By Roberto Suro
                  Washington Post Staff Writer
                  Tuesday, February 1, 2000; Page A07

                  With an offer of $90 million in aid--nearly $10,000 for each of the 9,300
                  people who live on the tiny island of Vieques--the Clinton administration
                  yesterday persuaded Puerto Rico to let the Navy resume training on its
                  Caribbean bombing range, at least temporarily.

                  The deal resolves a dispute that has disrupted training for the Atlantic fleet
                  since April, when a wayward bomb killed a civilian security guard and
                  protesters occupied the lush hillsides and beaches where the Navy and
                  Marines have practiced invasions for nearly 60 years.

                  In the works since last December, the agreement was sealed after five
                  days of negotiations that produced concessions by both the administration
                  and Puerto Rican officials. President Clinton more than doubled the federal
                  government's financial offer to Vieques residents, while Gov. Pedro
                  Rossello of Puerto Rico backed away from his pledge that "not one more
                  bomb" would ever fall on the 52-square-mile island.

                  In exchange for $40 million up front, Puerto Rican officials agreed to let the
                  Navy conduct exercises this spring with "dummy" bombs containing no
                  explosives. But at a date still to be determined--sometime between this
                  August and February 2002--the people of Vieques will vote in a
                  referendum on whether to permit the Navy to resume using live
                  ammunition. If the voters say yes, the people of Vieques will get an
                  additional $50 million in aid, for a total of $90 million. If they vote "no," the
                  Navy must clean up its practice range and halt all training by May 1, 2003.

                  "It is with immense pleasure that after six decades of military exercises on
                  the Isla Nena, we have arrived at a solution to ensure peace for Vieques,"
                  Rossello said in an address to the Puerto Rican people yesterday evening,
                  using the Spanish term for "baby island," a fond nickname for Vieques.

                  Defense Secretary William S. Cohen said negotiators had worked "in good
                  faith to reconcile the vital need for training with the legitimate concerns of
                  the people of Vieques."

                  Some of the protesters who have set up camps on the firing range,
                  however, immediately rejected the deal and warned that federal authorities
                  would have to remove them by force. Administration officials said they
                  have not decided yet how to deal with the protesters.

                  "We need to see how much Puerto Rican popular opinion rallies around
                  this accord. But regardless, some people are going to want to be arrested
                  to make a symbolic point, and we're ready for that," said a senior
                  administration official.

                  The Navy has pounded Vieques since the early days of World War II, and
                  top officials insist there is nowhere else that the Atlantic fleet can conduct
                  exercises with aircraft dropping bombs, ships firing shells and Marines
                  storming a beach all at once. (The Pacific fleet conducts its live-fire training
                  on an uninhabited island off the California coast.)

                  For more than 20 years, Puerto Rican political leaders have struggled
                  against the bombing with lawsuits and legislative action. The Navy now
                  admits to neglecting its relations with Puerto Rico and failing to deliver on
                  past promises of economic aid.

                  After the April accident, the Navy's use of Vieques became the focal point
                  for even broader resentment over Puerto Rico's relationship with the
                  United States. Local politicians found themselves obliged to oppose the
                  Navy, regardless of whether they favored Puerto Rico's independence,
                  statehood, or current status as a commonwealth in which residents are
                  U.S. citizens but have limited political representation.

                  "This is the Navy's plan to keep using Vieques for bombing, which the
                  people of Vieques don't want," said Roberto Rabin, a member of the
                  Vieques Coordinating Committee for Peace and Justice, an umbrella
                  organization of protesters and community groups. "I don't think people are
                  going to stop protesting over the Navy plan."

                  Protest leaders insisted that even the use of non-explosive or inert
                  ordnance was unacceptable, and they vowed to block the first stage of the
                  plan in which the Navy would resume exercises only with dummy bombs.

                  In the past, the administration has been reluctant to provoke a clash with
                  the protesters, and senior officials said yesterday that they were prepared
                  to wait weeks and months if necessary to let a consensus build in favor of
                  the deal. With a battle group led by the carrier USS George Washington
                  due to train at Vieques in March and April, that may mean forgoing
                  exercises considered essential by top Navy and Marine officers.

                  "I think it is useful for the people of Puerto Rico in general and of Vieques
                  in particular to have some time to talk among themselves and to evolve
                  their position in respect to this," said Richard Danzig, secretary of the
                  Navy. "It is not the Navy's intent to force the issue by making a judgment
                  about the George Washington in the next few weeks."
 

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