The U.S. Navy has urged Puerto Rican authorities to send riot police to the island of Vieques where protests against military exercises occurred over the weekend.
A US congressman has been detained at the protests along with actor Edward James Almos who is among a number of celebrities - including singer Ricky Martin and Oscar-winner Benicio Del Torro - who have expressed concerns about the excercises.
Dozens of activists, protesting against the training on Vieques, a small island off the U.S. Caribbean territory, made their way onto the Camp Garcia Naval base yesterday.
The protesters say the exercises damage Vieques residents' health and the environment. The Navy rejects the charge and says the exercises - involving amphibious landings, ship-to-shore shelling and air-to-ground bombing - are necessary for U.S. military preparedness.
The Navy said it would halt the exercises today as a mark of respect for Puerto Ricans as they celebrate the beatification of a Puerto Rican.
By late Saturday afternoon, the Navy had spent more of the day trying to clear its camp, including the target range, of civilian protesters trying to act as "human shields" than working on the job it wanted to do. Training did not get under way properly until mid-afternoon.
Navy spokesman Lt. Jeff Gordon said that 128 people had been detained from Thursday up until Saturday afternoon, about half of them during yesterday.
Rear Adm. Kevin Green, commander of U.S. naval forces south, wrote to Puerto Rican Governor Ms Sila Calderon during the day, asking her to call out riot police to calm what he called an "increasingly dangerous situation."
There has not yet been response from the office of the governor, who has been a firm critic of the Vieques exercises since she was elected last November. The current round of exercises began after the Puerto Rican government failed earlier in the week to get a U.S. federal court to halt them.
"A significant number of protesters have cut a large portion of our fence and the number of trespassing incidents continues to escalate," Rear Adm. Green wrote.
"I'm concerned for the safety of everyone involved and convinced the presence of the Puerto Rican Police Tactical Squad would help stem this increasingly dangerous situation."
Environmentalist lawyer Robert Kennedy Jr., actor Edward James Olmos, local singer-songwriter Robi Draco, and U.S. Congressman Luis Gutierrez were among activists detained on the base on Saturday morning by Navy police and handed over to U.S. federal marshalls for arrest, Puerto Rican police said.
The United States has used Vieques, a 33,000-acre (13,355 hectare) island, as a practice bombing and shelling range for more than 50 years.
A number of Puerto Rican celebrities including pop idol Ricky Martin and Oscar-winning actor Benicio del Toro, appealed in an open statement to President Bush this week to halt the exercises, saying they risked the lives, health and safety of Vieques residents.