Word: rico
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...relatively far past of the '40s; all of the 9,300 people living in Vieques have experienced the negative effects of Navy occupation of the island. The people of Vieques live in a place where the cancer rate is 27 percent higher than the rest of Puerto Rico; 50 percent of the people are unemployed and 70 percent of the people live under the official poverty line. Vieques, where fishing has been an essential livelihood for hundreds of years, is greatly affected when most of its waters are kept off-limits during 250 days of the year. This begs...
When the Navy's incompetence resulted in the April 19 death of David Sanes, the struggle of the Vieques people caught the eye of international journalists all over the world, and all political parties and civic groups of Puerto Rico joined under the slogan "Not a single bomb dropped in Vieques." Viequenses saw that for once in three generations they had a fighting chance to rid themselves of a Navy that had totally disregarded their well-being for 58 years...
...margins of a letter written to the president by Puerto Rican Senator Ruben Berrios demanding the withdrawal of U.S. military personnel from Vieques, President Clinton wrote "This is wrong." In view of the president's agreement with the unanimous position of all political groups in Puerto Rico, his decision to permit bombing in Vieques to continue for the next five years is tantamount to a judge who tells a wife-beater: "Beating your wife is wrong, it is detrimental to your marriage and to her health, I recommend that you stop beating her by the year...
...word "recommend" is not accidental. Clinton's decision is an imposition to the people of Puerto Rico because it will mean that bombing in Vieques will occur for the next five years. But to the Navy it is only a recommendation that any following U.S. President can disregard, because following presidents will not be bound by Friday's decision. The end of this five-year time period will coincide with the next presidential election. Conservative Americans who fervently defend U.S. military interests will be able to exert much more pressure than Puerto Ricans, since we are not a part...
...three retired U.S. Navy commanders, including Lt. Comdr. Rafael E. Matos, admit that they have been "less than perfect neighbors" and that they broke many of the promises to the people of Vieques made in the 1983 Memorandum of Understanding between the armed forces and the government of Puerto Rico, such as reducing the amount of live bombs dropped on Vieques. Matos went as far as stating, "It's time to give back Vieques...