VIEQUES, Puerto Rico (AP) -- Puerto Rico's independence party leader
                  slipped past U.S. Marines guarding the Navy's Vieques training ground
                  Wednesday and was detained hours before a Navy destroyer shelled the range
                  using non-explosive ordnance.

                  Ruben Berrios and activist Jorge Fernandez Porto entered the island bombing
                  range before dawn and were detained at 9 a.m. EDT by U.S. Marines.

                  "I don't know if I'm under arrest," Berrios shouted from inside the main gate before
                  U.S. marshals took the pair away.

                  The Marshals Service had no immediate comment. U.S. Marines patrol the range
                  perimeter to stop anyone from entering, and how Berrios got in wasn't
                  immediately known.

                  At 11 a.m., the USS Stump fired inert, non-explosive rounds in the first
                  ship-to-shore shelling at the Atlantic fleet range in more than a year. The shelling,
                  which lasted roughly two hours, complied with a presidential order allowing the
                  Navy to resume limited operations on Vieques using non-explosive ordnance,
                  said Navy spokesman Bob Nelson. Puerto Rico's government was notified at
                  least 15 days ago of the event.

                  "Today's training was completed safely, professionally and without incident,"
                  Nelson said.

                  Two Navy A-4 Skyhawks dropped 12 "dummy" bombs at the ground Monday,
                  fulfilling a Navy pledge to resume operations despite protesters' claims that some
                  colleagues were still on the range.

                  Berrios, 60, had camped on the range for nearly a year, helping lead protests
                  against Navy training before he and 223 others were removed in a federal
                  operation that began last Thursday.

                  The detainees were released without charges, but anyone entering now faces
                  tough penalties: up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine under a new order
                  issued by President Clinton.

                  Berrios "is violating the imperialist law in order to comply with the law of his
                  fatherland," said Independence Party Senator Manuel Rodriguez Orellana.

                  Protesters occupied the range in April 1999 after civilian security guard David
                  Sanes Rodriguez was killed by stray bombs. They say decades of bombing have
                  harmed their health and the environment and stunted tourism.

                  The Navy disputes those arguments and says Vieques is the only place where the
                  Atlantic Fleet can hold simultaneous air, land and sea training. Clinton and Puerto
                  Rican Gov. Pedro Rossello agreed in January to let the Navy resume limited
                  training with inert ordnance and, in exchange, let Vieques residents vote --
                  probably next year -- on whether the Navy should leave by 2003.

                  In a column published Wednesday in The San Juan Star newspaper, Rear Adm.
                  Kevin Green, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command, noted that
                  the Navy will soon be transferring the western third of Vieques, used as a
                  munitions depot, to Puerto Rico under the Clinton-Rossello pact.

                  The island's eastern third -- which includes the bombing range _ remains "the
                  true 'crown jewel' in preparing the Navy and Marine Corps for combat
                  operations," Green said.

                  Some 9,300 civilians live in the middle third of Vieques.

                  "Cultivating an improved relationship with the people of Vieques will take time,"
                  Green said. "This is a long-term commitment, not a temporary fix or public
                  relations gimmick."

                  In San Juan, a U.S. magistrate issued arrest warrants for two activists who,
                  protesters claim, are inside the range. Brothers Casimar and Pedro Zenon are
                  accused of assault for allegedly throwing rocks at Navy and contract personnel
                  at the range on March 18. One civilian was hit. If convicted, the brothers could
                  face up to 10 years in prison.

                  Vieques fishermen, meanwhile, said they would try Saturday to run a
                  three-mile-wide (5-kilometer-wide) no-entry zone around the range that they say
                  has robbed them of their fishing grounds. The Coast Guard is enforcing the
                  zone.

                  A former Puerto Rican senator and law professor educated at Oxford and Yale,
                  Berrios has done this before: He participated in a campaign on Vieques' sister
                  island of Culebra that eventually prompted the Navy to leave in 1975.

                  Pro-statehood Senator Orlando Parga said Berrios' strategy goes beyond Navy
                  bombing: to force Washington to address Puerto Rico's status as a U.S.
                  "commonwealth." Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens who don't have substantial
                  representation in Washington because they cannot vote for president or
                  Congress. They do serve in the military and receive U.S. aid.

                  Berrios' Independence Party -- which received only 3 percent of votes in a 1998
                  referendum on the island's status -- is working "to make our people understand
                  that a decision must be made" on status, Parga said.