U.S.

Sharpton Begins Hunger Strike

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

May 25, 2001 / 3:55 PM EDT / CBS

The Rev. Al Sharpton began a hunger strike behind bars Tuesday to protest Navy bombing exercises on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques and his arrest protesting them, his lawyer said.

Sharpton planned to subsist solely on liquids until bombing operations on the island stop, Sanford Rubenstein said outside the New York jail where Sharpton and three others are imprisoned.

"It's now in the hands of the circuit court," said Rubenstein, referring to a request made to a federal appeals court in Boston that the men be released on bail pending appeals of their trespassing sentences.

Sharpton, City Councilman Adolfo Carrion, state Assemblyman Jose Rivera and Bronx County Democratic Party chairman Roberto Ramirez were arrested in Puerto Rico for taking part in protests May 1.

On April 27, the Navy resumed blasting the 900-acre firing range with inert bombs and shells for the first time since December. The four-day exercise drew protests that lead to over 180 arrests and at times delayed maneuvers.

Sharpton was given a 90-day sentence by a federal judge in Puerto Rico because of a prior conviction for civil disobedience. The other three were each sentenced to 40 days.

Rubenstein has said the four men were denied their constitutional rights because they were not given the right or time to prepare a defense.

There has been opposition to the Navy on Vieques since it took over two-thirds of the island during World War II, forcing about two-thirds of residents off their land.

Resentment of the Navy's use of the training ground grew after an April 1999 accident in which two off-target bombs killed a civilian guard at the range on the eastern tip of Vieques. Protesters occupied the range for a year.

Since May, 2000, the Navy has used only inert ammunition, under an agreement reached last year with the White House.

Under that same deal, the Navy relinquished its 8,100 acres in the western part of the island. It gave 4,248 acres to the Vieques municipality, 3,100 acres to the U.S. Department of the Interior and 800 to the private Puerto Rico Conservation Trust.

Also under the agreement, Vieques residents are to vote in November on whether the Navy should stay on the island or leave by May 2003.

The Navy says the range provides unique training that saves American lives in combat.

As demonstrators called for the men's release in New York, about 70 people protested outside the federal courthouse in Boston.