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CNN Live At Daybreak

Protests Continue Over Vieques Bombing Exercises

Aired June 18, 2001 - 07:08   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Right now we want to move on to an ongoing controversy over the future of Vieques Island. Protesters say they are going to try to stop today's Naval bombing exercises.

CNN's Bill Delaney is on Vieques. And he joins us now by videophone -- good morning, Bill.

BILL DELANEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Thank you very much.

Yes, protesters say they're going to try to pull off some sort of an action today, but you wouldn't know it from the scene here outside the entrance to Camp Garcia at the moment. It's extremely quiet here, very light police presence and very light presence of protesters -- just a dozen or so. And they're just sitting in chairs relaxing at the moment.

Now, the protests could swell to many hundreds, protesters have told us. We have no idea whether it's going to reach the kind of level it reached in late April when some 180 protesters were arrested here and things got very much out of hand.

Now, the Navy tells us, overnight, there were no incidents that they know of, no attempts to cut through the fence around Camp Garcia and get onto the property, as has happened in the past -- the Navy telling us they know of only one, what they described, as a minor incident, a protester late last night throwing a rock, which hit a security guard in his leg.

Now, all this about, of course, those bombing runs, which are scheduled to begin off the USS Roosevelt onto the bombing range here in Camp Vieques as soon as an hour. The Navy tells us the -- they don't have a specific time when it's all going to start. It will start sometime between, likely, 8:00 and 11:00 in the morning: F-18s, F-14s and EA6-Bs off the USS Theodore Roosevelt dropping dummy munitions.

In fact, Carol, straight down the road here, if you look beyond those mountains, is where the bombing range is -- the bombing range just 3 percent or so of this island, but it's what all the controversy has been about.

I think the camera just panned over. You could also see, Carol, how light the police presence is here. It was actually much larger even yesterday evening -- so this morning, so far things very quiet. I'm looking down Route 997 here, which was lined with police yesterday evening. Today we just see a smattering, maybe 10 or so police. So we await developments here on Vieques Island, Carol.

LIN: Bill, why is it that these protesters are not satisfied with President Bush's commitment to end these bombing exercises in a couple of years?

DELANEY: Well, Carol, if the Bush administration had any thoughts that they might be satisfied by this apparent compromise to pull out of Vieques Island in two years or so, it really hasn't worked. They say this is very much an all-or-nothing proposition. They complain about the Navy's treatment of them here on the island for the past 60 years that the Navy's been here.

They complain about a 10 percent higher cancer rate, they say, on Vieques Island than the rest of Puerto Rico, which they blame on all the munitions here. They complain about the Navy just spoiling the environment of this tropical paradise. They want the Navy out now. Two years from now hasn't mollified anyone here on Vieques Island, Carol.

LIN: All right, thank you very much, Bill Delaney, standing by for whatever may happen on Puerto Rico today.

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