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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- The political activists,
brown envelopes tucked under their arms, staked out the
high school gates just after sunrise. When students
emerged from the graffiti-scorched streets of the Rio
Piedras neighborhood here and began streaming toward
their school, the pro-independence advocates ripped open
the envelopes and began handing the teens fliers
emblazoned with the slogan: "Our youth should not go to
war."
At the bottom of the leaflet was a tear sheet that
students could sign and later hand to teachers, to
request that students' personal contact information not
be released to the U.S. Defense Department or to anyone
involved in military recruiting.
The scene outside the Ramon Vila Mayo high school
unfolded at schools throughout Puerto Rico this week as
the academic year opened. On this island with a long
tradition of military service, pro-independence
advocates are tapping the territory's growing anti-Iraq
war sentiment to revitalize their cause. As a result, 57
percent of Puerto Rico's 10th-, 11th- and 12th-graders,
or their parents, have signed forms over the past year
withholding contact information from the Pentagon --
effectively barring U.S. recruiters from reaching out to
an estimated 65,000 high school students.
"If the death of a Puerto Rican soldier is tragic,
it's more tragic if that soldier has no say in that war,"
said Juan Dalmau, secretary general of the Puerto Rican
Independence Party (PIP). His efforts are saving the
island's children from becoming "colonial cannon meat,"
he said.
Under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, all
schools receiving U.S. federal funding must provide
their students' names, addresses and phone numbers to
the military unless the child or parents sign an opt-out
form. Puerto Rico received $1.88 billion in U.S.
education funds this year. For five years, PIP has
issued opt-out forms to about 120,000 students in Puerto
Rico and encouraged them to sign -- and independista
activists expect this year to mark their most successful
effort yet.
Such actions come as other antiwar groups on the
island are seeking to undercut military recruiting, as
well. For example, the Coalition of Citizens Against
Militarism, an association of pacifist groups, plans to
visit about 70 schools on the island in the coming days,
meaning that many students will receive two, or even
three, opt-out forms by the end of August.
Antiwar advocates have even gained direct access to
Puerto Rican classrooms under a controversial directive
issued last September by Rafael Aragunde, the island's
education secretary, granting "equal access" by pacifist
groups and military recruiters.
Although he will not bar recruiters from schools,
Aragunde said, he has a "lot of sympathy" for what
pacifist groups are trying to accomplish. "I've always
felt that one of the byproducts of a good educational
system is that you have citizens who will defend
pacifism," he said. "I think that just like we have to
insist on ecological values, we have to insist on
pacifist values." Aragunde described his relations with
military recruiters as "cordial."
Bill Carr, deputy undersecretary of defense for
military personnel policy, acknowledged that the counter-recruiting
campaigns are having an impact. "We're drawing less than
the national average" in Puerto Rico, he said.
In the 2003-06 period, 4,947 Puerto Rican men and
women enlisted in the Army or Reserves, or approximately
123 people per 100,000 residents, according to Pentagon
data. That is below the average contribution of U.S.
states, and far below the numbers in states such as
Alabama, Kansas, Montana and Oklahoma, each of which
enlists more than 200 men and women per 100,000,
according to Army data.
"We're not taking more than our share from Puerto
Rico," Carr said. "We're taking less than our share,
because that's what they'll give us." Carr said he
suspects that opt-out rates for states in the
continental United States rarely break beyond 10 percent
-- a far cry from the nearly 60 percent on the island.
Reaction outside the gates of the Ramon Vila Mayo
school this week seem to confirm that suspicion. A few
students shrugged off the political activists'
overtures, while others smiled and declared their
interest in joining the "Yankee" military. But most of
the teens politely accepted the forms, nodded and even
fetched pens from their school bags.
Calls for Puerto Rico's independence have existed
since the days of Spanish colonial rule and continued
after the United States seized control of the island in
1898. In the 1950s, a branch of the movement attempted a
violent uprising. Although many Puerto Ricans express
deep patriotism for the island, the independence impulse
has never translated in the polls -- either in elections
or in successive plebiscites on the status of the
territory, in which independence has repeatedly been
rejected.
Leaders from the island's two major political parties
say that their PIP opponents are exploiting young people
to advance their separatist grievances. And Pentagon
officials accuse the activists of "manipulating"
impressionable young people.
"What's going on in Puerto Rico is an artificial
circumstance, where a group is trying to persuade
students to take their name off a list, and of course
that's going to meet in some change in behavior," Carr
said. "In the event that someone approaches a young
person and their voluntary behavior is to take an
opt-out card and give it to their teacher, there's
nothing we can or should do in that case. That's free
speech. But it's curious speech, because it's
manipulating the flow of information . . . and that is
unhealthy."
The Pentagon said it is on track to meet its
recruiting targets for this fiscal year. However,
despite a $3.2 billion national recruitment campaign,
the military was forced to bring back 1,000 former
recruiters to help with the summer months -- the peak
recruiting period -- and late last month introduced a
$20,000 "quick-ship" bonus for recruits willing to enter
training before October. Carr said that Puerto Rico's
anti-military drive could force recruiters to focus on
states such as Texas, where they meet with less
resistance.
Maj. Ricardo Sierra, who runs eight of Puerto Rico's
14 Army recruiting stations, rejected the notion that
anti-recruitment efforts are affecting his operations.
High school students are not his target demographic, he
said, because few speak English well enough to pass
military entrance exams. Instead, Sierra said,
recruiters are meeting targets by contacting college-educated
students.
"We do target [high school students], we do campaigns,
we talk to the seniors, but we don't get a whole lot of
them," Sierra said, estimating that the U.S. military
enlists an average of 22 Puerto Rican high school
graduates per year.
Senior chief Joe Vega, who heads the island's three
Navy recruiting stations, said that "if Puerto Rico was
a fully bilingual state or country, the recruiting
contribution would be much higher." His top recruiter,
Chief Select Ernesta Marrero, said that many young
people sign up out of patriotism or a sense of
obligation to the United States.
"Being part of the U.S. is what gives them the right
to their freedom, democracy, the chance to voice their
opinions -- it's the constitution that we [the military]
uphold," Marrero said.
Sonia Santiago, founder of the local group Mothers
Against War, said her volunteers visit schools to
"unmask" the way in which recruiters promise "villas y
castillas" (villas and castles) that they cannot
deliver. One persuasive tactic, she added, is to ask
children how their mothers would feel if they were
injured or killed in war.
Aragunde, the education secretary and a self-declared
independista, said that most Puerto Ricans do not view
the U.S. armed forces as "their military." According to
a recent poll by the Puerto Rican daily El Nuevo Día, 75
percent of commonwealth residents oppose the Iraq war --
a figure that has escalated with the number of Puerto
Ricans killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Pentagon lists 37 service members from the island
as killed in action in the two conflicts, but local
antiwar groups say the number exceeds 80, including
suicides and soldiers recruited from the U.S. mainland.
Deaths of all Puerto Rican troops make headlines
here. The funeral in March of Army Cpl. Jason Nunez, 22,
proved particularly emotional. In images broadcast
throughout the island, his mother removed the U.S. flag
from her son's coffin and deliberately dropped it to the
floor. She later implored other parents not to allow
their children to fight in the U.S. military.
Aragunde said such images shape public opinion. "You
don't want children fighting on the streets, you don't
want children cheating, nor stealing, and you don't want
them to think that an alternative to solving any
conflict is war," he said. "I feel it's my obligation to
defend that value." |
