The Arrest of the Vieques 21

In 1975, Viequense fishermen banded together and formed the Fishermen's Association of Vieques. This association turned out to be the forefront of organized opposition to the presence of the US Navy on Vieques, which the fishermen maintained resulted in the the economic, social and cultural disintegration of the fabric of Viequense life caused by the expropriation of most of the citizenry, the forced migration of thousands of residents due to unemployment and poverty, the closure of two thirds of the best agricultural lands and the environmental, psychological and health problems caused by using the island and its surrounding waters as a practice bombing range.

From 1975 - 1979, the fishermen along with their families and other supporters confronted the US Navy in the courts, at sea and on land, with the Navy often suffering humiliating defeats, especially in the realm of its public image.

In 1979, the Navy apparently decided to change tactics. They initiated a public relations program, the purpose of which was to improve the Navy’s public image while disparaging the image of the protesters. A Spanish-speaking lieutenant, a shadowy character named Alex de la Zerda, was assigned as the US Navy public relations liaison in Vieques.

So it was on May 19, 1979, when protesters gathered on Blue Beach where a practice amphibious assault was planned by both the US Navy and several other nations that had paid to participate in the practice.(1)

That morning, a flotilla of some 30 fishing boats left Esperanza carrying more than 150 protestors including a Catholic Bishop, an Episcopal minister and a Methodist minister.

The boats proceeded to Blue Beach. The demonstrators came ashore and began an interdenominational prayer vigil on the beach. About an hour into the service, a US Navy landing craft and a small fleet of military vehicles arrived at the beach and 30 armed federal marshals moved in on the demonstrators.

Some, like the clergymen, surrendered peacefully. Others, like Ismael Guadelupe, the president of the Crusade for the Rescue of Vieques, resisted and had to be subdued, handcuffed and physically dragged away.

The Navy’s new public relations officer was on hand. Lieutenant La Zerda indicated to the marshals who were to be arrested and who were not.

Although the vast majority of the demonstrators were fishermen and their families from Vieques, only two of those arrested, Ismael Guadelupe and Ivan Davis, were Viequenses and only one, Ivan Davis, was a fisherman. Although the demonstrators came from a broad spectrum of political beliefs, all of those arrested, again except for Davis, could be identified in some way or another with independentista or left wing ideologies.

According to Arturo Meléndez López, in his book La Batalla de Vieques: "The arrest and subsequent sentencing of the 'Vieques 21' had as its objective, to try to demonstrate that the struggle against the presence of the Navy from Vieques was not the struggle of the Viequense people, but rather that of separatists from the Big Island."

What about Ivan Davis, a fisherman, a Viequense and a political moderate?

When lawyers representing the arrestees arrived at the Federal Court on the Big Island the next day to talk to their clients, Ivan Davis was nowhere to be found. A telephone call to Vieques, revealed that Davis was back home. When the attorneys asked him what happened, Davis replied that he didn’t know why, but he was visited in his cell by a federal marshall, who gave him a sandwich and a soda and told him to go home. He left through the back door and returned to Vieques on the public ferry. No charges were filed against him.

The protesters were charged with trespassing on federal property. Customarily, judges are randomly assigned, but in this instance it was arranged that Judge Juan Torruella, a conservative statehooder, would preside.

Bishop Antulio Parrilla was sentenced to one year of probation and forbidden to return to Vieques. All the others were sentenced to prison, most receiving the maximum penalty of six month of incarceration and a $500.00 fine. One of those who were sentenced Ángel Rodríguez Cristóbal, a member of the Puerto Rican Socialist League, was found dead in his jail cell under suspicious circumstances two months after beginning his six month period of incarceration.

The same day that Alex de la Zerda was coordinating arrests of anti-navy demonstrators at Blue Beach inside Camp Garcia, a pro-Navy counter demonstration took place just outside the gate to the camp. The theme was that the anti-Navy protesters were not from Vieques and were radical leftists, a hypothesis that would be presented to the media, supported by the great proportion of non-Viequenses and leftists among those who were arrested.

“The pro-Navy faction carried placards reading, ‘Navy Yes, Communists No,’ Socialists Go Home’ and ‘Vieques for the Viequenses.’

“The protest was organized by Mike Ferris, a former executive with General Electric’s plant on Vieques and Roberto Lopez, a local businessman.” (2)

The local businessman, Roberto Lopez, was also an anti-Castro Cuban, who owned a firing range on Vieques and a gun shop in San Juan. He was also was the organizer and one of the leaders of the Pro-Navy Vanguard, a militant group supported primarily by North American interests.

On January of 1980, both Alex de la Zerda and Roberto Lopez Gonzalez along with another anti-Castro Cuban, René Fernández Del Valle were arrested for the bombing of the Puerto Rican Bar Association, members of which had been defending, without charge, the Viequense fishermen accused of crimes of civil disobedience.

They were also accused of plotting to place a bomb on a Vieques Air Link flight, carrying anti-Navy protest leaders, including Carlos Zenón, head of the Fishermen’s Association, and attorneys working on the Vieques 21 trial. (3)

The trial of the alleged bombers was presided over by the same judge who sentenced the Vieques 21 protesters, Judge Juan Torruella and “although the prosecution presented, among other evidence, taped conversations between de la Zerda and a Navy ordinance man, Terrence Davis, an explosives specialist with access to weapons stored in the magazines in western Vieques, discussing the acquisition of explosives and comments that indicated that de la Zerda plotted to bomb the Vieques Air Link flight in an effort to eliminate attorneys representing the Vieques fishermen, a jury ultimately acquitted all three men.” (4)

(1) The average yearly income gained from the leasing of Vieques and its surrounding waters to foreign nations for practice bombings was about 80 million dollars.

(2) From the San Juan Star May 20, 1979, “Navy Nets 21 Protesters,” by Manny Suarez.

(3) The Vieques Air Link bombing was aborted when Lopez’s daughter who was studying in San Juan boarded the same flight at the last minute. (From Taso, Un Pedazo de Vieques)

(4) From Military Power and Popular Protest, Katherine T. McCaffrey presenting material reported in the San Juan Star.