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Kennedy Jr. Freed: Kennedy Speaks Out Against U.S. Military Bombing on Vieques

Aired August 03, 2001 - 08:17   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.
COLLEEN MCEDWARDS, CNN ANCHOR: He is home now from being in jail in Puerto Rico -- Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was released earlier in the week. He served 30 days for protesting U.S. Navy bombing exercises on Vieques Island. He was arrested for trespassing.

And he is in our New York bureau. And, as we speak, the exercises and the protests do continue there.

Mr. Kennedy, thanks for joining us this morning.

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., VIEQUES BOMBING PROTESTER: Thanks for having me.

MCEDWARDS: Describe what it was like for you in prison.

KENNEDY: Well, really, there were a lot of people who were suffering in that jail because they had lost their jobs and they couldn't support their families. I don't feel like I was one of them. I -- really, I escaped my cell phone. I got a lot of time to do some reading.

The only kind of hero in my family was my wife, who stayed at home with our five kids and actually had another child while I was away. So she was the one who kind of shouldered the burden of my imprisonment.

MCEDWARDS: Yes, I understand you missed the birth of your child while you were there.

KENNEDY: Well, I -- the prison authorities actually let me spend a lot of time on the phone with my wife that day. Her labor was fairly short. And I spent probably two or three hours with her. So I felt, at least in some sense, like I was there with her as she was having the baby.

MCEDWARDS: Well, Mr. Kennedy, as you know probably better than anyone, the bombing exercises resumed yesterday. They are expected to continue until about August 10. I mean, when you look at that, do you think it was worth it? Do you think civil disobedience is really making a difference there at all?

KENNEDY: At this point, it's really the only thing that's helping. Clearly, it has made this an important national policy. President Bush's announcement that his confirmation of the Clinton agreement that they would withdraw in 2003 I think is largely because of the civil disobedience that's going on down there.

The problem with Vieques is that it has no congressional representation. These are American citizens on this island. But you may remember, about a month ago, the Navy said: Well, you know, we can do these exercises on South Padre Island in Texas.

And the congresspeople from that district called up the Navy and said: Wait a second. We don't want it here. We are going to have congressional hearings, and we are going to embarrass you if you try to bring it here.

And so, the Navy announced: We're not going to go to South Padre Island.

Well, half of the tonnage of explosives that is dropped by the Navy every year is dropped on Vieques. But it is dropped there because Vieques does not have a congressional representative. They don't have the political avenues that most Americans do to reach the Navy and to reason with them. And so, I think civil disobedience is really -- at some point in the democracy, when you are trying to address fundamental rights that you don't have the political avenues or the legal avenues to redress, that civil disobedience becomes not only a right, but also necessary.

MCEDWARDS: But what's the alternative in your mind?

KENNEDY: To Vieques?

MCEDWARDS: Yes.

KENNEDY: Our men -- first of all, Vieques is not a good place for our men to be -- for us to be training troops, because you can't use live ordnance there.

The Navy needs to find a place where we can give our troops adequate training, get them battle-ready. And everybody agrees they need to do live ordnance bombing. You can't do that at Vieques because the population centers -- there's 9,300 people on that island. They are all sick -- many of them are sick from the bombing. You simply can't do the live ordnance exercises that our men need.

The Navy has concealed -- has been sitting on a report since August that it completed last August -- and has been hiding from the American public and from our political leaders since then -- that show a whole host of different places where the Navy could be conducting these exercises.

MCEDWARDS: Right.

Mr. Kennedy, I know you have been an activist on this issue for quite some time. It obviously means a great deal to you personally. And I hear that you named your newborn in part after the Island of Vieques. Is that true? KENNEDY: Yes. I think -- my sister was actually there. My wife brought -- when my baby was 2 weeks old, my wife brought all of our kids -- my six kids, and my sister came to the prison on visitor's day.

And she brought a copy of the birth certificate. And my sister suggested -- Kerry Kennedy Cuomo suggested at that point that we really should put Vieques in there with his other names because it would give him a context of his birth, and that he would know that his father was in jail doing a term for a choice of conscious at the time he was in jail. And it would give him something good to think about.

MCEDWARDS: Robert Kennedy Jr., thanks for your time this morning -- appreciate talking to you.

KENNEDY: Thanks for having me.

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