US asked to decontaminate Puerto Rico islands

San Juan, Oct 27 (IANS/EFE) The Puerto Rico College of Physicians and Surgeons has urged the US to decontaminate Vieques and Culebra islands, which were used for decades as a testing ground by the US army, and provide adequate treatment for those harmed by the pollution.

This will "be the best substantiation of your many times expressed concern for the wellbeing of all the Latino people living in the United States," Eduardo Ibarra, head of that institution, says in a letter sent to US President Barack Obama asking him to launch an executive order to this effect.

The missive dated Friday reminds Obama that an adequate and permanent cleanup was never carried out on Vieques, an island used as a practice bombing range and for experiments with live munitions, which left significant contamination.

"As is well known around the world, our pristine islands of Vieques and Culebra were during more than half a century utilised by the armed forces of the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation to practice air to land, water to land and land to land live bombing and also, as dumping grounds for military materials," the letter says.

It goes on to say that a number of scientific studies have shown that "the population of those thin paradisiac islands have been the innocent victims of high exposure to extremely dangerous contaminants, particularly and conspicuously Mercury".

"As a direct consequence of such contamination of their environment," the letter says, "its population has shown unacceptable higher incidence and prevalence of cancer, hypertension, diabetes, cirrhosis and epilepsy."

The Puerto Rico College of Physicians and Surgeons said it had communicated this same plea to Obama on other occasions, without receiving an appropriate response.

For this institution, what is alarming is that the US Navy left Vieques - located 10 km southeast of the US commonwealth's main island - a decade ago, and since then only 5 percent of the contaminants have been removed.

--IANS/EFE

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