 The locals took to the ocean in their small fishing boats and successfully stopped the US Navy's military exercises for a short period, until the US Navy and two US Coast Guard cutters began controlling access to the island and escorting boaters away from Vieques.On April 27, 2001 the Navy resumed operations and protesting resumed.The Vieques issue became something of a "cause célèbre", and local protesters were joined by sympathetic groups and prominent individuals from the mainland United States and abroad, including political leaders Rubén Berríos, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, singers Danny Rivera, Willie Colón and Ricky Martin, actors Edward James Olmos and Jimmy Smits, boxer Félix 'Tito' Trinidad, baseball superstar Carlos Delgado, writers Ana Lydia Vega and Giannina Braschi, and Guatemala's Nobel Prize winner Rigoberta Menchú.