All Rights Reserved. It is so serene and beautiful, tropical and green. There are scarcely 100 hotel rooms on the whole island. You go at night, tap your hand on the side of the boat, and the fish streak by, lighting up the plankton.
People can jump in and go swimming, wrapped around an aura of light.
As president and general counsel of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund in New York, Mr. Figueroa has been a leader in organizing much of the mainland Latino response to the Navy's use of Vieques to train its pilots on the finer points of aerial bombardment. He has been a frequent commentator on the subject, and the point man on letters to President Clinton also signed by the Rev. Jesse Jackson and by other Latino leaders and politicians. And he was the connective tissue for a Times Square rally held last Friday, the day after federal agents removed 200 demonstrators from the military range. Mr. Figueroa heats his rhetoric appropriately, but is careful to keep within the boundaries of indignant discourse. His bite is tempered with irony and affability.