Veterans arrested, trampled at debate, war protest

Police charge Iraq veterans with horses, trample and arrest them

By http://www.indymedia.org/

Photos by Vietnam Veteran Bill Perry

HEMPSTEAD, NY — Ten members of the Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), a group of military veterans who are calling for immediate withdrawal from Iraq, were arrested along with at least five civilians outside the final presidential debate at Hofstra University on Wednesday, October 15. The group had been trying to get answers for their questions from the candidates. "Neither of the candidates has shown real support for service members and veterans," said Jason Lemieux, a former Sergeant in the US Marine Corps who served three tours in Iraq, and member of IVAW.The veterans and their supporters were met by riot police as well as police on horseback. After a tense standoff for five minutes, police used their horses to attack the crowd, knocking over and trampling several — including Army Sergeant Nick Morgan (pictured), who suffered a broken cheekbone. Read Reports by Ben Dean-Kawamura by Alex Kane Photo by Bill PerryThe questions IVAW wanted to ask were:* (To Obama): "As President of the United States of America, are you prepared to back up your own words [about the illegality of the Iraq War] and the U.S. Constitution by supporting service members refusing to participate in what you describe as an illegal occupation?"* (To McCain): "What promises are you willing to make, as a veteran, as a senator, as a presidential candidate, to the veterans of the United States, to prove that you will ensure the V.A. is fully funded, staffed and capable of preventing troops from suffering as they are now?" Demands in full: IVAW Send Letter to Schieffer, Plan Protest at Hofstra Univ. Debate

MORE COVERAGE: Photos by Jamie Lehane Video from DN! Video from IVAW IVAW Press Release

Statement by Iraq Veterans Against the War
Photos by Vietnam Veteran Bill Perry
One hour before the final presidential debate of the 2008 campaign, fourteen members of IVAW marched in formation to Hofstra University to present questions for the candidates. IVAW had requested permission from debate moderator Bob Schieffer to ask their questions during the debate but got no response.
The contingent of veterans in dress uniforms and combat uniforms attempted to enter the building where the debate was to be held in order to ask their questions but were turned back by police. The IVAW members at the front of the formation were immediately arrested, and others were pushed back into the crowd by police on horseback. Several members were injured, including former Army Sergeant Nick Morgan who suffered a broken cheekbone when he was trampled by police horses before being arrested.
Watch Democracy Now's coverage of the action.
Indy media NYC article: http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2008/10/100761.html

RNC Police Tactics v. Iraq Veterans with a Message for the Candidates
Article by Debra Sweet
The World Can't Wait
A group of us from World Can't Wait went to Hostra University yesterday before the debate. Several different groups had messages outside the gates. Immigrant rights activists (Hempstead has a large Salvadoran community) came on a march with student anti-war groups, World Can't Wait, Code Pink and many local activists. The Long Island Alliance of peace/environmental groups, and about 50 Planned Parenthood supporters, along with a mix of Obama supporters had a rally inside a fenced-in "free speech zone." We were all in a kind of fluid mix across a wide turnpike from where the debate was held, while elsewhere, a free concert was held for Obama. All the national media were inside the campus.
Iraq Veterans Against the War had announced last week that they had questions for Obama and McCain about the war and treatment of veterans, and wanted their representatives allowed into ask them. IVAW had a meeting earlier with the local police, assuring them would be non-violent. At 7pm, the deadline they gave the debate organizers for an answer, 15 members of IVAW led a march across the street. At least 100 of us followed them, backing them at the entrance of the campus, and shouting "Let them in!" We were met by a solid line of police on horses, with nearly 100 riot police.
Matthis Chiroux and Kris Goldsmith read the questions they wanted to ask the candidates, and when they stepped forward a few feet to attempt to go on campus, they were arrested. In the next few minutes, a total of 10 IVAW members were arrested, some after standing together, pushed across the turnpike by cops on horses. They never raised their arms. The horses were used repeatedly to charge into the crowd, and especially at the IVAW members, in uniform, who were able to stay upright for nearly 10 minutes. As we were pushed to the opposite sidewalk, the batons came out, and horses pushed several veterans to the ground, including Geoff Millard. Nick Morgan was stepped on by a horse, and treated at a hospital (only after the other vets demanded it) for a broken cheekbone and possible concussion, then sent on to jail. Two women in the crowd were also hurt by horses.
The several veterans who were not arrested spoke to the independent media afterward, full of outrage. Jabar Magruder, who was stationed in Iraq as part of the national guard, said he had not seen people attacked like that since he was in Iraq, and "I don't need to see that here".
Those arrested were charged with disorderly conduct and refusal to obey an official order, and released for a November 10 court date. There was almost no mention of this protest in the news today. New York Newsday and The Army Times were the only daily newspapers to cover the story. Local TV affiliates sent cameras after the arrests. See independent media reports:
Democracy Now
The Indypendent
Be the Media
Challenging the Torture State:
MORE Secret Memos: Bush Regime Advocated, Endorsed Torture: An article in Wednesday's Washington Post reveals that, in 2003 and 2004, Bush Regime officials issued a pair of memos to the CIA that explicitly and categorically advocated the use of torture on "suspected terrorists".
Two developments ensued the memos. One - countless bodies and minds were destroyed by the systematic use of water boarding, crushing testicles, sleep deprivation, bodies smeared with dog shit and set upon by German shepherds, savage beatings, and other unimaginably barbaric torments carried out by U.S. intelligence and military officials - in the name of the American people. Two - an endless stream of evasions, distortions, cheap "justifications", equivocations, and of course outright lies by every significant representative of the Bush Regime, starting with Bush himself, from day one right down to today.
Torturing Democracy: This film was shown on PBS WNET in New York tonight, but PBS has delayed showing it nationally until after January 21. You can see it anytime online, and it's well worth the time. Watch the documentary, narrated by Peter Coyote, read the key documents, and see a timeline of US sponsored torture at http://www.torturingdemocracy.org/
W! The film by Oliver Stone opens nationwide today. I know a lot of you Bush opponents will see it. Richard Dreyfuss as Dick Cheney. Thandie Newton as Condoleeza Rice and Jeffrey Wright as Colin Powell. Send me your opinions and reviews!
Debra Sweet, Director,
The World Can't Wait - Drive Out the Bush Regime

Tohono O'odham leaders: Moral question of water and responsibility

PUBLISHED ON OCTOBER 16, 2008:
Guest Commentary, Tucson Weekly

Tohono O'odham leaders need to tackle the moral question of water and responsibility

By MARK A. RIVERA and KENT WALKER

Photos Mike Wilson at Baboquivari water station by Brenda Norrell/Censored News

Of all the morally troubling aspects of the ongoing border crisis, the most disturbing has to be the growing migrant death toll, including on the Tohono O'odham reservation. Equally troubling is the tribal government's refusal to support humanitarian water stations on its land. The nation has long resisted taking a collective stand against water stations, but recent actions prove it also wants to squash individual action among the O'odham. Over the last seven years, tribal leadership -- with some justification -- has chosen to blame the federal government for its border-related woes and has sought to receive financial compensation, thereby distracting everyone from the fact that it still refuses to put out water stations or support those who would do it themselves. And as social-justice advocates make clear, the Tohono O'odham do have a choice. They are simply making the wrong one. In early September, Veronica Harvey, the tribe's Baboquivari District chair, ordered tribal law enforcement to remove three water stations maintained by Mike Wilson, an O'odham social-justice activist. The confiscation of Wilson's water stations should have provoked harsh condemnation from Chairman Ned Norris Jr. Norris could have made the case that migrant deaths affect all O'odham. Instead, Norris supported Harvey's authority to take such actions on the grounds that the "tribal Constitution authorizes each district to govern themselves on issues of local concern." The burning question is: Why?
Read article: http://www.tucsonweekly.com/gbase/Opinion/Content?oid=oid:117082

Photo: Mike Wilson, Tohono O'odham, holds cattle water left behind my migrants in Baboquivari District at one of his water stations. More than 80 migrants died on Tohono O'odham land in the first six months of 2008. Photo Brenda Norrell

Femicide torture case in Chihuahua heads to OAS

October 15, 2008
Women’s/Human Rights News
Femicide Torture Case Heads to OAS
By Lourdes Gonzalez Leal
Frontera NorteSur
A long-running case of state torture and legal chicanery related to the Chihuahua City women’s killings could end up in the Organization of American States (OAS) soon. This week, the Mexico City-based Commission for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (CMDPDH) announced it will take the case of David Meza Argueta to the OAS’s Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington, D.C. during the December-January time period. The human rights commission regularly makes recommendations to the Mexican government and other member states of the OAS system.
In 2003, Chihuahua City state police agents arrested Meza and accused himof the murder of his 19-year-old cousin, Neyra Azucena Cervantes. Thesuspected body of the young computer school student and retail shop employee was discovered on the Cuernos de Luna hill outside Chihuahua Cityin July 2003. Together with Neyra, the remains of another missing young woman, Minerva Torres, were recovered at the crime scene but concealed from family members for two years by Chihuahua state authorities.
Subsequent probes by the official Chihuahua State Human Rights Commission and other investigators applying the international Istanbul Protocol supported Meza’s contention that he had been tortured and forced into making a false confession by Chihuahua State Judicial Police officers then under the command of the late Vicente Gonzalez and former State Attorney General Jose “Chito” Solis.
Chihuahua Judge Aram Delgado declared Meza innocent in 2006, but only after the young man had spent nearly three years in prison for a crime he said he did not commit. Meza’s case attracted international attention, prompting protests outside Mexican consulates by Mexico solidarity groups abroad.
Although Meza is free, the CMDPDH, supported by the Chihuahua-based Justice for Our Daughters organization, contends that justice is far from being served in the case.
The human rights advocacy organization said it will seek recommendations from the Inter-American Commission to compensate Mesa for his torture and prison time, to publicly recognize the injustice, to investigate and prosecute the torturers, to enact legal mechanisms to prevent similar episodes from occurring in the future, and to carry out an investigation of Neyra’s murder.
“It is also grave and worrisome that the investigation to get the real perpetrators of Neyra Azucena Cervantes’ murder remains without any advance, permitting impunity,” the CMDPDH said in a statement.
“It is inadmissible that after the liberation of Mr. Meza Argueta, the state attorney general’s office is still analyzing the case file without clearly defining the lines of investigation they will follow…”
The CMDPDH contended the Cuerno de la Luna case was linked to a third killing, the Rosalba Pizarro Ortega murder, as well as to the disappearances two young women still missing, Yesenia Concepcion Vega and Julieta Marlen Gonzalez.
Similar to some femicide victims in Ciudad Juarez, many of the Chihuahua City victims had connections to computer schools or were last seen in the downtown section of their city. According to the CMDPDH, Chihuahua state attorney general’s office investigator Sandra Delgado initially uncovered leads pointing to the involvement of organized crime in the Chihuahua City disappearances and murders but the evidence was quietly tucked away and not pursued.
It’s important to note that Neyra Azucena Cervante’s murder occurred more than two years after the first wave of disappearances and the state attorney general’s office.
In its statement, the CMDPDH urged Chihuahua Governor Jose Reyes Baeza and State Attorney General Patricia Gonzalez to compensate Meza and his family for their suffering and to finally clear up the Neyra Azucena Cervantes murder and other femicides. There was no immediate public reaction from Chihuahua state officials to the CMDPDH’s statement.
Sources: Mexican Commission for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights,October 13, 2008. Press statement. Cimacnoticias.com, October 14, 2008.
Article by Lourdes Gonzalez Leal.
Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news Center for Latin American and Border Studies New Mexico State University Las Cruces, New Mexico
For a free electronic subscription email fnsnews@nmsu.edu