SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- "Get the Navy out!" the protesters
                  shouted. Puerto Rico's governor said the same thing, this time in a letter to
                  President Bill Clinton.

                  Shocked at the accidental killing Monday of a civilian by U.S. jets training
                  for Kosovo, Puerto Rican politicians and residents alike are demanding that
                  Clinton end some 60 years of bombings, shellings and strafing on the island
                  of Vieques.

                  The Navy controls 75 percent of the island of nearly 10,000 residents,
                  including some of Puerto Rico's best beaches and fishing grounds. U.S. and
                  foreign troops conduct exercises there an average 235 days each year.

                  "Regretfully but emphatically, I must by this means request that you order the
                  immediate and permanent cessation of United States and allied activities that
                  entail the use of weaponry" in Vieques, Gov. Pedro Rossello said Tuesday in
                  an impassioned letter to Clinton. "No community of American citizens should
                  have to endure such conditions."

                  Two Marine F-18 jets on a night training mission launched 500-pound
                  (225-kilo) bombs that hit an observation post Monday night, killing David
                  Sanes Rodriguez, a 35-year-old guard. Three other civilians and a military
                  observer were injured by flying glass.

                  "Who will guarantee that in the future this will not happen in the inhabited
                  part of Vieques?" said Carlos Romero Barcelo, Puerto Rico's nonvoting
                  delegate in the U.S. Congress.

                  The jets were based on the USS John F. Kennedy, which is practicing for
                  an assignment to the Adriatic Sea to relieve forces fighting in Kosovo.

                  On Tuesday, Admiral Terrance Etnyre, commander of the Navy's South
                  Atlantic Force, met with the governor and promised to investigate.

                  Rossello's objection is significant because the governor has long supported
                  the U.S. military as part of his campaign to make Puerto Rico the country's
                  51st state. The U.S. Army will move its Latin American headquarters to
                  Puerto Rico from Panama this year partly because of his lobbying.

                  But residents said his objection is too late.

                  "It's not until today, when we have a death, that it appears he's doing
                  something," said Alba Encarnacion, one of dozens of protesters outside
                  Vieques City Hall.

                  Vieques, a 20-mile-long (32-kilometer-long) island eight miles (13 miles) off
                  Puerto Rico, was first occupied by the U.S. Navy in 1941.

                  The island's 9,400 residents are sandwiched between a western zone of
                  stored weapons and the eastern staging grounds for bombing, shelling and
                  mock invasions.

                  Last month, Puerto Rico's Senate urged an end to the use of live
                  ammunition, saying up to 20 bombs and shells per minute were exploding on
                  the island.

                  The Navy defends its presence.

                  "Vieques is an essential training ground for our armed forces," said Navy
                  spokesman Roberto Nelson. "All those pilots who are in Kosovo have
                  dropped live ordnance in Vieques."

                  Residents blame the Navy for scaring away tourists and contributing to the
                  island's high unemployment rate, about 50 percent.

                  They also claim the war games are responsible for a higher cancer rate of
                  208 per 100,000 residents, almost double the Puerto Rican average.

                    Copyright 1999 The Associated Press.