit claims the Navy has no permit for the facility.

Long-simmering opposition to the Navy's practices erupted in April 1999 after a jet dropped two bombs off target, killing a civilian guard on the range.

At the heart of the lawsuit are claims that the Navy violated the Endangered Species Act with its bombing and strong-armed the Fish and Wildlife Service and other federal agencies into ignoring the violations.

The lawsuit says there are 13 endangered or threatened species near the bombing range but that "biological opinions" prepared before each round of exercises have failed to study them closely.

In 1999, it says, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reported that sea turtles were nesting in areas where the Navy previously said there were none.

Gordon said the Navy marks sea turtle nests as simulated mines during exercises so they will not be disturbed.

The complaint also cites Fish and Wildlife Service reports of dead sea turtles and complaints by the agency that the exercises interfered with attempts to investigate the deaths of threatened pelicans.

It also alleges that shells skipping off the surface of the sea may harm whales and manatees around Vieques, and cites studies by San Juan's Metropolitan University that claim high mercury levels in fish and toxic heavy metals in sea grass and crabs.

MIAMI (Reuters) - More than 30,000 military personnel from the United States and its NATO allies will conduct joint training exercises off the eastern United States coast and the Caribbean this month, a military spokesman said on Monday.

 The maneuvers will take place in the region that includes the U.S. Navy bombing range on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, but military officials would not say whether that range would be used.

 The air, ground and sea exercises will begin this week and run through Oct. 28, primarily off the coast of Virginia, North Carolina and in the Caribbean, said Lt. Cmdr. John Kirby, a spokesman in Norfolk, Virginia, for the U.S. Second Fleet and NATO's Striking Fleet Atlantic.

 The operation will combine two exercises -- NATO's ``Unified Spirit'' exercises, which are conducted every four years among the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members, and the U.S. Joint Task Forces exercises held every five months among all the U.S. military branches to prepare for ``demanding scenarios and challenging conditions they might face when they deploy overseas,'' Kirby said.

 Ships and personnel from Canada, Denmark, France, Germany and the United Kingdom will participate and ``Just about all 19 of the NATO nations will be sending some people,'' he said.

 The exercises will not include live fire on land, Kirby said.

 He declined to comment on whether they will involve Puerto Rico, where the death of a civilian security guard in a bombing exercise in April 1998 prompted a widespread drive to force the Navy off the Vieques training ground that it has used for nearly 60 years.

 In May, U.S. authorities arrested dozens of protesters who had occupied the bombing range for a year to force the military to suspend target practice. Dozens of people have since attempted to infiltrate the range to protest continued military use of Vieques.

 Under a deal between Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Rossello and the White House, the Navy will continue to train with inert ammunition on Vieques for three years. Vieques residents will decide in a referendum, yet to be scheduled, whether they want the Navy to leave or to remain in return for increased economic aid.
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