Week 58: My Summer Vacation 4, Tito Kayak

So this week, I’m not writing about music, the Dirty Little Heaters with their new line-up were incredible, but they don’t have anything recorded and I don’t’ feel like describing them to you. And I don’t feel like writing about music, what’s the point, go and listen to some music, listen to the podcast, go see a show, play a recording. I am not writing about music this week or anything even tangentially related to it.

But I am going to tell you a story.

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As I mentioned in a previous post, in Puerto Rico there is a constitutional law that prohibits the privatization or even the restriction of access to the coast. That means, no private beaches and no building anything in a way that restricts access to the ocean.

Recently however, this law has come under attack on a couple of fronts. One of the most complex ones is the development of Paseo Caribe. Paseo Caribe is a multi-building multi-million dollar development currently in construction on the peninsula of Condado Bay. It sits between the Caribe Hilton hotel to the west, and the Dos Hermanos Bridge that connects the island of San Juan with the Puerto Rican mainland at El Condado to the east. Right in between, at the point of the Condado Bay peninsula sits the historical Fortin de San Geronimo, built in the 1600s by the Spanish to protect the entrance to the bay. And blocking access to the coast around the peninsula as well as to the San Geronimo is the Paseo Caribe.

I’m not sure how Lema and Lemar Developers, Inc. got the permits to be able to start construction on the project when it obviously is against the law. The most likely theory I’ve heard revolves around the firing of the head archeologist that had originally denied the developers the permit and the subsequent hiring of her replacement who then granted the permits.

What is clear though is that the public was slow to act. Government officials who drive by the development every day on the way to work, didn’t question the obvious fact that access to the San Geronimo was being blocked. And by the time the public realized what was going on, tall structures of condos-to-be were already in place, and access to the coast and the San Geronimo was blocked.

The Fortin of San Geronimo is not a big fort and it’s easy to take for granted. It’s actually one of the smallest forts on the island and as school kids it seemed like it could easily have been stomped on by just about any military operation. In comparison with the huge El Morro Castle or the multi-level San Cristobal Fort, San Geronimo seems puny. But as a teenager, the San Geronimo was the perfect place to pass an evening. The San Geronimo is unthreatening, and does not overtake the landscape, it is just a little fort on the beach. It used to be also easier to reach than the other forts, easier to get into at night, and it is also adjacent to the fancy Caribe Hilton hotel with modern amenities like bars, restaurants, game rooms, and tourists.

So as teenagers we spent many nights at the San Geronimo and its surrounding area. It was the place to go with a girl to stare at the moon among the ancient bloodstained walls of the Fortin and ponder the eternal question of whether this was a good time for a kiss. Or we could go buy a bottle of vodka and some orange juice from the nearby convenience store and get drunk and vomit on the hood of some Porsche parked in the Caribe Hilton lot. In short, while the San Geronimo doesn’t have a whole lot going for it in terms military might, it has everything going for it in terms of atmosphere and coolness. Many generations of Puerto Ricans have fond memories of nights spent at the San Geronimo and its surroundings.

Which is why it was surprising that it took so long for anyone to notice that the Paseo Caribe developers were building this monster project and blocking access to the Fortin.

But Tito Kayak noticed. Tito Kayak is a local civil disobeyer. He made his name during the days when Puerto Ricans were struggling to evict the U.S. Navy from Vieques. The Navy had borrowed about four fifths of the small island during World War II for military practice and had decided to stay for more than 50 years, apparently there was always a war going on somewhere. As a protest, Tito repeatedly used his kayak to trespass into the Navy practice ranges and disrupt the bombing exercises. He was also one of the five Viequenses who hung a Puerto Rican flag from the top of the statue of liberty. For his actions he was arrested several times and made a name for himself as one of the most aggressive protesters in Vieques.

After the Navy left Vieques, Tito continued to be involved in various acts of civil disobedience. In 2005, he was arrested at the United Nations for trying to change the U.N. flag for the Puerto Rican flag while the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization discussed the political situation of Puerto Rico. Then in 2007 he was again arrested, this time after planting a Palestinian flag on a surveillance tower near the Israeli West Bank barrier. He did it as an expression of solidarity with another occupied territory.

In interviews, Tito comes across as a humble beach guy, he even talks a little bit like a stoner, laid back, but with a childlike excitement. He seems committed to what he’s doing, but he also seems like he’s doing it because it is fun. I get the impression that climbing on stuff and fighting the man is just the way he prefers to spend time.

In July of 2007 the first protests of the Paseo Caribe site began, and Tito was there. He led a few protesters to the top of the construction cranes and set up camp up there, effectively stopping the construction for a few days before they were forced down and arrested.

Not to be deterred, in November, Tito again climbed one of the cranes. Tito was up there for a week, before the police issued an arrest order. On the night he was set to be arrested, thousands gathered around the area, music was being played, food eaten, traffic disrupted. Present also was a large police contingent on land as well as several police boats and jet skis in Condado Bay and a couple of helicopters hovering overhead.

Tito had maneuvered the end of the crane so that it was hanging over the bay. And now as the sun began to set, Tito, in an outfit that covered him from head to toe, began to rappel down from the tip of the long end of the crane. A cheer erupted from the crowd on the ground and the police began to mobilize. Below him, in the bay, a buddy of his appeared on a kayak and holding on to another empty kayak. The police boats began to move towards the kayaks, but Tito got to the spare kayak first and raced away from the police boats and towards the Dos Hermanos bridge a short distance away. He beat the police boats to the bridge and got under it. The bridge was too low for the boats to go under, so the jet skis surrounded the bridge from both sides, and arrested what turned out to be a body-double for Tito, another guy wearing the same suit Tito was wearing that had exited on the other side of the bridge in a kayak. When the police realized they had the wrong guy, they sent the helicopters with spotlights to find Tito in the water. At this point people began to jump into the bay from the street and the bridge, making it impossible to find Tito among them. The police continued it’s search until a few hours later it was reported that Tito had escaped. Shortly thereafter pictures of Tito appeared on-line, comfortable and in an undisclosed location, toasting with a glass of wine and a sandwich.

The next day, accompanied by a local priest, Tito turned himself into the police.