Forty-two professors have joined in a Harvard junior's fight to end the U.S. Navy's presence on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques.

By signing a petition written by Hans S. Perl-Matanzo '01, professors are arguing that the Navy's use of the island as a site for war games and practice bombing runs has spelled economic problems and humanitarian issues for the island's residents, called Viequenses.

Several prominent professors, including Warburg Professor of Economics, Emeritus John Kenneth Galbraith, have joined with over 200 Harvard students in demanding that President Clinton remove all military personnel from the island.

Since 1941, the Navy has practiced advanced training--integrating different elements of combat--on the small island off the Puerto Rican mainland.

Though the Navy says the Vieques training range is vital to military readiness, Perl-Matanzo's supporters maintain that the Navy's presence has been devastating to the 9,300 Viequenses who inhabit the island.

"The Pentagon has been using Vieques for target practice for decades now," said Gutman Professor of Latin American Affairs John H. Coatsworth, the director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies.

Coatsworth said his support for the petition was "pretty much a no-brainer."

Tyler Professor of Constitutional Law Laurence H. Tribe '62 said he signed the petition because he was "convinced of the humanitarian case for stopping the bombing."

"I very rarely sign petitions of any sort," Tribe wrote in an e-mail message.

The petition's supporters contend that the Vieques economy is being hurt by the Navy presence. They argue that the island's fishing industry has been hurt by the Navy's bombing of natural fisheries, and that the island cannot benefit from the tourism that the rest of Puerto Rico enjoys.

Vieques has a 26.3 percent unemployment rate, and 73.3 percent of its population lives below the poverty line, according to a Puerto Rican government commission on Vieques.

A Navy spokesperson, Commander Karin Jeffries, said yesterday that the Navy has supported 50 economic development programs in Vieques. Jeffries said, however, that these programs have had limited success because they lacked the full cooperation of the Puerto Rican government.

The petition's supporters also point to environmental and health concerns

In particular, the rate of cancer on the island in the 1980s was 27 percent higher than that of Puerto Rico as a whole, according to the Puerto Rican government commission.

Jeffries said that "no scientific study exists" that links the Navy's presence to cancer rates.

Secretary of Defense William Cohen convened a four-person panel to study the Navy's presence on Vieques this summer. The panel's report, released last month, states that the Navy has done well in addressing environmental concerns on the island, including the protection of endangered species.

The panel did give a mixed review to the Navy's compliance with the 1983 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)--a broad commitment by the Navy to improve life on the island.

"We believe we've done a fair job [complying with the MOU], and there's a couple of areas that we could have done better," Jeffries said.

Tensions in Vieques were brought to a head last spring, when a Marine pilot misidentified a military observation post as his target and destroyed it with two 500-pound bombs.

A civilian security officer working in the post was killed.

Since the incident, the Navy has voluntarily put a moratorium on its activity in Vieques.

On May 4, over 100 squatters illegally set up camp on Vieques beaches in Navy-controlled territory to protest the Navy's presence.

"We want them to leave before someone gets hurt," Jeffries said of the squatters.

She said that the Navy wants to resume its training in Vieques because of the coordinated training that it allows and the unique qualities that it possesses. The panel's October report agrees with this conclusion.

But professors who signed Perl-Matanzo's petition disagree, wondering why the Navy couldn't use another spot for training.

"I can't figure out why the U.S. Navy can't find another place to test its weapons," said John Womack '59, Bliss professor of Latin American History and Economics

Womack questioned whether such an extensively integrated training range was even necessary.

"It's 1999," he said. "The United States faces no mighty threat to our shores."

But the Navy's Jeffries disagreed that the training range is superfluous.

"We believe it is vitally important to use the Vieques range," she said. "Recent operations in Iraq and Kosovo have shown how important it is to be ready [for combat]."

The Oct. 18 report maintained that the Navy's operations in Vieques were important. It proposed that the Navy continue its presence in Vieques for five years while it looks for an alternate training site.

According to Jeffries, the Navy is happy to look for a new site but does not want to be tied down to a particular date of withdrawal from Vieques.

On the other side, signers of the Harvard petition call for immediate withdrawal, claiming that the Navy has broken promises before, including its MOU pledges to reduce the amount of bombing and to clean up bombed sites. The Navy, though, says it has kept these promises.

To activists like Perl-Matanzo, the Vieques situation also raises concerns about issues of Puerto Rican political rights. Puerto Ricans, though they are American citizens, have no representation in Congress and cannot vote in presidential elections.

And, Perl-Matanzo said, many Puerto Ricans--including himself--do not therefore consider themselves U.S. citizens.

Because of this, the bombing of Vieques amounts to a "tyranny of the U.S. Navy and of the U.S. president," Perl-Matanzo said.

By signing Perl-Matanzo's petition, Harvard professors join numerous public figures in calling for the Navy's withdrawal from Vieques, including First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Womack and Coatsworth will serve as panelists at a forum on the topic entitled "Vieques: Will Clinton Take the Road Less Traveled?"

The forum, which will take place on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. in Science Center D, also features Manuel Rodriguez Orellana, the Puerto Rican Independence Party's special envoy to Washington.

The forum will be preceded by a 5 p.m. rally held outside the Science Center that is being organized by Harvard and Dartmouth students.

The forum speakers say they are unsure about the ultimate outcome of the conflict. President Clinton's recent public statements reflect a desire for the matter to be resolved through further negotiations between the Defense Department officials and Puerto Rican authorities.

Coatsworth suggested that the Vieques situation represents a chance for Clinton to take a stand, where "presidential leadership wouldn't be very costly."

The forum and rally are being organized by Harvard Students for Peace in Vieques, Now!, of which Perl-Matanzo is the founder and director.