U.S. Border Patrol Agents Identified that Murdered Raymond Mattia

 

U.S. Border Patrol Agents who Murdered Raymond Mattia, Tohono O'odham, Identified

Tucson Sentinel, reporter Paul Ingram, reports:

"Three Border Patrol agents involved in the fatal shooting of a Tohono O'odham man in front of his home in 2023 were identified in legal filings on Friday.

"Earlier this year, the family of 58-year-old Raymond Mattia filed a lawsuit, accusing Border Patrol of excessive force and demanding the names of the agents who killed him.

"Attorneys Ryan Stitt and Marcus Bourassa filed an amended complaint, and on Friday issued a summons for Border Patrol Agents Scott Whitehouse, Dan Sifuentes, and Ivan Torralva, who they said "shot and killed Raymond for no reason."

The United Nations and U.S. Government: What their new reports are not telling you

Saguaro cactus recklessly destroyed to build the border wall at Ajo, Arizona. Photo by Laiken Jordahl

The United Nations and U.S. Government: What their new reports are not telling you

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, September 11, 2023

French translation by Christine Prat

There are two new reports: One is the U.S. report on the destruction and violation of laws during the building of the border wall during the Trump era. The new report is by the US government's office that claims to be independent: The Government Accountability Office.

The other new report, making its way to the United Nations Human Rights Council, is the report from the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples on the militarization affecting Indigenous Peoples. The final report has some of the powerful testimony and struggles -- but it leaves out some of the greatest tragedies and heartfelt testimony.

Ofelia Rivas, Tohono O'odham, on her homeland. Photo by Jason Jaacks. Ofelia's website is O'odham Solidarity at https://www.oodhamrights.org/

Ofelia Rivas, Tohono O'odham, and founder of O'odham Voice against the Wall, has spent her life on the border in the struggle for human rights and battling the militarization of the border.

Ofelia responded to the two new reports and the murder of her childhood friend, Raymond Mattia, and fellow community member, murdered by the U.S. Border Patrol and law enforcement on May 18. Raymond was shot nine times in a rain of bullets on his front door steps, in Ali-Jegk on the Tohono O'odham Nation.

Quechan Spirit Run, Traditional Songs and Dinner March 18, 2023

Update: Quechan Running and Singing Away a Gold Mine on Sacred Land

Photos as it happens by Ofelia Rivas, Tohono O'odham, at Censored News.

https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2023/03/quechan-running-to-halt-gold-mine-on_18.html

Tohono O'odham Toy Drive for Southern O'odham 2019 by O'odham VOICE Against the Wall

Photo: Last year's toy drive, 2018. Thank you so much for everyone who helped!

O'odham VOICE Against the WALL
Please call to donate items, or donate at PayPal:
Ophelia Rivas: 520-308-9904
4oodhamrights@gmail.com
PO Box 1835
Sells, Arizona

Read about last year's party and dinner with the community, south of the international border on O'odham lands:
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2018/12/sonora-oodham-voice-against-wall-oodham.html
         At last year's party for the children and family, Ofelia Rivas, on left, with Cynthia Piestewa

Tohono O'odham Ofelia Rivas with Extinction Rebellion in New York

Singer and actress Melba Moore (left) with Ofelia Rivas in New York.
Photo courtesy Ofelia Rivas

Photo by Ofelia Rivas

Photo Ofelia Rivas

Photo Ofelia Rivas

Tohono O'odham Ofelia Rivas with Extinction Rebellion in New York

Consumerism driven by the corporate system threatens Mother Earth -- Ofelia Rivas

Article by Brenda Norrell
Censored News
French translation by Christine Prat

NEW YORK -- Tohono O'odham Ofelia Rivas spoke to a gathering of Extinction Rebellion in New York on Black Friday, sharing the need to protect Mother Earth.

Ofelia Rivas said she "shared the message for people to consider a personal conscious choice to end consumerism driven by this corporate system."

"The message from Indigenous Peoples is to protect Mother Earth. They are here taking this action, and it is a sign that people have heard our message," Rivas told Censored News.

In New York, Rivas opened the 20 Million Women Strong organization event in the East Village.

While in New York, Rivas provided a prayer song for Bolivians at the "Impunity with the Aymara Community of Bolivia," gathering of The Center for Constitutional Rights and Harvard Law.

At the Concerned Citizens for Change meeting at Manhattan College, Rivas also delivered a presentation.

The Extinction Rebellion action in New York was part of planned Black Friday protests around the world, with activists blockading shopping malls in Paris, Montreal and Madrid, calling for an end to consumerism.

Rivas is founder of O'odham Voice against the Wall and has lived her life on her homeland, battling the U.S. Border Patrol who sit outside her home. One U.S. Border Patrol Special Operations Agent from El Paso pulled a gun on her as he was stalking her at her gate. 

After testifying before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Jamaica in May on the militarization of her homeland, and abuses by U.S. Homeland Security and its Border Patrol on the Tohono O'odham Nation, Ofelia was delayed two days returning home after being targeted by U.S. Homeland Security with repeated searches because of her testimony.

Currently, protected Saguaro Cactus and endangered species are being destroyed near Rivas' home on the Tohono O'odham Nation. At the nearby Organ Pipe National Monument, construction of a border wall segment, now endangers a sacred spring. The border wall construction all along the Arizona border is now blocking the migration paths of jaguar, pronghorn and other rare and endangered species.

The border wall has already proved worthless, as an eight-year-old climber scaled a mock wall in seconds. On the California border recently, the border wall was cut open and a truck driven through it. 

Previously Rivas and O'odham elders returned the remains of their ancestors to their resting place after they were dug up by the United States' construction of a border vehicle barrier on the Tohono O'odham Nation.

Now, the human rights violator Elbit Systems, an Israeli defense contractor responsible for Apartheid security in Palestine, is constructing spy towers on the Tohono O'odham Nation. These integrated fixed towers, contracted by U.S. Homeland Security in remote O'odham communities will continue the spying and stalking of O'odham, which is already underway by the U.S. Border Patrol.

On Friday, at least 27 members of the Extinction Rebellion were arrested in New York.

“This is a real crisis. It’s a moral crisis. We’re in a very sad place,” said Manhattan resident Sarah Kollodny, 80, reports The New York Post.

“We really want to draw attention to what’s happening in the world. Black Friday is a day of strong consumerism,” she added, urging people to “reflect on our resources and consumerism.”

Extinction Rebellion members carried signs calling for “Empathy, humility, frugality” and declaring a “climate emergency,” caused by what they said were carbon emissions from excessive consumption.

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

Borderlands: Language and songs as resistance, waiting for the wall to come down

During the Borderlands Panel, Ofelia Rivas shares a painting by Casandra Productions honoring  Jakelin Caal Maquin. Jakelin, 7 years old, died in U.S. Border Patrol custody after being arrested near Lordsburg, New Mexico. Ofelia said Jakelin's death and the separation of migrant children from their parents is a continuation of the U.S. policy of genocide of Indigenous Peoples. Photo by Brenda Norrell.

Language and songs as resistance, waiting for the wall to come down

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News

SAN RAFAEL Calif. -- The United States is imprisoning migrant children and separating families. It is building a wall as a symbol of racism and separation and continuing the genocide of Indigenous Peoples in the Americas. The onslaught, however, has not silenced the languages or the songs, it has not killed the spirits.

Tohono O'odham Protest Against Border Wall and Israeli Spy Towers on Arizona Border

Tohono O'odham protested the border wall being constructed in the
fragile Sonoran Desert on Saturday, and the Israeli spy towers now
targeting the Tohono O'odham Naiton.
Photos copyright Ofelia Rivas.

(Photo above) U.S. military surveillance helicopter
over Gu-Vo community this morning on Tohono O'odham Nation. Below: in Gu-Vo community today.

Trump's Border Wall is Death to Endangered Species and Sacred Places

Photos by Ofelia Rivas, Tohono O'odham
Article by Brenda Norrell
Censored News copyright
Sat., Aug. 31, 2019

AJO, Arizona -- As Trump's bulldozers destroy the pristine Sonoran Desert at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument nearby, Tohono O'odham and Arizona residents are protesting the inhumane destruction.

Ofelia Rivas, Tohono O'odham who lives on the border, told Censored News, "Beautiful day in the O'odham homeland, united group of people came to be a voice for the lands and  nature against genocidal policies of an inhumane government system attacking all life."
"The Society of these stolen lands should legally charge these inhumane crimes against this disgraceful person."
"The group will continue to be a voice for the honor of the bees, the endangered sacred animals, plants and the entire land and people," Rivas said.

All endangered species laws and all laws protecting sacred Native American places have been smashed. The border wall construction is already using a vast amount of water in the desert here for concrete.
These defenders are also protesting the Israeli spy towers now targeting the Tohono O'odham Nation. The Israeli defense contractor Elbit Systems plans to construct these spy towers and destroy sacred burial places and ceremonial places on the Tohono O'odham Nation. The tribal government approved these spy towers in March, but Gu-Vo District continues to oppose this oppression and destruction. Elbit already carries out Apartheid security in Palestine.

Ofelia Rivas is the founder of O'odham Voice against the Wall, and has spent her life battling the abuses of the U.S. Border Patrol. Ofelia lives on the border on the Tohono O'odham Nation and is a voice for human rights.
Donate to Ofelia on her website, for gas funds for her work, at:
http://tiamatpublications.com/

Photos copyright Ofelia Rivas, Tohono O'odham.
Censored News
May not be used without permission.

More: Trump's bulldozers destroying the pristine Sonoran Desert and Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument! Photos and video:
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2019/08/trumps-monster-bulldozers-now-ripping.html

The Border: When the Mohawks came to the Tohono O'odham Nation

Kahentinetha Horn, publisher of Mohawk Nation News, shows her Haudenausaunee passport, while a Mohawk warrior holds the sacred Two Rows Wampum Belt of the Mohawks. Photo by Brenda Norrell, San Xavier, Tohono O'odham Nation.

Mohawks join a delegation of Pueblo, Lakota, Oneida, Dine' and South African on the border on the Tohono O'odham Nation in 2007. Photo by Brenda Norrell

"We were passing some of our strength on to them to fight," Kahentinetha Horn said after Mohawks rushed the US Border Patrol arresting Indigenous women and children on the Tohono O'odham Nation in 2007. Now, 12 years later, as Americans awake from their Walmart shopping induced coma, these words and this action have increased power and importance.

Article and photos by Brenda Norrell
Censored News
Originally published Nov. 8, 2007
Republished July 8, 2019

THE GATE, TOHONO O'ODHAM NATION (Arizona) --Indigenous delegates to the border on Tohono O'odham Nation land were outraged by the federal agents, hovering customs helicopter, profiteering contractors, federal spy tower, federal "cage" detention center and watching the arrest of a group of Indigenous Peoples, mostly women and children, by the US Border Patrol on an Indian Nation.
"We saw it all firsthand in America," said Bill Means, Lakota and cofounder of the International Indian Treaty Council on Nov. 8, when an Indigenous delegation went to the US/Mexico border here, south of Sells, to document human rights abuses for a report to the United Nations.
"Now we are going to take this wall down," Means said, after viewing the construction of a border vehicle barrier by contractors and National Guard on Tohono O'odham land.
Speaking a few hours later to the Indigenous Peoples Border Summit of the Americas II in San Xavier, Means called for solidarity of Indigenous Peoples throughout the world to halt the arrests of Indigenous Peoples who are walking north in search of a better life, and solidarity to bring down the US/Mexico border wall.
"One inch of intrusion into our land is not acceptable!" Mohawk Mark Maracle told the Border Summit. "I became very angry when I saw those guys rounding up our people.
"It is a violation of our Great Law to witness what we did today and do nothing about it."

When San Carlos Apaches Were Censored: When Truth was Stolen and a US Congressman Went to Prison

By Brenda Norrell 

Censored News

Today, I came across this censored article that I wrote as a staff writer for Indian Country Today 15 years ago. It was good to read the words again of Ola Cassadore Davis, San Carlos Apache, who passed to the Spirit World.
Perhaps Arizona Rep. Rick Renzi should have listened to the Apache elders when they warned him about violating what is sacred. 
Renzi was eventually sentenced to three years in prison because of his land scam involving copper mining, in which he sought to personally benefit. Renzi served two years in prison.
I always wonder, when I read these censored articles, what a difference in history these words might have made, if they had not been censored by Indian Country Today. 

After I was censored for years, and terminated with no cause given, I published this article below in 2006, on a free website that led to Censored News as it is today.
In the late 1990s, Indian Country Today was sold by Lakota publisher Tim Giago to the Oneida Nation in New York.

There was a series of non-Indian editors, and many vital articles were censored. Specifically I was told verbally and in writing to stop writing about "grassroots" Native people. Many staff reporters, including myself, were forced into enormous debt because of expenses. Another reporter sued over this and received a settlement.

To the public, to the people, it was another kind of debt, the truth was stolen and it is owed to them. Today the newspaper is owned by the National Congress of American Indians. Time will tell if it lives up to its responsibility for truth telling and avoids the popular plagiarism of stay-at-home writers, profiteering from the hard work of journalists.

Before the newspaper was sold, during the 1990s, while publisher Tim Giago owned it, we were able to cover news in a way it was never covered. I was able to join the Zapatistas in the jungle in the beginning of the movement and be present at Big Mountain, San Carlos Apache Nation and across the west.
During those years, I talked with great icons like Buffy Sainte Marie, Russell Means, Floyd Westerman, John Trudell, Thomas Banyacya, Dan Evehema, Hopi elder who was 107, and more elders now in the Spirit World.

When Indian Country Today began in the mid 1990s, we had incredible editors, including Avis Little Eagle , now publisher of Teton Times in Standing Rock, and Monte Ecoffey of Wounded Knee, who died too young. The great photographer Larry Gus, Hopi, was also on staff in the Southwest office. Larry joined the Indigenous delegation to Chiapas, and that is how we met our lifelong friends, including Jose Matus, Yaqui Ceremonial Leader, who later passed to the Spirit World.
The newspaper fired me the day before the Indigenous Peoples Border Summit in 2006, as I got off the plane for it. I covered it anyway.

The Mohawks came from the north in 2006, and again for the border summit in 2007.
When the Mohawks saw the US Border Patrol on the Tohono O'odham Nation, arresting Indigenous women and children, the Mohawks sprang out of their cars without a moment's hesitation, and ran to their rescue.
The US Border Patrol forced the migrants into the back of the truck, as if they were cattle, and sped away. These pitiful tiny people, women and children, appeared to have walked from Guatemala.
That day I learned how Mohawks respond to this horrible abuse of human life and human dignity at the border.

That day we also saw the chained link fence cage where migrants were held by the US Border Patrol, on the sovereign Tohono O'odham Nation, outside in life threatening heat. 
Lenny Foster, Dine', called it nothing more than a "dog's cage." Next to the cage, south of Sells, was a US spy tower, in 2007, on the Tohono O'odham Nation.
Mohawks asked how the Tohono O'odham Nation could permit this to happen on their land.

Today, the US Border Patrol agents continue their abuse and assaults on both O'odham and migrants. Many migrants are Indigenous people and have walked across countries in their desperation to survive.
During this time of censorship, when US bombs fell on Baghdad, Louise Benally of Big Mountain compared the US oppression to when Dine' were forced on the cruel Longest Walk and their imprisonment at Bosque Redondo, New Mexico. Dine' suffered from starvation and many died along the way and at the barren prison 

Louise was censored by Indian Country Today, as was Bahe Katennay of Big Mountain when he spoke of oil and gas drilling in Dinetah, the Place of Origin. Lenny Foster, Dine', was censored when he described the treatment of Leonard Peltier in prison.
During these years, truth had a friend reporting at the Hague. Paul Rafferty published these censored articles in his UN Report. Paul was among the first to publish the photos of US soldiers torturing prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
While Congressman Renzi went to prison, others did not. Those responsible for desecrating Mount Graham with telescopes included the University of Arizona in Tucson and the Pope, who led the push for this desecration.

Today, San Carlos Apaches continue to battle mining, desecration at Oak Flat, and continue to protect their land and water.
Today, to the south at the border, dozens of federal laws have been waived, as Trump begins the destruction of the fragile Sonoran Desert for his border wall, which will destroy the habitat of all living things, bulldoze Native American graves, and create a no-man's corridor -- of land seized from the poor -- for the private corporations who fund politicians.
Below are the censored words of San Carlos Apache.

CENSORED in 2004: Apache protest Rep Renzi

Apaches protest Congressional hearing to dilute environmental laws
Congressmen want to bypass environmental protection laws

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
SAFFORD, Ariz. – San Carlos Apache protested outside a Congressional field hearing and accused Congressman Rick Renzi, R-Ariz., of attempting to water down environmental protection laws aimed at protecting the red squirrel and other species in the fragile environment of sacred Mount Graham.
Ola Cassadore Davis, chair of the Apache Survival Coalition, said Renzi was promoting unprincipled developers like the University of Arizona astronomers, at the expense of Apache religious life and Apache family values.
Davis criticized Renzi’s efforts to remove endangered species protections from the Mount Graham Red Squirrel and to thin and clear-cut the summit forest surrounding the Mount Graham International Observatory. The University of Arizona's $120 million Large Binocular Telescope is nearing completion, despite Apache protests and lawsuits.
“How would Congressman Renzi like to have the hair on the top of his head thinned and parts of his hair chopped out. That’s a pretty sacred place to him, I would guess. But he disrespects places that are sacred to us,” Davis said.
“Renzi should see the fire on top of Mount Graham in July as a warning from God,” she said, referring to the summer wild fires on Mount Graham caused by lightning.
Renzi and U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., are promoting the Mount Graham Sky Island Demonstration Project, which would allow tree thinning on about 2,000 acres on the mountain. The Congressmen said the aim is to protect 21 areas on the mountain from wildfires.
However, the proposal would exempt the project from the required environmental-impact statement, which Renzi and others have said is overly time-consuming.
Federal lawmakers held a formal hearing on the Endangered Species Act Endangered Species Act in Thatcher on Sept. 20. Members of the House Resources Committee said they would accept testimony only from subpoenaed individuals at Eastern Arizona College.
Renzi claimed environmental protection laws prevented forest thinning and contributed to the Nuttall and Gibson fires, charring 29,400 acres last summer.
Davis, however, said the wildfires are being used as a ploy by the Congressmen and greedy developers to washout environmental laws.
“Congressmen like Renzi would sacrifice sacred places in order that developers can destroy the forests, rivers, mountains and special places of this country. The reason our endangered fish and wildlife animals are now endangered is because unscrupulous developers backed by people like Renzi.”
Davis, among the Apaches making statements to protest, said they should look at the Earth to see what is happening.
“Renzi and the astronomers on Mt. Graham look up at the stars, but they don’t look down at their feet to see what they have destroyed on the earth beneath them.”
Raleigh Thompson, retired San Carlos Apache Tribal Council member, said it demonstrates how Congressmen serve the rich and powerful.
“As long as Congressmen like Renzi are around to serve rich and powerful developers by attacking the country’s cultural and environmental protection laws, endangered species problems will continue.
“How would Renzi like us to go to his Church and set up a rodeo or casino beside it or put an Indian crafts shop on top of his Church’s high altar? What he is doing to our mountain and its endangered red squirrel is no different.
“This disregard for people and animals is the way the white man has treated Indians since the 19th century.”
Thompson said Dzil Nchaa Si An (Mt. Graham) has been part of Apache tribal homeland for centuries.
“It was also part of the original reservation land given to us in 1871. But when early settlers and squatters came into our rich lands, they convinced the federal government to take Dzil Nchaa Si An away from us. They wanted it for its water, lumber and other resources.
“They took our fertile Gila River valley from us too, a place where the reports of the early federal Indian Agents said we grew corn and other crops for as far ‘as the eye could see.’ Congressmen just like Renzi have since 1871, on five separate occasions, dismembered about two-thirds of our original Apache reservation’s acreage.
“No wonder we are poor. They stole the best parts of our land. Congressmen like Renzi don’t care if we go extinct any more than they care if the Mount Graham Red Squirrel goes extinct.”
San Carlos Apache elder Erwin Rope said projects such as these get approval because they promise jobs, which never arrive.
“While the $200,000,000 taxpayer financed telescope project creates some temporary jobs, it creates very few permanent jobs,” Rope said.
Rope pointed out that according to the official Forest Service’s Arizona Department of Transportation studies, the most jobs created would be 33 in Tucson and 30 in Safford.
“That is an extremely inefficient and wasteful way for anybody to help local communities,” he said.
Mike Davis, Apache Survival Coalition member and American Indian, said Apaches must speak up to protect the small creatures.
“We Indians respect and honor the intent of our Great Spirit, -- for animals to live on this planet. It is wrong to abandon endangered animals that need our help as desperately as the Mount Graham Red Squirrel.”
Ola Cassadore Davis pointed out that Mount Graham has more vegetation life zones than any other mountain in North America, and that the forest at the summit is the southernmost spruce-fir forest in North America.
“We Apache also know this place is unique. It has been spiritually a part of us for centuries. But people like Renzi don’t care about anything except the money that can be made from those places.
“Look at the severely endangered animal like the Mount Graham Red Squirrel, now down to just a few hundred individuals before the recent fire.”
Apache protesters, which included elderly, said it was inappropriate for police to watch over their protest at the hearing with a police attack dog.
Davis said the Congressmen want to make the living creatures go extinct so the University of Arizona can build a city of telescopes on the mountain.
“If it hadn’t been for the squirrel, the University of Arizona would have by now built a city of telescopes all over the summit of this sacred mountain.”
The League of Conservation Voters recently named Renzi to its "dirty dozen" list of lawmakers which the group considers to have anti-environmental voting records.

Article copyright Brenda Norrell. May not be used without permission.

About the author

Brenda Norrell began as a news reporter at Navajo Times during the 18 years that she lived on the Navajo Nation. She was a stringer for the Associated Press, USA Today, and other national publications before becoming a staff writer for Indian Country Today. She created Censored News as a result of the censorship at Indian Country Today. Censored News is in its 13th year with 19 million pageviews. It has no ads, grants or revenues.

U.S. Spy Trucks Target Indigenous on Border. Border Patrol Should Turn Cameras on Itself.

(Above photo by Lori Simmons)
Spy truck now on Texas border where Indigenous Peoples are defending a burial place and the National Butterfly Center from the border wall being pushed by the Ultra White Supremacist placed in the presidency.

U.S. Spy Trucks Target Indigenous on Border. U.S. Border Patrol Should Turn Cameras on Itself.

By Brenda Norrell

Censored News

The US Border Patrol should turn its cameras on itself. An agent was recently arrested smuggling drugs on to the Tohono O'odham Nation at Sasabe, Arizona.

 Instead the United States spies on Native people all along the border. The video spy camera trucks shown here target Indigenous People.
In the photo above, this spy truck is at McAllen, Texas, in the area where Native people are resisting the border wall, and defending the National Butterfly Center.
Below you can see one of the United Stares' spy trucks --  on Tohono O'odham Nation sovereign land -- spying into a traditional O'odham woman's home.

One Border Patrol agent on Tohono O'odham Nation has been identified as a US Border Patrol agent in Special Operations, special ops, based in El Paso. The agent pulled a gun on an O'odham woman when she told him to leave.
Along with the mobil U.S. spy trucks, now Israeli spy towers are planned by U.S. Homeland Security for sovereign Tohono O'odham Nation land. Gu-Vo District is opposing the towers which would destroy burial places and endanger the fragile desert and wildlife.
The U.S. contract is with Elbit Systems, an Israeli defense contractor responsible for Apartheid border security in Palestine, and known around the world for human rights violations.

https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2015/09/us-israeli-pact-targets-traditional.html?m=1&fbclid=IwAR0cZhD7_Gw9Zpan6BJRo2-Hn1vlcydoHhd2g6PzfLyebEbSywQ0VYNV_U0-

Article copyright Brenda Norrell. Photos copyright by photographers, names withheld here.

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

U.S. lost 1,500 migrant children, repeating horror of stolen Native American children

Vice.com "Trump's inhumane border policies are tearing families apart and traumatizing children."
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/43539q/what-separating-migrant-families-at-the-border-actually-looks-like

U.S. lost 1,500 migrant children, repeating horror of stolen Native American children

Article by Brenda Norrell
Censored News

The New York Times reports that the Department of Health and Human Services told members of Congress on Thursday that the agency "had lost track of nearly 1,500 migrant children it placed with sponsors in the United States, raising concerns they could end up in the hands of human traffickers or be used as laborers by people posing as relatives."
Native Americans point out that this horrific abuse follows the pattern of the United States stealing Native children.
Linda Black Elk said, "Native people know what it is like to have their children stolen. Thousands of Native children were taken to boarding schools and never heard from again. Many of them now lay in unmarked graves outside the walls of Carlisle, Anadarko, Cantonment, Chilocco, and so many other institutions. Imagine the babies who were stolen off their streets and taken thousands of miles away, where they contracted severe illnesses or were abused to the point of death. "What were they thinking as they were dying? "Were they wondering where their parents were?
"Is that what happened to the 1,500 Indigenous immigrant children that were 'lost' by the United States government? What kinds of horrors did they experience at the hands of sex traffickers, rapists, pedophiles, and abusers? How many of them cried for their mothers? "How many of them are still alive?
"Why is this still happening?" asks Black Elk, who is well remembered at Standing Rock Water Protectors Healing and Medic Tent and continues to share knowledge about healing plants.
Standing Rock Water Protectors point out that even the metal cages imprisoning migrant children, shown above, are the same inhumane, degrading cages Native Americans were imprisoned in at Standing Rock, when they were arrested praying for the water, as Dakota Access Pipeline tore through their ancestral lands.
New York Times reports that Steven Wagner, the acting assistant secretary of the agency’s Administration for Children and Families, disclosed during testimony before a Senate homeland security subcommittee that the agency had learned of the missing children after placing calls to the people who took responsibility for them when they were released from government custody.

"The children were taken into government care after they showed up alone at the Southwest border. Most of the children are from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, and were fleeing drug cartels, gang violence and domestic abuse, government data shows."

The Trump administration is now seizing migrants children at the border.

The Washington Post reports that this is torture.

"In two speeches last week in the border states of Arizona and California, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that as a matter of enforcement, if an unauthorized migrant brings a child across the United States-Mexico border without documentation, “we will prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you as required by law. If you don’t like that, then don’t smuggle children over our border.," writes Jaana Juvonen and Jennifer Silvers.

Read article: 'Separating children from their parents is not just cruel. It is torture.'
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/05/15/separating-children-from-parents-at-the-border-isnt-just-cruel-its-torture/?utm_term=.1e4b1c80394b

The horrific testimony exposing the United States reckless handking of migrant children came one day after a Mayan woman hiding in the bushes was shot in the head and executed by the U.S. Border Patrol on the Texas border.

The Guardian reports, "A Guatemalan woman shot dead by a border patrol agent in Texas has been named as Claudia Patricia Gómez Gonzáles by local media outlets which reported that she travelled to the US in the hope of finding work to pay for her education.

"Gómez, a 20-year-old Maya-Mam indigenous woman, died on Wednesday after she was shot in the head by an agent in the border town Rio Bravo,Texas.

Read Claudia's story, say her name:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/may/25/woman-shot-dead-border-patrol-rio-bravo-texas-identified?CMP=fb_us

                                                                     Migrant Children

New York Times article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/26/us/politics/migrant-children-missing.html

Notes:

The snakes on the border have been profiting from migrant misery for a long time. The buses to transport detainees on the Arizona border were operated by Wackenhut, who also had a security contract for Peabody Coal on Big Mountain. Wackenhut split into two companies for maximum profiteering from misery and abuse. Wackenhut Transportation was acquired by G4S in London, and GEO became one of the notorious private prison contractors in the Southwest. The Israeli defense contractor carrying out Apartheid in Palestine, Elbit Systems, was given the U.S. contract for the spy towers, integrated fixed towers, now targeting traditional communities on the Tohono O'odham Nation. G4S in London still has the transporation contract. 
.

Photo Wackenhut bus, with US Border contact, waiting to load up migrants on the Arizona border, next to Tohono O'odham Nation at Three Points. Photo copyright Brenda Norrell 2007.

On this same day, when temperatures were over 112, and we had no air conditioning, we drove around the border, and documented the US Border Patrol agents sitting in their air conditioned vehicles, talking on their cell phones most of the time, throwing their Starbucks cups on the ground, spending a lot of time at the Three Points store buying snacks, and driving too fast in the fragile desert tearing up the earth. We also saw some frightening men in regular clothes with out-of-state licenses with hunting rifles patrolling the border on a migrant trail near Arivaca. We photographed the first set of spy towers, which did not work, Border Patrol says, and that was a billion dollar boondoggle, money in the pockets of Boeing. The bus, operated by the snakes, was lurking there at the Three Points store.

On the Border, the United States Has Forgotten Its Name

On the border, the United States has forgotten its name

Article and photos by Brenda Norrell
Censored News
French translation by Christine Prat

SAN YSIDRO BORDER, Calif. -- It is calm and peaceful on the border today. All the hustlers are in Washington.
It is usually calm on the border -- except when U.S. Border Patrol agents are harassing, beating and killing people of color.
If the U.S. Border Patrol agents could find a reason to beat or shoot someone today, they would be doing this.
On the footpath to Mexico, women with gallons of milk and groceries in their carts are headed home. Young people eat pizza and shop for cell phones.
There are no hordes of migrants rushing the border, as President Trump would lead people to believe in his acceleration of racial hatred, his push for racial violence, in the United States.
At the end of the Blue Line Trolley from San Diego, on the border here, there are no "We Hate Trump" banners.
There are no posters here to remind all that "First Lady Melania Trump is an Immigrant."
Perhaps no one could welcome refugees better than First Lady Melania Trump, who is herself a migrant.
In this quiet calm, the foot path to Mexico is busy, there seems to be more interest into getting into Mexico, than in getting out of the United States today.
But just a few feet away, on the other side of the border in Tijuana, Mexico, migrants desperate for safety have reached the border on the migrant caravan.
It is cold and sprinkling rain today. They have no food or shelter.
Many have walked long distances, some across countries, some with infants in their arms, fleeing violence in Honduras and elsewhere in Central America, some fleeing domestic violence, others fleeing terrorism.
Those who live along the border, with their groceries today, show the burden of the real life awaiting the migrants who wait for asylum in the United States.
Those who have come from the south, and spent their lives here in the United States are weary. Their backs are bent from a life time of scrubbing floors, picking vegetables, mending roofs, and lifting the loads that no one else wants to lift.
Another terrorism awaits many who do come to the United States now, seeking a better life -- imprisonment in the U.S. prisons-for-profit system, filled with migrants.
The only drama today is the ocean. It is churning, thrashing its waves, and crashing into the shoreline.
Perhaps the ocean knows, remembers, the tenets of the ancients -- to welcome weary souls, to harbor the desperate, feed the hungry, shelter the dispossessed, and give safety to the women, the life givers, and the little ones.
The water has its memory.


Copyright Brenda Norrell, Censored News

Thank you for your support for food delivery by O'odham VOICE Against the Wall

Ofelia Rivas, O'odham, purchasing emergency food for O'odham on the border. Photo copyright Jeff Hendricks

O'odham Emergency Food Delivered on Border by O'odham VOICE Against the Wall

Photos and article by Ofelia Rivas
O'odham VOICE against the Wall
Censored News
French translation by Christine Prat

O'odham on the south side of the US/ Mexico international boundary are impacted by recent US Border Patrol restrictions at the San Miguel Gate, a traditional O'odham route.
Community members from Kom Wahia, Wo' osan and Kuwit Wahia are in need of immediate assistance. 
O'odham VOICE Against the WALL made an immediate appeal for assistance to purchase food and delivered it to the families. Thank you for the $200. that was raised. The food was delivered on April 19, 2018.
This effort will continue until a sustainable solution is made. The three communities do not have electricity, Two communities have wells with available water, one community does not have a well and needs to haul water. The water hauling truck has broken down recently. The communities need supplies such as lamp oil and kerosene and propane. Also household supplies such as soap, bathroom tissue, other hygiene supplies, and matches and batteries are needed.

Photo copyright Ofelia Rivas.

Photo copyright Ofelia Rivas.

Photo copyright Ofelia Rivas.

Photo copyright Ofelia Rivas.

Photo copyright Ofelia Rivas.

Photo copyright Ofelia Rivas.

Photo copyright Ofelia Rivas.

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Photo copyright Ofelia Rivas.

Copyright. Photos and article copyright Ofelia Rivas, Censored News. No portion may be published without permission.