Depleted Uranium (Uranium-238) and Vieques
January 23, 2001
BY MARY ANNE GRADY FLORES

Rolando Garcia, a life long resident of Vieques, Puerto Rico is now without hair, eye lashes or eyebrows. In 1998 he worked at the U.S. Navy base, Camp Garcia, on the east end of the island of Vieques during the time radioactive depleted uranium bombs and bullets were tested.  This past October I went with Rolando and a group of other Viequenses to interrupt a news conference that was held, in Isla Verde, Puerto Rico by Luis Reyes of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Mr. Reyes was pronouncing that Vieques was a paradise, saying that there was no radioactivity in Vieques. The N.R.C. had only tested six sites on the 21 mile island.

The Navy has been trying to allay fears about the dangers of DU since admitting firing 273 rounds at the test site in 1998. We went with Rolando to show that they are hiding the truth about the effects of depleted uranium and other contaminants left by the bombs. We also had placards with the names of others who are sick with cancer and tumors from Vieques. We spoke to the press about how depleted uranium ignites and explodes upon impact, becoming a fine talc which is subject to the strong westerly trade winds of the Caribbean. We said there is no way one can declare Vieques to be free of radioactivity without testing all areas for radioactive dust. Rolando came to NY to be tested for depleted uranium contamination at Montefiori Hospital in the Bronx with Tito Kayak this past December.

It was in Vieques that US and NATO troops trained for the Gulf War and the War in the Balkans and Yugoslavia.

The news of NATO troops dying from leukemia, cancer, and other illnesses after exposure to depleted uranium has hit the headlines, and has been spreading like wildfire for the last two weeks. Finally the word is out!  There have been hundreds of articles written recently declaring that depleted uranium is not as safe as the US and NATO have been saying. Eight European nations are claiming that their peacekeepers sent to the Balkans are suffering and dying from what some are calling "Balkans Syndrome."

The story follows a pattern closely to that of our Gulf War troops who suffer unexplained illnesses, stillbirths, cancer, memory loss, chronic pain, fatigue, leukemia, sometimes horrible birth defects and more. These troops were exposed to unknown amounts to depleted uranium. During the war the US fired 940,000 - 30 millimeter uranium tipped bullets and over 14,000 large caliber DU rounds. According to Dr. Rokke, former Pentagon official, "If a DU round which weighs 10 pounds hits a vehicle and 4 pounds turns into DU oxides and the spent DU round will then weigh 6 pounds. The DU oxides are a health hazard while the spent DU round which emits ionizing radiation at 300 millirem per hour, forever is a serious health hazard. Therefore all spent DU rounds and all DU oxides must be cleaned up to eliminate health hazards." We do know that the US left 600,000 lbs of DU and dust in the area of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Iraq after the war.  This is Jan. 15th, Martin Luther King's birthday, and the tenth anniversary of the beginning of the Gulf War. The suffering of the citizens of Iraq continues at the hands of US/UN sponsored sanctions and our present bombing three times a week with depleted uranium tipped missiles. 5,000 children die every month directly resulting from the sanctions and continued bombing. The rate of cancer has increased at least four fold.

Dr. Mona Kammas, professor of pathology at Baghdad University, shared findings of a paper on the environmental impact of our bombing of Iraq at the Gijon symposium. Of the study group exposed in combat, there was a nearly three fold increase in congenital anomalies, more than three fold increase in spontaneous abortions and an almost five fold increase of cancers.

According to Dr. Doug Rokke, former head of the Depleted Uranium Project of the Pentagon, US Army Major, and former professor of environmental science at Jacksonville University, Alabama, the US military has been saying that they didn't know the effects of DU since 1991. Dr. Rokke says, "That's a lie. They were told. They were warned."

Dr. Rokke presented briefings to medical and tactical commanders about the hazards of DU shells during the Gulf War. He was commissioned to organize the clean up in Saudi Arabia after the war. While stationed in Saudi Arabia, Rokke and his crew of 50 buried vehicles and parts, and shipped other equipment back to the US to be decontaminated at a special facility. He reports that ten of the crew he worked with have died and many of the others are sick. Only those who wore complete radioactive protective wear did not fall ill. He is contaminated in the kidneys and the lungs from DU and has become a whistle blower of the Pentagon's use of DU.

Sixty Minutes has documented the case of his crew and their ailments and deaths. Dr. Rokke stated that DU internal exposure which causes radiation and heavy metal poisoning is just one example of what is called Gulf War Syndrome.

I met Dr. Rokke, last March, in a courthouse north of Baltimore where four friends calling themselves the Plowshares Vs. Depleted Uranium actors (Plowshares-after the prophet Isaiah's biblical call to beat swords into Plowshares) were standing trial for hammering on an A-10 Warthog plane that was used in Kosovo and Iraq. Phil Berrigan, Fr. Steve Kelly, Susan Crane and Liz Walz were blocked by the injustice system. They were not allowed to give their justification argument as to why they acted nonviolently to disarm a plane that fires 3,900 rounds of DU in ONE MINUTE.

Dr. Rokke, subpeneoned to testify as an expert on DU, was told that no expert witnesses were allowed! They were finally silenced in the courtroom, found guilty and sentenced from 9-30 months in prison. We listened instead to Dr. Rokke across the street from the court house in a church for 3 hours. This was my introducion to the horrors of DU. It was this trial that pointed me to Vieques.

By May 2nd, 2000, I joined my sister Teresa, my brother-in-law Peter and six other's in a delegation. We traveled by small boat to the bombing range in Vieques to participate in civil disobediance to prevent the Navy from resuming bombing after one year of peace. During that year reprieve the land had begun to heal. The grasses had begun to grow roots and grow tall, encapsulating the contaminants in the soil.

On April 19th, 1999, all bombing had stopped because civilian patrolman David Sanes had been killed by two 500 lbs bombs. His death sparked peace activists to build peace camps around the bombing range acting as human sheilds.

The tiny US colonial island of Vieques, Puerto Rico has been the Navy's testing ground for our bombing of depleted uranium and training of our troops who were sent off to use the new weapon system in the Gulf War in 1991, the Bosnian crisis in 1994-95, and to bomb in Kosovo in 1999. Our US Navy only recently admitted to firing DU in Vieques. In 1992, Ismael Guadalupe, one of the Vieques protest leaders, was an eye witness to the very distinct signature of depleted uranium projectiles that pierced through tanks littering the bombing range. His brother was a tank expert who worked on the range, and also saw the strange entry of DU bullets, which goes through metal like butter.

For the past sixty years until today the Viequenses, which number 9,400, live with what has been called a continuation of WWII. They endure continuous bombing for days on end, year after year. Since 1942 Viequenses have been forced to live on one third of the island, in the center, with the bombing range to the east and storage of munitions in the west. Trade winds blowing from the east to the west carry the contaminants over the populated area. Each time bombing occurs, dust from that bomb and previous bombs is kicked up, raising toxins with it, including depleted uranium.

Upon impact, DU explodes an aerosolates. DU is easily ingested into the lungs and it only takes one tiny particle to begin cancer growth. DU has a half life of 4,500 million years.

Dr. Andreas Toupadakis,Ph.D., former chemist at the Los Alamos Laboratory in speaking about the Balkans said, "I have some experience with uranium oxide. The very tiny particles are able to fly away so easily, just like the water particles in clouds or the solid particles in smoke. A strong wind is not necessary to transport them, not only just to Greece or Italy, but also around the whole earth within a year. Geologists have concluded that a complete mix of the atmosphere takes place within a year. The tiny particles are of different sizes. The heavier particles can fly only for a short distance, finally depositing themselves near the impact area. The lighter move further, and the even lighter mix with the air and move in all directions. Eventually they find themselves all around the earth. Some of them will stay in the atmosphere forever. Most will precipitate on the land, rivers, the seas, and the lakes during rainstorms." Toupadakis left his position for reasons of conscience in 2000. He could not serve in the planning of mass distruction of billions of people.

The Viequenses live with the highest cancer rate in all of Puerto Rico, with 26% higher than the main island. Ironically, there is no hospital on the "isla nena," the little girl island, and Viequenses have to take a ferry, a one and a half hour ride, to the town of Fajardo, on the main island of Puerto Rico for treatment. Babies are born on the main island, so records of birth defects are not connected with Vieques. Oddly enough the Navy has been collecting medical data from the people in Vieques for years. A 58 year old Viequenses woman named Mimita told me that for years the Navy would draw her blood and others but never gave the people the results.

Studies from independent sources are helping to know the impact of such exposure on residents today. People who recently died have been found to have high levels of uranium and heavy metals. Nilda Medina of the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques says that future generations and the people who live in Vieques today are jeopardized by these contaminants.

On the eve of the second entrance of 55 of us to the bombing range on May 13th, I sat and listened to Ismael Guadalupe as he shared the vision for peace of the people of Vieques. He said that they don't want the blood of other nations, like Iraq and Yugoslavia on their hands.  The Viequenses don't want any part of U.S. exportation of weapons tested in Vieques and sent abroad to kill innocent victims. They are also clear and determined to get the U.S. Navy out but not by the tactics used by the Navy, but through non-violence and their spirit is determined that this WILL BE, and all the sooner with our help. As a North American I felt that it is our responsability to be apart of the non-violent civil disobediance because it is OUR tax dollars that pay for all that goes on in that bombing zone. We need to be held accountable for what our government does and say we will stand with the Viequenses as they reclaim their land. We must take a turn in sacraficing our comfort and to taste a tiny bit of the discomfort of what four generations of our friends have had to live with.

The struggle to oust the US Navy has recently been strengthened by the new Governor of Puerto Rico, Sila Calderon. She has committed to remove the Puerto Rican Riot Police from the gate of Camp Garcia where they have been guarding for the last nine months. Plans are in the works for more acts of civil disobedience to try to prevent the Navy from bombing as scheduled in January and February. A call to action is open to those who are interested in non-violent civil disobedience as a means of protest.

Please call 1-607-273-7437, in Ithaca, NY or 1-787-741-0716 in Vieques to the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques, if you are interested in finding out further info. about the actions in Vieques and activities here.

The Ithaca Catholic Worker Vieques Support Group will be meeting this Spring semester every other Friday, beginning on January 26th at 5pm. at 514 N. Plain St.

We have a short film that is available called "Vieques, A People Forging a Future", for small groups or large. We have people here who are available to speak. Speakers will also come from Vieques and Puerto Rico to share about the struggle with us as well.

Some of us will be joining the Vieques contingency in Washington at the inauguration protest.

Donations can be sent to the Catholic Worker Vieques Support Fund at:
514 North Plain St.
Ithaca,
New York, 14850
mgrady@lightlink.com

Websites to follow up on Vieques or info about DU are:
www.viequeslibre.com   or       email bieke@coqui.net
PRlibre@listbot.com   www.google.com/search?q=TOUPADAKIS related
links: Depleted Uranium education project/
Depleted Uranium: The Silver Bullet/
The Invisible Thread


cruza el río con la muchedumbre y el cocodrilo no te comerá
Proverbio de Madagascar

no importa cuan larga sea la noche, el día de seguro llegará
Proverbio del Congo

cuando las telarañas se unen, pueden atar a un león
Proverbio Etíope

Ni una bomba más. Ni un minuto más.
Paz para Vieques < ¡Ahora!
Not one more bomb. Not one more minute.
Peace for Vieques < Now!

María I. Reinat-Pumarejo
Co-Director and Trainer
ilé: Institute for Latino Empowerment
PMB #117
200 Ave. Rafael Cordero, Suite 140
Caguas, PR 00725-3757
787-732-5077 (voz)
787-732-6413 (fax)
www.institutolatino.org