Vieques, January 2013.
The small Carribean island boasts some of the most beautiful beaches in the world.
That is home to generations of men and women who survive from the bounty of the ocean and the land.
It is also the stomping ground of thousands of feral horses.
Vieques is a municipality of what is now known as Puerto Rico,
a colony of the United States of America.
Viequenses like all Puerto Ricans are citizens of the American empire,
but this so-called privilege does not guarantee them the right to their land.
In the 1940's the US Navy forcibly evicted the people of Viques out of the east and west sides of the island.
And installed naval bases and uses pristine beaches as heavy weaponry target ranges.
They tested experimental weapons, fired missiles with depleted uranium, and deployed napalm and agent orange.
NATO member nations also had access to these lands for bombing military excercises.
At the end of the 20th century, a navy bomb struck and killed civilian security guard David Sanes.
After 50+ years of bombings, abusive behavior by US service men,
and general disinterest by the Puerto Rican government, the people of Vieques had had enough.
Go back to your home, back you motherfucker!
They launched a campaign of civil disobedience and sabotage, that was joined by thousands of international sympathizers,
with the departure of the navy as the main objective.
Vieques's feral horses aided in this effort.
On May 1st, 2003, as US president George Bush boasted about victory over Iraq aboard a navy aircraft carrier,
the same navy was quietly closing it's doors on Vieques.
This year people in Vieques are supposed to be celebrating the 10th anniversary of this victory.
The navy did not return the lands that were stolen, and instead transferred them to the US Department of Fish and Wildlife.
This federal agency set up rules that prohibit the locals from harvesting coconuts and trapping crabs and other sea animals.
Notwithstanding the navy's withdrawal, the presence of US customs and border agents reminds us that the militarization of the zone continues.
While videotaping a border patrol vehicle we were told by a border cop that if we didn't delete the footage we would be arrested.
Even though the navy abandoned its large military basis and bombing ranges, it still retained a key piece of military infrastructure:
the navy's ROTHR installation,stands for:
Relocatable Over the Horizon Radar
a communications surveillance facility that allows the US to intercept communications past the equator
and deep into South America, with the pre-text of fighting the war on drugs.
But the biggest legacy that the navy left behind is the thousands of unexploded missiles and bombs
that litter the beautiful coastal ecosystem of the island.
Missiles the navy promised to clean up 10 years ago.
We took a fishing boat to one of the bombing ranges to see for ourselves,
and it didn't take long before us to be meters away from undetonated munitions.
The same munitions, that some say cause the abnormally high cancer rate in the local population.
The people we met admit that the battle is not over and that the future of Vieques doesn't lie in petitioning the government.
But in the same efforts of self-organization and resistance that kicked out the world's most powerful navy off their land.