Party time on the border: Hasta la vista Chertoff!

FROM EL PASO TO BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS BORDER COMMUNITIES CELEBRATE THE RETIREMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY MICHAEL CHERTOFF
By No Border Wall Coalition

BROWNSVILLE & EL PASO, TX — On January 10th communities along the Texas border will be throwing Retirement Parties to celebrate the end of Michael Chertoff’s tenure as Secretary of Homeland Security. During his illustrious career, Secretary Chertoff has driven a wall through the borderlands, condemned the property of hundreds of Texas landowners, waived the laws that protect us, imprisoned immigrant families, and set a new low in the response to Hurricane Katrina. Border residents will gather in Brownsville and El Paso, where Chertoff’s concrete and steel legacy is being erected along the Rio Grande, to remember the man who has done so much to our communities.

“This is not a protest disguised as a party - this is a party. Chertoff has only been Secretary for three years but he has managed to do a tremendous amount of damage. Texas will be glad to see him gone, and it can’t come soon enough,” said Scott Nicol of the No Border Wall Coalition.

In Brownsville Chertoff’s Retirement Party will be held at Galeria 409 starting at 6pm, within spitting distance of the coming border wall. Chertoff’s retirement is like Christmas morning and the day after you get over the flu all wrapped up together. So the party will blend a corporate retirement party and Carnival. Poets and artists will contribute their thoughts on the man who has so profoundly impacted the border; Ensamble la Mision (and possibly other bands) will play; a retirement cake and piñata will bear his likeness; Chertoff’s Wheel of Fortune; a raffle; and still-President Bush may even stop by to give Chertie a send-off.

“We’re having a party for Michael, but he’s not invited,” said Bill Guerra Addington from No Wall – Big Bend.

At the other end of the state, El Paso’s Chertoff Retirement Party will be held at the Chamizal National Memorial starting at 2pm. The memorial commemorates the harmonious settling of a century-long boundary dispute between the U.S. and Mexico, providing a counter-example to the militarization of the border that Chertoff has worked so diligently to put in place. Games and the traditional breaking of the Chertoff piñata will greet the dawning of the post-Chertoff era.

Galeria 409 is located at 409 E. 13th Street in Brownsville, between Levee and Elizabeth, a block from the Gateway Bridge. Call gallery owner Mark Clark at (956) 455-3599, or Scott Nicol at (956) 532-5983, for information, or email No Border Wall at noborderwall@yahoo.com.

To reach the Chamizal National Memorial near El Paso, from I-10 exit at Hwy 54 and follow the brown Chamizal National Memorial directional signs. If traveling south on Hwy 54, take the exit marked Juarez, Mexico, turn right onto Paisano Street, and continue to follow signs towards Chamizal. For more information contact Bill Guerra Addington at (915) 539-4158 or aguavida@valornet.com.
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El Paso and Berlin: Stop Apartheid and Border Wall

IN THE 19TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BERLIN WALL FALL:
STOP THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE BORDER WALL!


By Carlos Marentes
Censored News
EL PASO & BERLIN -- On November 9, 1989, the German people knocked down the Berlin Wall. The Berlin Wall had been erected on August 13, 1961 diving the people of Berlin into two sectors. One sector was controlled by US and its allies and the other was controlled by the Soviet Union. German people was not free to cross from one sector to another. Families and friends were separated by the wall. The wall lasted 28 years. During this period of time, about 5000 escape attempts were made to reunite with relatives, friends or to seek better economic opportunities. Close to 300 persons died attempting to cross the wall.

The Berlin Wall was considered an offense to humanity. All the so-called democratic governments denounced the wall and demanded their removal. In June 26, 1963, during a visit to Germany, president John F. Kennedy said in his popular “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech:

“Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in...”

“While the wall is the most obvious and vivid demonstration of the failures of the Communist system, for all the world to see, we take no satisfaction in it, for it is, as your Mayor has said, an offense not only against history but an offense against humanity, separating families, dividing husbands and wives and brothers and sisters, and dividing a people who wish to be joined together...”

Many years later, another American president, Ronald Reagan, visited Germany and in a very passionate speech made the following plea:

“Behind me stands a wall that encircles the free sectors of this city, part of a vast system of barriers that divides the entire continent of Europe. From the Baltic, south, those barriers cut across Germany in a gash of barbed wire, concrete, dog runs, and guard towers. Farther south, there may be no visible, no obvious wall. But there remain armed guards and checkpoints all the same--still a restriction on the right to travel, still an instrument to impose upon ordinary men and women the will of a totalitarian state. Yet it is here in Berlin where the wall emerges most clearly; here, cutting across your city, where the news photo and the television screen have imprinted this brutal division of a continent upon the mind of the world...”

“...we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace...”

“...Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!...”

(Remarks at the Brandenburg Gate West Berlin, Germany, June 12, 1987)

Nineteen years later, taking advantage of the lack of historic memory of the American people, it's our own government building a wall in the same totalitarian spirit of the Berlin Wall. This time the wall is in the US-México border. The border wall will separate the border community in the same manner that the Berlin Wall divided the German people for 28 years.

This wall is also an attack to the freedom and peace of our border community. The border wall will separate a border community composed by the cities of El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, and many rural communities on both sides of the Río Grande River. The wall will bring more violence and intolerance and will also cause an irreparable ecological disaster to our already deteriorated environment.

The mere fact that the construction of the wall is estimated at more than 7.5 million dollars per mile, is also an offense to El Paso, the fourth poorest city in the nation and the poorest city in the state.

For this reason we have been fighting against this wall for many years. We have marched, protested, celebrated faith and indigenous ceremonies, held community meetings, and many cultural events against the construction of the wall. This has been a hard fight. We have been arrested and harassed by the local police, the sheriff department, the Border Patrol and the racist thugs of Kiewit Corporation, the construction company in charge of erecting the wall. But we are not afraid and we will not be intimidated. On the contrary, every time we are more committed to continue our fight against this atrocity of the Bush administration.

Today we celebrate the 19th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. We celebrate this occasion by stating our conviction that we will stop the construction of this atrocity in our border community. We also understand that the political situation may be changing, therefore we also celebrate the 19th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall with a new slogan:

President Obama, stop the construction of this wall!