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Calderón speaks her mind, urges graduates to do the same

By Eric McHenry

	"Remember the positive influence you can have on others," Sila Calderón, governor of Puerto Rico, told a crowd of approximately 25,000 at the University's 128th Commencement exercises, "for there is no purpose nobler than public service, no greater joy than serving others. Simply put: when those less fortunate than you need a hand, please don't turn your back on them." Photo by Vernon Doucette

Delivering on President Westling's Senior Brunch promise that "our Commencement speaker will have very notable, perhaps even controversial, insights into relations between the United States and her neighbors," Sila Calderón, governor of Puerto Rico, sharply criticized the U.S. government in her May 20 address. After charging the class of 2001 to "speak up and act out" and "struggle for what you know is right," Calderón put her own directives into practice with a strongly worded denunciation of the U.S. Navy's bombing exercises on the island of Vieques.

"I must not remain silent before this audience on an injustice that has been perpetrated on the 9,000 U.S. citizens who live on the tiny island of Vieques, off the coast of Puerto Rico," she told the approximately 25,000 degree candidates, family members, and well-wishers who gathered at Nickerson Field for Boston University's 128th Commencement exercises. "For the last 60 years, the Navy has been using Vieques as a practice range for military exercises. Recently, we have found that the bombing has dramatically harmed the island's environment and endangered the lives of its very, very poor residents. The results have been alarmingly high rates of cancer among the population and a significant increase in the incidence of cardiovascular diseases."

Controversy surrounding the Vieques exercises intensified in 1999, when a civilian guard was killed by two errant bombs, and recent protests on the island have drawn the attention and support of many public figures in the United States. Calderón's staunch opposition to the exercises, which the Navy maintains are essential to national security, helped her win the governorship by a landslide last November. She is the first woman governor in the history of Puerto Rico, a self-governing U.S. commonwealth.

Her condemnation of the bombing exercises followed naturally from her message to the students, whom she urged to "remember the positive influence you can have on others, for there is no purpose nobler than public service, no greater joy than serving others. Simply put: when those less fortunate than you need a hand, please don't turn your back on them. . . .

"For decades," she said, "the plea of these very poor residents has fallen on deaf ears. I am now speaking for them, and I expect the federal government to hear and sit down in dialogue to find a quick resolution to this human rights issue. You must agree with me that the price that the Viequenses are being asked to pay is unreasonable; a price too high to pay in any community in the United States of America. And when you next hear of their plight, I ask you, and I hope, that you will find it in your hearts to listen."

Most of Calderón's remarks were upbeat and hopeful in tone, but they came with a sobering caveat. Graduation doesn't mean liberation, she told the audience. On the contrary, it means the acceptance of many new responsibilities. The class of 2001 would never again know the relative freedom it had enjoyed for the past four years.

"But more responsibility need not mean more restraint," she added. "I refuse to believe that just because your days here at Boston University are coming to an end, so too must your sense of wonder at the world, your sense of adventure, your willingness to explore, your capacity to find joy in yourselves and to be yourselves to the fullest.

"Your journey is just beginning," she said. "As your experiences pile up, as your courage is reinforced by the bruises of failure, as your self-confidence is heartened by the balm of your successes, as you all learn to get up again and again without shame, and keep on going . . . in that measure, you will find freedom within yourselves."

Before calling upon Calderón to deliver the address, Westling presented her with an honorary doctorate from the University. He praised her commitment to acting in the best interests of the Puerto Rican citizenry, whether by assisting victims of Hurricane Georges in her former capacity as mayor of San Juan, by standing up for the rights of the Viequenses, or by crusading against political corruption.

"You have fiercely promoted the independent spirit of Puerto Ricans," said Westling, "while upholding the ties between your commonwealth and your country. . . . Sila Calderón, champion of the dispossessed, fearless political reformer, and inspiration to women throughout the Americas, Boston University proudly confers upon you the degree Doctor of Laws, honoris causa."

8 June 2001
Boston University
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