May 1, 2001
Narco News 2001
The
New McCarthyism in Puerto Rico
The
Anti-Drug Pretext
A Dirty
War Against Political Dissidents
over
Vieques, Environment & Democracy
From
the daily Nuevo Día of Puerto Rico
BY Héctor L. Pesquera
Sevillano
Copresident of el Congreso Hostosiano
From the Vientos del Sur (VISUR) News
Agency
Translated by The Narco News Bulletin
Publisher's Note: Civil Society in Puerto Rico has
long opposed the U.S. military's use of Vieques Island for bombing
practice and other military maneuvers. No longer can Washington
and its spokespersons deny that a majority of Puerto Rican citizens
want the Marines out of their islands. And so, as with the rest
of our América, the official U.S. policy is to portray
those with differing points of views as being somehow in cahoots
with drug traffickers. As this column shows, the claim is based
on no evidence at all. Drug War McCarthyism, long a staple of
U.S. foreign policy, is now being waged within U.S. territory
as well.
Special
to Nuevo Día:
I remember that a couple years ago,
during the struggle against the siting of the Radar Over Horizon
(ROTHR, in its Spanish acronym) in the Lajas Valley and in Vieques,
Puerto Rico, that Admiral Diego Hernandez, spokesman for the
marines, raised the argument that the opponents of this proposed
radar were financed and supported by the narco-traffickers of
the country and abroad. The then Resident Commissioner in Washington,
Carlos Romero Barcelo, echoed the argument. Sound familiar?
Against all the evidence of health damages,
the radar was finally sited in Juana Díaz and the transmitter
- the component that emits potent electro-magnetic waves - was
sited in Playa Grande, southeast of Vieques. After a year of
operation, this radar, whose only purpose according to the Marines
was to detect boats and airplanes suspected of drug trafficking,
not one case attributable to the radar has captured drug traffickers.
To the contrary, we know that it is being utilized in military
exercises by the Marines in Vieques as a fundamental component
in training for anti-missile systems that are being tested in
the waters near Nena Island and that the Raytheon corporation
wants to sell to the Defense Department.
The final test of this anti-missile system
made of radars in boats, planes and on land will be conducted
in Vieques this Spring. After having argued that the radiation
of the ROTHR was less dangerous than a cell phone or microwave
oven, they now obligate the employees and technicians of the
radar in Vieques to sign a document exonerating the Marines of
any health damages that they might incur, caused by the electromagnetic
radiation of the Radar.
A few days ago we listened to Ms. Ileana
Colon Carlo say, to the opposition of everyone, that behind the
opponents of the nomination of Colonel Collazo to lead the drug
czar's office were the narco-traffickers of the country. What
a coincidence! The same argument that the Marines used in the
case of the radar to try and demobilize public opinion and discredit
the opponents of their militarist agenda. After this lack of
respect and gratuitous offense against people and organizations
of prestige in this country, Colon Carlo says she was quoted
out of context and that what she wanted to say was that the ones
who are most helped if nothing is done to attack the problem
of drugs in Puerto Rico are the narco-traffickers: a demagogic
argument by Ms. Colon. No one is proposing that nothing be done
against drugs. To the contrary, that something different be done,
that they don't continue repeating the failed strategies.
What he country hopes for and the opponents
of the Czar are proposing is a social focus, healthy and preventative
toward the grave problem of consumption and traffic of drugs
in our country, led by a social worker or a specialist in behavioral
sciences. This is an approach to the problem that will not repeat
the failed and copied policies of the federal sphere, those to
which Colonel Collazo has shown such loyalty. To conspire, persecute,
cover up and incarcerate, no one like the Colonel, trained at
the School of the Americas, now closed for its history of training
dictators, torturers, police and government assassins in all
of Latin America. To attack a social and mental health problem
with success, a specialist in these fields with a progressive
vision.
Rear Admiral of the Marines Kevin P. Green,
in an article titled "Our Great Responsibility" (El
Nuevo Día, February 24, 2001), after expressing his great
worry for the health, well-being and peace of the people of Vieques,
makes his central proposal based on the theory that if the Marines
is obligated to leave Vieques because of the November 6 referendum,
then the drug traffickers will increase their criminal activity
in Puerto Rico and, as a consequence, the entrance of drugs into
the continental United States will be uncontrollable. Newly,
the subliminal message of the Rear Admiral of the Marines is
clear: the opponents of the presence of the Marines in Vieques
are fronting for the narco-traffickers and might be influenced
by them. Those who campaign so that the Marines lose the referendum
of November 6 collaborate with the interests of narco-trafficking.
Coincidence or concerted strategy?
We understand the reasons that Diego Hernandez,
Kevin Green and the Marines, lacking arguments to convince us
of their militarist positions, sell and intend to manipulate
public opinion adding to it the pain and suffering that the grave
problems of drug addiction and trafficking in Puerto Rico bring.
Their lack of scruples doesn't surprise us. Nor does it surprise
us that one Colonel Collazo, from the head of his office as anti-drug
czar and being faithful to his federal loyalties, in a given
moment expresses that the control of drug trafficking in Puerto
Rico requires the presence of the Marines.
However, we are surprised by the adhesion
of Ileana Colon Carlo to the opera of the Marines. The tendency
to associate differing opinions with drug trafficking is very
dangerous and harmful. To criminalize the opposition is precisely
and completely contrary to the policy of national reconciliation
expressed by Governor Calderon during her campaign. Beware of
falling into the temptation of justifying attacks based on manipulation
and irresponsible expressions. It's no good for the country that
some in charge of investigating and discovering crimes of corruption
and turbid management lose their objectivity, prestige and credibility.
The
Pretext Stops Here