CPTnet
September 6, 2002
PUERTO RICO: CPT Delegation participates in ongoing relay fast as U.S. Navy
bombing begins on Vieques
On Friday, August 28, a four-member delegation of Christian Peacemaker
Teams (CPT) began a four day relay fast in solidarity with the movement to
liberate the island of Vieques from the U.S. Navy. The participants
included Bob Holmes from Ontario, Christy Bischoff from North Carolina,
Cliff Kindy from Indiana, and Ben Long from Colorado. Each peacemaker took
a turn doing an "air fast" with no food or drinks for a 24 hour
period, consuming only juices during the other three days of fasting.
The four day fast led up to September 3rd, when the Navy planned to begin
twenty-three days of bombing and training maneuvers at Camp Garcia on the
tiny island. When Cliff Kindy called contacts on the island on September 5,
they told him that two hundred bombs had fallen in thirty hours, beginning
on the afternoon of September 4.
The delegation, which returned on Sept. 3, is continuing to fast in
solidarity with others who will be fasting throughout the twenty-three
days, including a group organized by the Hostosiano National Congress and
prisoner of conscience Robert Rabin, who will be fasting during his final
month in Guaynabo prison on the main island of Puerto Rico. Rabin is
currently serving a six-month sentence for entering Camp Garcia to
interrupt the bombing of by the U.S. Navy. (Five other protestors were
arrested on September 3 for also entering the bombing range.)
According to Christy Bischoff, "Our fasting and prayer is one way we can
maintain our solidarity with those who will be actively resisting the
bombing scheduled to start again in September. We hope our example will
inspire many others to join in the fast."
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