O'odham Woman Becomes Hero When Genocide Joe Comes to Town

Photo courtesy O'odham Solidarity, published with permission, Censored News

Biden used the crimes committed against children in boarding schools to advance the political campaign at Gila River Indian Community. It backfired. -- Censored News

O'odham Woman Becomes Hero When Genocide Joe Comes to Town

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, Oct. 25, 2024

LAVEEN VILLAGE, Gila River Indian Community, Arizona -- In the Gila River Indian Community today, Biden claimed to be issuing an apology to Native children who were victims of U.S. boarding schools. His glory campaign was short-lived.

As Biden spoke, an O'odham woman held up this sign: "There Are Still Babies in Mass Graves. Your Apology Means Nothing!! Land Back."

O'odham Holiday Toy Drive Underway

O'odham Holiday Toy Drive Underway 

By Ofelia Rivas, Tohono O'odham

Censored News

Thank you so much early donors to our annual Holiday Toy drive. All the toys are getting sorted wrapped and labeled. Soon the O'odham volunteers will be delivering to children along the border. The International border will not deter our efforts to bring gifts to all children.

To donate for this year's Holiday Toy Drive for O'odham children, please send to:
Ophelia Rivas, Box 1835, Sells, Arizona 85634

Read more on Ofelia's website, O'odham Rights https://www.oodhamrights.org/ 

ARIZONA BORDER WALL: Blasting of Mountain Sacred to O'odham Now Being Protested

Wednesday, Feb. 26 photo by Laiken Jordahl

Wednesday Border Wall Action Planned at Arizona’s Organ Pipe National Monument

By the Center for Biological Diversity

Censored News

Contact: Laiken Jordahl, ljordahl@biologicaldiversity.org

LUKEVILLE, Ariz.— Activists will gather Wednesday morning near Monument Hill to protest the Trump administration’s blasting of a sacred mountain to build the border wall through Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, a UNESCO biosphere reserve.

Customs and Border Protection scheduled a media event Wednesday, including detonations on the hill, at the same time that Tohono O’odham Chairman Ned Norris will testify at a congressional hearing about the administration’s destruction of sacred sites and cultural heritage.

“Blowing up sacred land is horrifying enough, but now the Trump administration will hold a dog-and-pony show to brag about it,” said Laiken Jordahl, borderlands campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity. “It’s heartbreaking to watch them butcher this spectacular national monument and desecrate sacred indigenous lands. We’ll continue to fight Trump’s despicable border wall every step of the way .”

What: Protesters from environmental and indigenous groups will protest Trump’s border wall and destruction of Organ Pipe’s Monument Hill.

When: Wednesday, Feb. 26, at 10 a.m.

Where: Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, base of Monument Hill, South Puerto Blanco Road

Media availability: Activists with the Center for Biological Diversity and Sierra Club and members of the Tohono O’odham Nation will be available for interviews.

Background

The Trump administration is blowing up Monument Hill in Organ Pipe National Monument, home to endangered species and Native American burial sites, to build the border wall. Contractors are extracting millions of gallons of groundwater to mix concrete for the wall, imperiling Quitobaquito Springs. This rare desert oasis is home to two endangered species, the Sonoyta mud turtle and Quitobaquito pupfish.

More than 100 miles of new border-wall construction are planned or underway across Arizona, paid for with funds Trump diverted from Defense Department budgets. To rush wall construction, Trump waived dozens of laws that protect public lands, cultural resources, sacred sites and endangered wildlife. The Center and allies have sued to challenge Trump’s emergency declaration, which is funding this construction.
Blasted area at Monument Hill in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. Photo credit: Laiken Jordahl/Center for Biological Diversity. Images are available for media use.


The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.7 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.

Poetry and Literature on Tohono O'odham Nation -- The Power of Words and Presence

Ofelia Rivas, O'odham, Photo by TD Garcia

Photo by TD Garcia

ON THE BORDER 

Native Poetry and Literature 

Resistance and inherent sovereignty in the age of US Border Patrol militarization, the commercialization of DNA, and the historic denial of the US genocide of Native People

By Brenda Norrell

Censored News

TOPAWA, TOHONO O'ODHAM NATION -- Ofelia Rivas, O'odham founder of O'odham Voice Against the Wall, shared her poetry of the smell of rain and memories of corn. Remembering her childhood on the land, she shared one poem from her aunt, and the gift of new black shoes that laced up to the ankles.
Rivas read her poetry during the Survival of Colonial Genocide forum at the Tohono O'odham Cultural Center and Museum on Monday. The event was sponsored by Red Ink.
Rivas, who lives on the Tohono O'odham Nation at the so-called border, exposed the Israeli spy towers, which are now planned for her community. She continues to battle the planned desecration of burial and sacred places planned for the construction of the towers by way of US Homeland Security on sovereign Tohono O'odham Nation sacred land. She battles the US Border Patrol on O'odham land as agents continue to abuse O'odham and migrants here.
As Native speakers and guests were driving across the Tohono O'odham Nation to the event, they were closely followed by tribal police and U.S. Border Patrol.
During the reading of poetry, literature and research, James Riding In, Pawnee from Oklahoma, spoke on inherent sovereignty, which Native people have always had, since time immemorial.
Riding In said sovereignty was not granted by treaties or the U.S. Congress.
"Sovereignty does not come from the US government," Riding In said, adding that it predates the arrival of the colonizers here.
"Sovereignty comes from our people."
Riding In, professor of American Indian Studies at Arizona State University in Tempe, is an author who has spent his life in the struggle for Indigenous rights.
Riding In has served as an expert witness on Native American rights in numerous court cases, including the Snowbowl case, the Cleveland sports team case, and a case involving hair in Texas.
Riding In said the goal of colonizers was to annihilate Native people, with a system of taking Native children from their homes and putting them in boarding schools where they were forbidden to speak their language.
Speaking on repatriation, he spoke of the importance of bringing the ancestors home from museums.
Speaking on the need to rethink tribal governments, he spoke of the need for tribal governments which are based on the cultural ways.
There is also a need to hold tribal governments accountable, he said.
Riding In said he doesn't believe in DNA testing. "We know who we are."
Dine' Poet Bojan Louis told how he came back to Crystal on Navajoland and how he had longed to smell the pinyon trees again. Louis' poetry was filled with scorpions, Sheriffs and the rawness and contrasts of Arizona.
Louis, whose mother is from Coal Mine Mesa, is a professor and published poet.
Krystal Tsosie, Dine' from Shonto, began with a photo of her grandmother's hogan, where she grew up.
Tsosie is a doctoral student at Vanderbilt University.
Tsosie described her research and the importance of Indigenous scientists working in genomics. She pointed out how researchers used O'odham and Havasupai blood samples in research without their knowledge. Havasupai filed a lawsuit over this.
Today the search for ancestry has become commercialized. Companies are seeking out Native peoples' DNA for profit. Those companies are targeting Native people who live in urban areas, to avoid working with, and getting permission, from tribal governments.
Tsosie also pointed out that research has been done using samples taken from Native Americans using permission forms that were never understood by Native people who speak their own language.
During questions from the audience, the speakers were urged to write down the histories for future generations and make sure the facts are included in textbooks.

Speaker Bios

Krystal Tsosie (Diné/Navajo), MPH, MA, is currently completing a PhD in Genomics and Health Disparities at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. She also co-manages the Genetics and Preeclampsia Study within the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indian Nation in Belcourt, North Dakota where she studies the genetics pre-determinants of women's health clinical phenotypes while also contributing to advancing equitable genomics research in indigenous communities.

In 1998 Ophelia Rivas begin working with an indigenous women organization, First Nations North & South to support the Zapatista movement in the Mexico state of Chiapas.
In May 2002-2006, Ophelia attended as a delegate to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues under the UN Economic and Social Council in New York to present an intervention on protection of our Right to Exist, our Inherent Right to continue our way of life called the Him’dag and Rights of Mobility to continue to cross the United States and Mexico International Border that bisected our original homelands and Human Rights. In 2006, the O’odham VOICE Against the WALL hosted the United Nation Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Issues on O’odham lands.

James Riding In is an activist scholar and a citizen of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma, Dr. Riding In is the editor of Wicazo Sa Review: A Journal of Native American Studies. He writes from the perspective of an American Indian Studies Paradigm that empowers Indian nations, communities, and peoples in their struggles to overcome the harmful consequences of colonialism.

BOJAN LOUIS (Diné) is the author of the poetry collection Currents (BkMk Press 2017), which received a 2018 American Book Award, and the nonfiction chapbook Troubleshooting Silence in Arizona (The Guillotine Series 2012). His fiction has appeared in Ecotone, Numéro Cinq Magazine, Yellow Medicine Review, and Alaska Quarterly Review; nonfiction in MudCity Journal and AS/US. Former poetry editor at RED INK and former poetry editor and co-founder of Waxwing, Louis has been a resident at The MacDowell Colony and is the inaugural Virginia G. Piper Fellow-in-Residence at Arizona State University. He will be joining the University of Arizona MFA and AIS faculty in Fall 2019.
Listen to an interview with Bojan Louis, about his award winning "Currents," winner of the American Book Award.
http://www.newletters.org/on-the-air/bojan-louis


Article copyright Brenda Norrell, may not be used without permission. Photos copyright TD Garcia.

Apartheid and Tohono O'odham Spy Towers -- University of Arizona continues anti-Native stance by partnering with Elbit Systems

By Brenda Norrell
A Censored News Original
March 6, 2019

TUCSON -- It comes as no surprise that the University of Arizona has partnered with the Israeli defense contractor Elbit Systems. Elbit Systems -- responsible for Apartheid security systems in Palestine -- is now pushing for border spy towers on the Tohono O'odham Nation.

The GuVo District, on the western part of the Tohono O'odham Nation, is opposed to the spy towers, and passed a resolution to protect their burial places and sacred places from the destruction of the towers.

In Gu'Vo District, Ofelia Rivas, founder of O'odham Voice against the Wall, said,  "The general public in the united states continues to be ignorant and apathetic and human suffering is entertainment.

"Meanwhile the world's eye can see and our human spirit can sense the enormous suffering of Mother Earth.

"Every aspect of human life relies on Mother Earth, for water, and food. Any single impact by undocumented    surveillance technology radiation emissions impacts plants and animals -- and human life is the greatest concern by O'odham in opposition to the surveillance project imposed upon the Tohono O'odham Nation," Ofelia Rivas told Censored News on Wednesday.

The University of Arizona in Tucson exposed its anti-Native American stance when it joined the Pope in their crusade to desecrate sacred Mount Graham with monster telescopes.

Both the University and the Pope ignored pleas and lawsuits from San Carlos Apache and environmental organizations.

Now, the University has exposed itself again by partnering with the leaders of weapons and death for profit.

These warmongers partnering with the university include Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and Sandia Labs.

At the University these are called 'Industrial Affiliates' and Elbit Systems, known for its human rights abuses globally, is one of these affiliates.

The University of Arizona announced in September of 2018 that its Optical Sciences Department was partnering with Elbit Systems.

On the Tohono O'odham Nation, GuVo District remains opposed to the towers, known as integrated fixed towers.

Meanwhile, Tohono O'odham community members question what happened at the Tribal Border Summit, held on Pascua Yaqui Nation in January.

At the border summit, US Homeland Security was invited to a secret, closed session with Tohono O'odham Nation government leaders and other tribal leaders. The National Congress of American Indians, NCAI, was among the hosts and  organizers of the border summit.
Tohono O'odham community members say they were not invited, or informed afterwards about what took place at the border summit behind closed doors.

Follow the money: The University of Arizona has received millions of dollars by way of grants and contracts for projects on the Tohono O'odham Nation.

US Homeland Security awarded Elbit Systems the contract for fixed integrated towers in Arizona, with an initial contract of $145 million. Israeli leaders celebrated the contract in Israel, according to Israeli media, and spy tower construction was soon underway on the border at Douglas, Nogales and Sonoita, Arizona.

---
From the University of Arizona website:

Elbit Systems is now among these, according to the University's website :

Please check back for updates on this investigative report by Censored News.



Article copyright Brenda Norrell, Censored News

The Cage on Tohono O'odham Nation -- U.S. 'Dog Kennels' Imprison Migrants and Water Protectors

Photo copyright Ofelia Rivas, O'odham, March 22, 2006, south of Sells on Tohono O'odham Nation.

Cages used to imprison migrants and water protectors in the United States

Article by Brenda Norrell
Photo by Ofelia Rivas
Censored News

This photo is of The Cage, the sweltering inhumane outside detention center used by the US Border Patrol on the Tohono O'odham Nation in the Sonoran Desert, where temperatures can surpass 115 degrees in summer.
When Mohawks came here in 2007, they were joined by Lenny Foster, Dineh, who said this was no more than a "dog cage."
This cage was not operating the last time we were there, but these cages are still used, to cage migrants, as they were used by Morton County, North Dakota, Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier to cage Standing Rock Water Protectors who were jailed for praying for the water.
The Mohawk Warriors found it hard to believe that the Tohono O'odham tribal government allowed the US Border Patrol to be present on their land, and to carry out horrific abuses against migrants and Tohono O'odham.
Today, the cages are used in private prisons to cage migrants, including children, and the US Border Patrol is considered an "occupying army" by many O'odham, as agents carry out horrific abuses on the Tohono O'odham Nation.


Photo copyright Ofelia Rivas, O'odham
Article copyright Brenda Norrell

Ward Valley Triumphant -- 20 Years Later in 2018 -- by Ofelia Rivas, O'odham

Ofelia Rivas, O'odham, and Earl Tulley, Dineh, at Ward Valley today.

Photos by Ofelia Rivas, O'odham

20th Ward Valley Spiritual Gathering

'Ground Zero' Victory Celebration

Celebrating the Occupation that halted a nuclear dump here 20 years ago.

Today, Feb. 24, 2018

Radio interview with Earl Tulley by Govinda at Spirit Resistance Radio.

Spirit Resistance Radio -- Govinda Dalton's interview with Earl Tulley, Dineh, as Earl was on his way to the gathering at the Ward Valley Victory Celebration to support the Mojave and their occupation 20 years ago. Earl and Govinda discuss the defense of Ward Valley from the nuclear dump, which was led by the traditional wisdom keepers.

Earl describes the resources coming into the Navajo Nation, and encourages a return to root cellars and dry storage of foods.

Earl said there's a difference between an environmentalist and an activist. Earl said an environmentalist basically writes a proposal, and when it gets funded, those people become employees. On the other hand, the activists "go on their own dime and put their lives on the line."

Sharing the news of Dine' Citizens Against Ruining our Environment, Earl said their youths have grown up in the movement, and are now adults. 

Dine' CARE celebrates its 30 year anniversary on the Navajo Nation in June.

Listen to Earl on Spirit Resistance Radio:

.https://albireo.shoutca.st:2197/ondemand/standingrock1/earltully.mp3

Israel's Black Cube spies hired to suppress news articles, as Israel gains U.S. border contracts

.

O'odham opposed Trump's border wall in March, on O'odham land at the so-called border. Photo Ofelia Rivas, O'odham

Israel's Black Cube spies hired to suppress news articles, as Israel gains U.S. border contracts

Black Cube spies were hired to halt news stories, at the same time that Israeli companies are receiving U.S. border contracts -- including Elbit Systems' contract for spy towers on sacred land of the Tohono O'odham Nation -- and Trump's border wall prototype.

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News

Israeli intelligence 'Black Cube,' is tracking journalists and trying to halt news articles in the U.S., writes Julian Assange on Twitter today, with a link to The New Yorker magazine's new exposures.
It is important to those who live on the US Mexico border, including the Tohono O'odham Nation, who are now facing the Apartheid Israeli contractors hired to build the spy towers by Homeland Security during the Obama Administration.
Now, Trump wants an Israeli firm to build his border wall.
"An Israeli company, Elta North America, (a subsidiary of the Israel Aerospace Industry) was one of eight companies awarded a massive sum to produce a prototype for the wall that the U.S. intends to build along the U.S.-Mexico border," Telesur reports.
Israel's contracts from U.S. Homeland Security, at the United States southern border, including the spy towers on sovereign Tohono O'odham land, are one of the most censored articles in the U.S. by the media.The exposures of Israeli intelligence Black Cube spies posing as friends, and attempting to halt news stories, was exposed by Ronan Farrow in The New Yorker.
Harvey Weinstein set out to suppress allegations that he had sexually harassed or assaulted numerous women. He hired private security agencies to collect information on the women and the journalists trying to expose the allegations, The New Yorker reports.
"One of the investigators pretended to be a women’s-rights advocate and secretly recorded at least four meetings with McGowan. The same operative, using a different false identity and implying that she had an allegation against Weinstein, met twice with a journalist to find out which women were talking to the press."
Assange said today, "Weinstein hired ex-Mossad agents at Israeli intelligence company 'Black Cube' to infiltrate accusers & quash stories,"
Censored News continues to expose breaking news from the Tohono O'odham border, where U.S. contracts are being awarded to Israeli companies engaged in Apartheid in Palesine.

Israel’s Elbit Systems plans spy towers on sacred land at the border, where O'odham ancestors are buried.
Ofelia Rivas, O"odham, exposed Elbit Systems plans on Tohono O'odham land, and her home community's fight against the Israeli spy towers. Elbit is responsible for the genocidal security surrounding Palestine, and drones globally.
The Gu-Vo District opposed this proposal from the beginning, and the United States ruled it could care less.
Gu-Vo, in the western most district of the Tohono O'odham Nation, told the U.S., prior to the assessment, "The Gu-Vo District opposes these proposed tower sites to protect cultural sites on the holy mountain now called the Ajo Mountain Range. The mountain holds human remains of our people and also places of our cultural practices (medicine bundles) home and home of the ceremonial deer and bighorn sheep and mountain tortoises that are protected under the Endangered Species Act."
"The United States government military forces, the border patrol, have not been forthcoming with impact information, such as health effects and have deliberately misinformed the people regarding the immediate environmental impacts such as the roads they will build on the mountain and installation of electrical power lines to the sites as well as that these proposed tower sites will have a 25-year or longer impact on the mountain, the animal and plant life and the O'odham lives."
"The Gu-Vo District communities landscape have already been greatly impacted by numerous unauthorized roads and destruction of our mountains and hills of great significance to the O'odham way of life. Our future generations will face more restriction to live on our original lands as our rights as original Indigenous peoples continue to deteriorate."
"These U.S. proposed towers also are not on the border but in our communities and on the border of the Tohono O'odham Nation reiterating discrimination and deliberate attack on the O'odham," said Gu-Vo District.
Rivas, O'odham living on the border and founder of O'odham VOICE Against the Wall, describes the him'dag, way of life. "The O’odham way of life is based on the land that has held the remains of our ancestors since the creation of this world. The O’odham did not migrate from anywhere according to our oral history. Our creation tellings record our history and teach the O’odham principles of life. The survival of O’odham today is based in our him’dag." Read more at Ofelia Rivas' website http://tiamatpublications.com/

Article copyright Brenda Norrell, Censored News
Photo copyright Ofelia Rivas

Read more:
The New Yorker: Harvey Weinsteins Army of Spies
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/harvey-weinsteins-army-of-spies

Most Censored in Indian Country April 2016

O'odham battle the US Border Patrol, militarization and encroachment

Censored News through the years

The news in Indian country remains censored and distorted, as reporters stay home and plagiarize, and fail to show up to cover news stories. Censored are issues that conflict with the agenda of media owners and the US government.

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News

Censored News has original content that those gagged by their dependence on advertising dollars, politicians and media owners, do not want you to know.

Here's some of our original articles that have been censored, or the facts distorted, in mainstream news in Indian country. 

We begin with this breaking news from Eagle Pass, Texas:
.

Eagle Pass, Texas: Native Groups Lead Action against Coal Mine

"Native American Groups gathered for a historic rally and march to protest the open-pit coal strip mine in Eagle Pass, Tex. The protesters called on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers  to rescind the mine’s permit, halt expansion and protect the land from further destruction.The project, owned by Dos Republicas Coal Partnership, mines lignite coal, which is transported by train from Maverick County across the border to be burned in a Mexican coal-fired power plant. The mine began operating several months ago, despite widespread local public opposition, and is harming the ancestral homelands of many Native groups and damaging sacred lands and more than 100 archaeological sites." http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2016/04/eagle-pass-native-groups-lead-action.html

In breaking news, the new Goldman Environmental Prizes reveal Newmont mining in Colorado beating unconscious an Indigenous grandmother protecting her land in Peru from gold and copper mining.
This is the same Newmont mining protested by Western Shoshone for mining and desecrating their sacred land.
Earlier, Wikileaks exposed the formation of a five country coalition to push mining in Peru, at the same time Indigenous were being beaten and killed defending their land from mining.
The US Ambassador reported directly to US Sec. of State Hillary Clinton, according to leaked cables.
Hillary's Ambassador and the Canadian Ambassador met with Newmont and other mining companies to orchestrate mining as Indigenous were dying.
More at Censored News:
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/02/wikileaks-peru-us-feared-return-of.html

The Israeli Apartheid corporation Elbit Systems obtained the US border contract and is now constructing US/Israeli spy towers on the sovereign Tohono O'odham land. The Gu-Vo District said, 'No!' as it protects burial places of O'odham which are now targeted by these border spy towers. Elbit Systems also maintains the Apartheid security surrounding Palestine. A Censored News exclusive:
US Israeli Pacts Targets Traditional O'odham
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2015/09/us-israeli-pact-targets-traditional.html

O'odham in Mexico cut border fence on traditional route. Thank you to Ofelia Rivas, O'odham, for these authentic photos which reveal the cutting of this fence at The Gate, south of Sells, Arizona, which is a traditional crossing of O'odham. Don't be fooled by others who try and take credit for this action, or articles written by other reporters who were not present and have distorted the facts. 
Here is the authentic news at Censored News:
O'odham Cut Border Fence Restricing Traditional Route:
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2016/03/oodham-cut-border-fence-restricting.html

Widely censored when it happened, Censored News republishes this courageous act of the Navajo, Hopi and Lakota delegation that took on Peabody Coal and challenged its stockholders in New York in 2001. Most of the delegation are now in the Spirit World. 
Peabody Coal has now declared bankruptcy in April 2016, but who will do the cleanup and pay for the damages?
A Censored News exclusive:
Tribute to Navajo, Hopi and Lakota who Took on Peabody Coal
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2016/04/tribute-navajo-hopi-and-lakota-took-on.html

While Peabody Coal was declaring bankruptcy in April, a fresh assault was made on Dine' (Navajos) at Big Mountain who have resisted relocation for 40 years. These Dine' resisters have endured harsh lives and were just subjected to another attack by the US, the BIA and its forces, the seizure of their cattle.
Louise Benally: Big Mountain Terrorized as Peabody Coal goes Bankrupt
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2016/04/louise-benally-big-mountain-terrorized.html
Peabody Coal's 40-Year Holocaust of Navajos
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2016/04/peabody-coals-40-year-holocaust-for.html

In the latest news, Lakota establish a new camp, Sacred Stone Camp, on Standing Rock in North Dakota, to fight the Dakota Access pipeline.
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2016/04/spirit-camp-defenders-ride-into.html

Please see the latest on justice for Dine' (Navajo) Loreal Tsinigne, murdered by Winslow, Arizona, police.
Indigenous Action Media:
http://www.indigenousaction.org/

The latest from Mohawk Nation News:
http://www.mohawknationnews.com

Owe Aku International Justice Project fighting uranium mining, and battling for clean water, in Lakota country:
http://www.oweakuinternational.org/

Please scroll through Censored News' 10 years of archives, revealing what the other media doesn't want you to know. From the protection of Oak Flat by San Carlos Apaches, to the resistance and building of communities in Chiapas, to the exposure of the crimes of the US government, Censored News continues.

www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com


Censored News is now in its 10th year, published with no advertising, adwords, grants or revenues.

O'odham Human Rights Group Brings Distinguished Speakers to Tucson

Acoma Pueblo Poet, Professor and Author Simon Ortiz 

is the speaker on March 26, 2016

Ofelia Rivas photo by Brenda Norrell

O'ODHAM HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP BRINGS

DISTINGUISHED SPEAKERS TO TUCSON

By O'odham VOICE Against the WALL

Censored News
French translation by Christine Prat at:
http://www.chrisp.lautre.net/wpblog/?p=3254

Cat Mountain Lodge, 520-578-6085, contact@catmountainlodge.com
www.catmountainlodge.com

Ofelia Rivas www://solidarity-project.org/
Dan Todd  langgore.dt@gmail.com

Date: February 27 to March 26, 2016

         TUCSON -- O'odham VOICE Against the WALL announces a benefit bringing emerging and established poets, writers and scholars to Tucson at Cat Mountain Lodge, one of TripAdvisor's top ten Tucson bed and breakfasts, from February 27 to March 26.

         Simon J. Ortiz, Acoma Pueblo, and Laura Tohe, 2015-2017 Poet Laureate of the Navajo Nation, headline the Distinguished Speakers 2016 series.  Other speakers include poet Ruben Cu:k Ba'ak and scholars Dr. Julian Kunnie from the University of Arizona and John Zerzan. 

            Ofelia Rivas, founder of O'odham VOICE Against the WALL, will also be speaking at all events. O'odham VOICE Against the WALL provides solidarity to the O'odham of Southwestern Arizona and Northern Sonora in efforts to maintain traditional culture and ancestral land in areas currently under illegal occupation by the United States and Mexico. Since 2003 it has advocated against a militarized border and for the rights guaranteed by inherent and domestic and international law, and documented abuses against the indigenous peoples on O'odham land.

            Simon J. Ortiz, Acoma Pueblo, speaking on March 26, is one of the key figures in the second wave of what has been called the Native American Renaissance. He is one of the most respected and widely read Native American poets. The author and editor of 25 books, Ortiz is currently Regents Professor of English and American Indian Studies at Arizona State University.

            The work of Laura Tohe, speaking March 19, has been published in the journals Ploughshares, New Letters, Red Ink, World Literature Today, and many others. She is an English professor at Arizona State University and her most recent publication is Code Talker Stories (2012), an oral history of the Navajo Code Talkers. 

 

            Ruben Cu:k Ba'ak, Tohono O'odham, speaking March 12, is a poet and prose writer and a recent ASU graduate in economics pertaining to the Tohono O'odham homeland.

            Dr. Julian Kunnie, speaking March 5, is a professor of Religious, Latin American, Middle Eastern and North African studies at the University of Arizona  He is the author of numerous articles in various internationally recognized journals and books.  His most recent book is The Cost of Globalization: Dangers to the Earth and Its People (2015.)

            John Zerzan, speaking Feb. 27, has been active in the anti-authoritarian movement from the '60s on and has articulated a critique of technology and civilization that illuminates their regressive quality. His most recent book is Why Hope? The Stand Against Civilization (2015.)

         The Ramada at Cat Mountain Lodge is at 3030 Donald Avenue, north of Ajo Road and Western Way off the west side of Kinney Road.

            A donation of $20 - $40 is requested, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds.  All events begin at 6:30 pm, with featured speakers at 8 p.m.

O'odham and Dineh Women Seek Sponsors to Cochabamba Climate Conference 2015

Michelle Cook, Dineh (Navajo) and Ofelia Rivas,
O'odham, make plans for Cochabamba.
Photo Brenda Norrell Sept. 2015

Update Oct. 9, 2015: Sadly, there was no response for travel sponsors for these incredible grassroots women.
By Brenda Norrell

Censored News

Sept. 25, 2015

English and Dutch

Dutch translation by Alice Holemans, NAIS at:

http://www.denaisgazet.be/nieuws/o-odham-en-dineh-vrouwen-zoeken-sponsors-om-de-chochabamba-klimaat-conferentie-2015-bij-te-wonen

TUCSON -- Tohono O'odham Ofelia Rivas and Dineh Michelle Cook hope to return to Cochabamba, Bolivia, in October and continue the work that they began five years ago when President Evo Morales hosted the World Peoples Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth. 

Bolivia is hosting the World Peoples Conference on Climate Change and Defense of Life, October 10--12, 2015, and the women who facilitated the Indigenous Working Group at the 2010 Conference in Cochabamba hope to be there.

Ofelia Rivas, outspoken human rights defender living on the border in her homeland, on the Tohono O'odham Nation, is founder of O'odham Voice against the Wall. Ofelia co-chaired the Indigenous Working Group in Cochabama in 2010. 

"Everyone had a voice," Ofelia said, remembering the gathering in Cochabamba.

Michelle Cook, Dineh (Navajo) flew into Cochabamba from New Zealand in 2010 and assisted Ofelia with the work of the Indigenous Working Group in Cochabamba. Since then, Michelle received her masters degree as a Fulbright scholar in New Zealand, in Maori and Pacific Development, and completed law school at the University of New Mexico. Michelle is currently in the Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

O'odham and Anarchist Thanksgiving Day Protest Against Border Patrol

Article and photos courtesy of O'odham and Anarchist solidarity action
Censored News

"On Thursday, November 28th, 2013, a group of people made up by members of the Tohono O'odham Nation, the Anti-Colonial Anarchist Bloc, and various Tucson community members in solidarity with those resisting ongoing colonisation on stolen Native land, gathered in front of the gates to the Border Patrol headquarters at Golf Links and Swan in Tucson. 

They carried banners and signs and spoke passionately about their reasons for skipping "thanksgiving" celebrations in order to draw attention to the ways that colonisation is being perpetuated by institutions such as U.S. Border Patrol, the Department of Homeland Security, Tucson Police, the University of Arizona, the mayor and council of Flagstaff, and the Arizona Department of Transportation. 

Ofelia Rivas, a grandmother from the O'odham Nation, welcomed the group in her traditional language and spoke to the ways that she has experienced harassment and abuse from U.S. Border Patrol occupying her Nation's lands. She described the ways that the checkpoints on the Nation, and the activity of the Border Patrol agents, make it impossible for O'odham people to participate in traditional ceremonies, and how this disrupts traditional culture. 

She spoke about how the demanding of proof of "american citizenship", to people who sometimes do not not have birth documents, systematically disrupts the freedom of O'odham people. She described scenarios in which O'odham people had been held at gunpoint by Border Patrol officers. And as she spoke, a bus packed with people being detained by Border Patrol drove through the gates. Some of the protesters cried, some waved, some booed the agency and its atrocities, while a large banner advocating "¡Fuera Migra! ¡Fuera Policía!" was held up for people on the bus to see, who waved and watched as they were taken away.

Chants to "End U.S. Imperialism!", to get "Off O'odham lands!", saying "No Thanks For Genocide!", and to take down the border were heard by people in their cars at the busy intersection, likely traveling on the holiday to visit family and celebrate what protesters called "a distraction from genocidal violence that is ongoing." A banner that loudly pronounced "NO BORDER PATROL ON STOLEN LAND" was held high. A list of demands was read, including that Border Patrol immediately leave Tohono O'odham lands and deconstruct all surveillance equipment on those lands, and that they close down ALL Border Patrol checkpoints, especially those on O'Odham lands.

The protest ended with a closing from Ofelia Rivas, and a promise from the group that they will continue to demand accountability and an end to ongoing colonialism long after the distraction of "thanksgiving" is replaced by another one."

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O'odham Ofelia Rivas Photos 'Yaqui Highway Blockade' Oct. 19, 2013

Photo copyright Ofelia Rivas, O'odham

Photo copyright Ofelia Rivas, O'odham

Photo copyright Ofelia Rivas, O'odham

Photo copyright Ofelia Rivas, O'odham

Photos by Ofelia Rivas, copyright
Article by Brenda Norrell
Censored News

Ofelia Rivas, O'odham, is just returning from the Yaqui highway blockade in Vicam Pueblo, Sonora, Mexico. The Yaqui Traditional Authority of Vicam has maintained this highway blockade since June, in protest of Mexico stealing their water from the Rio Yaqui, by way of the Independence Aqueduct, for the city of Hermosillo. 
Yaqui have lived here since time immemorial and depend on the water for survival. Their highway blockade of a major trucking route from the Pacific coast to the US has had a major impact and slowed the flow of produce into the US. 
The Traditional Authority of Vicam hosted the Zapatistas, Marcos and Comandantes, here in 2007 and continue in the struggle for dignity, autonomy and justice.
Photos: Highway blockade Vicam with couple on bike; youths wearing their new Defender of Water T-shirts created and provided by Dwight at the Gloo Factory in Tucson; woman working embroidery with entire family; evening road blockade.

Support the work of Ofelia Rivas and O'odham Voice against the Wall:
O'odham Solidarity Project:
http://tiamatpublications.com/

Photo: Vicam Water Rights Gathering Sept 17, 2013

Yaqui maintain major highway blockade since June

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News Exclusive
Video by Ali Brooks
Sept. 16, 2013
copyright Brenda Norrell, Censored News
VICAM PUEBLO, Sonora, Mexico -- Yoeme (Yaqui) in Vicam Pueblo maintained their highway barricade in defense of their water in the Rio Yaqui, as representatives of the National Indigenous Congress met over the weekend with directives from the Zapatistas Little School.

Ofelia Rivas/Vicam Photo Brenda Norrell

Ofelia Rivas, O'odham representative of the National Indigenous Congress, attended the gathering in Vicam on Saturday, Sept. 14, 2013.

"Vicam Yoeme are calling for international support for a meeting on October 18 in the defense of water in Vicam," Rivas said. The Northwest regional meeting of the National Indigenous Congress included the states of Sonora, Sinoloa, Chihuahua and Baja.

"Yaqui are sending a special invitation to the Mohawks to attend this important meeting on water rights on October 18," Rivas said. Earlier, Mohawks joined Subcomandante Marcos and Zapatistas commandantes in Vicam Pueblo for a gathering in 2007. It is located about seven hours southwest of Tucson on the coast of Mexico.

Vicam Water Forum/Photo Brenda Norrell

"Water is essential to our survival," said Mario Luna, spokesman for the Yoeme Traditional Authority of Vicam.

"Generations paid with their blood to maintain our homeland for future generations," Luna told the gathering this weekend.

Luna said the illegal construction is already underway on the Independence Aqueduct. It is a diversion project of Yaqui water from the Rio Yaqui to the city of Hermosillo. Luna said neither the diversion project, nor Mexico's government officials have consulted with Vicam Yaquis as required for the impact statement.

Yaquis said their around the clock, 24-hour a day, highway barricade of federal highway 15, manned by Yoeme warriors, has lasted more than 100 days and has had a major impact on produce flowing into the US. The barricade blocks traffic on the major highway between the Pacific Coast and the city of Hermosillo, a major route from the coast to the US. Yoeme lift the blockade for short periods, allowing trucks to pass after halting the trucks for hours, causing extensive delays, around the clock.

Yaqui highway blockade

Rivas said, "They have cars blocking the highway now. It is causing delays in produce like tomatoes getting to the US on time."

Traditional Authorities of Yaqui Vicam Pueblo issued a summons for this weekend's gathering, in accordance with the Zapatistas Little School.
http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/

The Traditional Authorities said the water theft of the Yaqui River Basin will destroy the natural resources of this Indian territory.

"Considering that we have inhabited this territory for 2,500 years, a place where we were born and we have developed our existence, where mother earth provides us with everything for our life and like all the world's indigenous peoples live as brothers, with plants, trees, animals, birds, insects, the air, the heat, the cold, the sun, moon, stars, earth and water, of which is our home, food and healing, and the source of our power."

"Whereas in the territory of the Yaqui tribe, our people are made of earth and water and all that comes from them. While building our culture and creating and consolidating our own institutions, in the vicinity of the river today known as Rio Yaqui, the current government perpetrated one of the most colossal robberies of living memory, stealing the waters of the basin and trying to spoil our people more."

"Whereas for more than 520 years we have suffered, in our lives and in our hearts, the war of extermination, one of the longest and bloodiest wars of living memory, brought on by the political and economic power that is in power today," Yaqui said of the current authoritarian misrule.

Yaqui said today the resistance and civil disobedience is for Yoeme Autonomy and Self-determination.

"Whereas the existence of Mother Earth and humanity is threatened by the hegemonic capitalist system for their insatiable greed and excessive economic and natural resource exploitation and death of ecosystems, carried out by large multinational corporations seeking to divest from our territories and to be strongholds of natural resources, in collusion with corrupt government institutions and the collusion of free market policies, such as NAFTA Puebla-Panama Plan, and its project northwest of the Sea of Cortez known as the Coastal Highway, along with that project, the current state government is stealing water from the Yaqui River basin through the illegal construction of the Independence Aqueduct, with the aim of more plunder, and giving an existential hit to our people."

"Today through unfair and illegal, bidding, construction and operation of the Independence Aqueduct, they steal Yaqui river water and divert it to the city of Hermosillo, with the evil purpose of feeding large transnational businesses, real estate developments, and to encourage the speculation of businesses, with the rampant corrupt government complicity of Guillermo Padres Elias and consent of the current Federal Government."

"The Yaqui Tribe, like most indigenous peoples and the more than 50 million poor who inhabit the country are on the border of extermination, as a result of economic policies that favor the success of the market," Yaqui said.

The Traditional Authority said Mexico wants to "turn water into a commodity, by privatizing and commodifying," water while neglecting the development, autonomy and the right to self-determination of Indigenous peoples.

The Zapatistas, in conjunction with the Mexican Indigenous National Congress, issued a statement of solidarity and support for Yaqui.

“We believe that the earth is our mother and that the water that runs through her veins is not for sale. The life it gives us is a right, not something that the bad government or the business owners have granted us."

“We demand the immediate cancellation of the arrest warrants and false accusations against members of the Yaqui Tribe, and we condemn the criminalization of their struggle. To the political party-based bad governments we say that the Yaqui River is the historical carrier of the ancestral continuity of Yaqui culture and territory, and that a slight against any of us is a slight against all of us. We will respond accordingly to any attempt to repress this dignified struggle or any other. We make a call to the international community and to our brothers and sisters of the International Sixth to be alert to the events in Yaqui territory and to join in solidarity with the Yaqui Tribe and its demands.”

Photo: Vicam Water Rights Gathering Sept 17, 2013

The Yaqui Traditional Authorities released the following statement at the beginning of the blockade in June: 

Yaqui Vicam Pueblo Water Forum/Photo Brenda Norrell

MARIO LUNA/ SECRETARY OF THE YAQUI TRADITIONAL AUTHORITIES

YAQUI Territory, México. June 2013

In defense of water from our rivers, the Yaqui People have now blocked federal highway 15 for 21 days. Mario Luna, secretary for the Traditional Authorities of Vicam, describes how disinformation of the legal strategy in defense of Yaqui territory reminds us that only dignity and strength have made it possible for the Yaqui People to defeat the long series of invasions and attempts to rob the land and its natural resources. This time the call is to alert all of the threat from public law enforcement authorities to dismantle Yaqui blockade of federal highway 15.
From federal highway 15, by Vicam Pueblo -- first headquarters of the 8 Pueblos of the Yaqui tribe -- with 45 centigrade degrees in the shade -- Traditional Authorities are gathered and through me, express the following:
The defense of our territory, land and water goes back hundreds of years since the arrival of a culture of ambition and theft. With wars that have manifested heroic and glorious defense and others have been inhuman actions and total disregard to life, ethnocide and inhumanity.
The Yaqui faces of men, women, elders, youth and children demonstrate determination and endurance yet does not express how they have survived for past generations to sustain many armed incursions in addition to mass deportations - driven to the southernmost part of Mexico to be sold as slaves -in the best of cases- if they were not killed by those who tried to take over their land based on Terra Nullius.
Such attitude of dignity and endurance has allowed the Yaqui People to drive back colonizers during the history of Mexico through warfare. Successful in their battles against historical invasions from foreign nations or bad governments during the independence wars as well as Mexican Revolution- including the takeover of the National Palace in Mexico City along with the Revolutionaries-and the bloody Yaqui War.
As Indian People, the Yaqui demand and exercise an autonomy recognized and formalized in several peace treaties and accords for economic, social, and cultural development.
During the last few years of total disregard for the San Andrés Larrainzar (document/treaty elevating indigenous rights to constitutional level) the robbery and extermination campaign against indigenous Peoples that have recovered and conserved their autonomous lands in Chiapas, Guerrero, Oaxaca, Michoacán and many more in the country have continued. In our case the governmental apparatus has turned against us in order to carry out the last great robbery, called “Acueducto Independencia”, by pretending to reroute the waters from the Río Yaqui to the Rio Sonora basin to satisfy the urgent water needs of the Hermosillo industrial zone -high use water zone for the Ford assembly plant, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Big Cola and beer plants for Tecate and Heineken. In this same action, industry CEO's expect huge profits to cover large and extensive land grabs which now have no commercial value, yet when they acquire adequate water supply, their property value will increase 2 thousand percent.
The Yaqui tribe was not formally consulted but discovered about this megaproject through various sources and is thus tired of living in a state of low intensity warfare since the last peace treaty in 1927. Therefore, the Traditional Authorities from Vícam Pueblo, decided to legally confront this situation with the new battlefront strategy of using a judicial and institutional process. It began with a water restitution lawsuit in the Agrarian Tribunal Tribunal Unitario Agrario número 35, based in Ciudad Obregón, August 2010. Through this measure, we were able to obtain a cautionary recourse that should have blocked this Megraproject. It commits or limits actions or rights on volume water extrations related to “El Novillo” dam. In 2011 we requested a legal waver from the federal justice system in opposition to an environmental impact statement provided by Department of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT) to “Sonora Operations Fund” “Fondo de Operaciones Sonora SÍ” for the construction of Acueducto Independencia. After this waver was denied in several courts, it was finally approved on behalf of the Yaqui tribe in Culiacán, Sinaloa District Court and later formalized and published in the Tenth District Court Hermosillo, Sonora.
SEMARNAT then requested to review the waiver and motivated by a series of irregularities denounced by National Human Rights Commission and the Plural Commission (federal Chambers of Senate and Deputies from various political parties) in a historic decision, the National Supreme Court applied their right to summon and resolve to ratify the waiver to the Tribe by recognizing their legal character as Indian Peoples and constitutional and international rights as Yaqui People, to freely seek and be informed with respect to internal protocols, representation as well as by their customs and traditions.
This May 8, 2013 the Supreme Court ruling nullifies the environmental impact statement for the Acueducto Independencia. This also ratifies the status of construction and operation of the aqueduct as illegal to this day.
With the experience lived during hundreds of years of Yaqui Peoples' struggle and today in confronting impunity from Guillermo Padres Elias, Governor of Sonora to take significant volumes of water from “El Novillo” dam, the Traditional Authorities have decided to strengthen civil resistance actions along with the Citizens Movement for Water Movimiento Ciudadano por el Agua – made up of agricultural producers, micro-farmers and civil society from the seven municipalities in southern Sonora who will be impacted by the loss of water being rerouted by the Aqueduct reservoirs.
On May 28, after an enormous march in Ciudad Obregón (over 30 thousand participants, according to organizers), it was decided to take the highways that same afternoon by blocking the entries of both south and north part of the city. Other protesters later joined the blockade from Bacum and Esperanza. As the government continues to show no intention to stop the pumps that illegally take the water stored in the dam, the Traditional Authorities along with the Yaqui troops from Potam and Belem, the protesters took over the highway at Vicam.
On June 11, after several days of continual blockade at several points on the highway (Cajeme, Bacum and Vícam), the delegate of the Department of Communications and Transportation Secretaría de Comunicaciones y Transportes (SCT) in Sonora announced that they had filed a complaint with the Attorney General’s office of Procuraduría General de la República (PGR) against several leaders of Movimiento Ciudadano por el Agua and Yaqui Tribe.
The Sonora Attorney General, Carlos Navarro Sugich, announced this as a successful measure by the State Government and has undertaken a media campaign against those responsible within the Commission for defense of tribal water rights.
By seeking approval of the Traditional Authorities of other members in the Yaqui Nation, the State Government was unanimously rejected of its intention to orchestrate the use of public force against the road blockade. The main conflict is that protesters demand that Sonoran rule of law be applied- presently in violation by the Governor of the State - and an end to illegal water extraction of El Novillo dam - covered under the resolution granted by the National Supreme Court Justice to the Yaqui People.
In a climate of tension and rebellion that we live these days, we share these concerns with all Mexican and international people. We have the support and solidarity from the Indian community’s network of Congreso Nacional Indígena National Indigenous Congress, as well as solidarity from teachers of the national coordinator of education workers (CNTE) and public representatives of most local legislators in southern Sonora districts. There is also a political agreement for a joint call to Governor Guillermo Padrés by these local legislators and seven municipal Presidents of southern Sonora (who were present in the traditional guard event at Vicam on June 15) to stop the theft of our water and the rule of law in Sonora.
In the face of constant threats and rumors as to the use of public force against the demonstrations, our call is to be on the alert and avoid the selective use of prompt and expeditious justice against those of us who defend our right to life to use and benefits of our waters. Let us all avoid the impunity and intolerance of a State Government that with their actions promotes divisiveness between southern Sonora with the northern part of our State.

From: Yaqui Territory, June, 2013
Mario Luna Romero
General Traditional Secretary for Vicam Pueblo
Main Headquarters for the eight Yaqui Pueblos
Published: June 2013

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