Indigenous Peoples battle for their lives, and others, on US borders

Mike Wilson, Tohono O'odham, replaces missing water tanks for migrants on the southern border, while Mohawk publisher Kahentinetha Horn recovers on the northern border

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com
BABOQUIVARI DISTRICT, Arizona – Mike Wilson, Tohono O’odham, has replaced two of his humanitarian water stations on the Tohono O’odham Nation. Wilson was ordered by Baboquivari District Chair Veronica Harvey to remove his water stations in August.

“No one should die for want of a cup of water,” Wilson said, after replacing two of the water stations that vanished last week. Wilson said he will continue to pursue dialogue with Tohono O’odham officials, but he will not back down on the right of the dying to water.Wilson did not remove his water tanks as ordered, but respectfully declined when the district order was delivered by tribal police. However, upon return to the water stations in Baboquivari District in September, he found three of the stations had been removed. Wilson replaced two of the stations.

Wilson pointed out the large number of migrants dying here in the desert. By US Border Patrol statistics, 83 migrants died during the first half of 2008 on the Tohono O’odham Nation. However, Wilson says the number is actually greater. Wilson maintains the water stations with Tohono O’odham David Garcia. Wilson also searches the O’odham desert for bodies, like two Mayan women from Guatemala who died walking to a better life with their children. The children survived.

During the Indigenous Peoples Border Summit of the Americas in 2006 and 2007, Wilson and other Tohono O’odham were joined by Mohawks from the north to demand a halt to the militarization of the US borders. Mohawks, including Kahentinetha Horn, publisher of Mohawk Nation News, observed the arrests of Indigenous Peoples on Tohono O’odham land and were outraged at the treatment of Indian people.

Then, in June, Kahentinetha was beaten by Canadian border guards and suffered a heart attack in a police stress hold. Now, recovering, Kahentinetha, who filed suit, said the stress hold was intensified as she was having a heart attack in police custody in a deliberate attempt to kill her.

Like Wilson, Kahentinetha and Katenies, Mohawk Nation News editor also beaten during the attack by border guards in June, said they will not back down on their demands for a halt to the militarization of their lands, carried out by corporate profiteers under the guise of national security.

On the southern border, Tohono O’odham Nation Chairman Ned Norris, Jr., has not made a public statement concerning the demand by Harvey for Wilson to remove his water stations. However, Chairman Norris did testify in Texas concerning the violations of federal law by Homeland Security and the border wall contractor Boeing.

Chairman Norris, testifying to a joint Congressional subcommittee in April, said human bone fragments were found in the tracks of machinery undertaking border wall construction in Arizona. Further, Norris pointed out that Homeland Security violated federal laws which protect endangered species and cultural artifacts.

However, Chairman Norris did not point out that O’odham ancestors were dug up from their graves, and later reburied, on the western portion of Tohono O’odham land in 2007 during border wall construction by Boeing.

Meanwhile, Wilson said he will continue maintaining his water stations, including those in Baboquivari District and one across the international border in Sonora. Mexico.

“It is a crime against humanity,” Wilson said of the Tohono O’odham Nation’s failure to respond with water for the dying.

Photo 1: Mike Wilson in Baboquivari District at his water station/Photo Brenda Norrell
Photo 2: Kahentinetha in a Canadian hospital after suffering a heart attack in a police stresshold at the Canadian border. Photo Sagowaiaks.

Longest Walk northern route photos by Janice Trytten

Longest Walk drum at Greenbelt Park, Maryland. Photo 2: Paul Owns the Sabre at camp in Greenbelt Park, Maryland. Photos copyright Janice Trytten jtrytten@cinci.rr.com. Please double click on images to enlarge.
See more of Janice's photos on three more pages: Page One:

http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2008/09/longest-walk-northern-route-photos-by.html

Photos Page Two:

http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2008/09/janice-tryttens-long-walk-photos.html

Photos Page Three:

http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2008/09/long-walk-northern-route-photos-by.html

Epilogue from Denver: Spirit of Resistance is Alive

Article and photos by Brenda Norrell
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

DENVER -- When I went to the Democratic National Convention, to cover the political prisoners rally and march, I didn't realize I would witness the police provocation and arrests of a new wave of political prisoners during the week. The peoples' crime was to be peace activists, or merely to be present in the streets during the convention. Lucky for me, I couldn't afford to make it to the Republican National Convention in Minnesota. No doubt I would have been arrested with the other media in the streets, photographing unprovoked police brutality.
At the political prisoners rally in Denver, members of the American Indian Movement, Black Panthers and Mexican American rights movements, made a bold statement that the oppression, torture and surveillance of the US government here and abroad has not silenced their voices.
Dressed in orange jumpsuits and hoods, another group brought the spirit of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, the reality of US torture, kidnapping and murder of detainees, to the streets of Denver.
At the Republican convention, police were even more out of control than in Denver, arresting and jailing more than 800 people, including journalists and medics. Today, Democracy Now! announced that charges were dropped against host Amy Goodman, among the journalists arrested at the Republican convention.
The St. Paul City Attorney’s office announced Friday it will not prosecute Goodman and her fellow staff, Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar. St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman also issued a statement Friday that "the city will decline to prosecute misdemeanor charges for presence at an unlawful assembly for journalists arrested during the Republican National Convention."
The announcement came two weeks after the conclusion of the Republican National Convention where over 40 journalists were arrested.
Goodman said, “It’s good that these false charges have finally been dropped, but we never should have been arrested to begin with. These violent and unlawful arrests disrupted our work and had a chilling effect on the reporting of dissent. Freedom of the press is also about the public’s right to know what is happening on their streets." Goodman pressed for a full investigation of law enforcement activities.
Goodman was arrested while asking police to release Kouddous and Salazar who had been violently arrested while reporting on street demonstrations. After being handcuffed and pushed to the ground, Goodman reiterated that she was was a credentialed reporter. Secret Service then ripped the credential from around her neck, according to Democracy Now!
During demonstrations on the first day of the convention police used pepper spray, rubber bullets, concussion grenades and force against protesters and journalists. Several dozen demonstrators were arrested, as was a photographer for the Associated Press. The YouTube video of Goodman’s arrest was viewed over 830,000 times.
Along with the journalists, medics were arrested and jailed at the RNC, including the Portland Street Medics who served during both conventions, working days and nights to serve the people. Meanwhile, back in Denver, the political prisoners march and rally did not disappoint. As the people marched from the civic center to the federal courthouse through downtown, the crowd grew by hundreds. Their voices rose up through the high rises. The police on the scene at the courthouse, from Aurora, Colorado, pulled their weapons on the people. This was followed by a legal observer yelling at the officers to put their weapons away. Eventually the police did.
One after another, in front of the federal courthouse, the people told how people of color in this country -- black, American Indian and Chicano -- are targeted by police and repeatedly are the victims of manufactured evidence.
Further, people of color are given longer prison sentences than whites in this country, a fact verified by statistics of the ACLU. In American Indian bordertowns, being targeted by police is called "DWI: Driving While Indian." Those speeches can be heard at http://www.earthcycles.net/, including Ben Carnes, Choctaw, reading a statement written by Leonard Peltier. The voice of Mumia Abu Jamal was heard from Death Row.
In this age of electronic surveillance, out of control police and Nazi-style prisons for profit based on incarcerating migrants and other people of color, the people took to the streets and let their voices be heard. In this way, the cold, iron doors were opened for truth and freedom.
The Recreate '68's "Freedom March and Rally for Human Rights and Political Prisoners," speakers were: Pamela Africa of MOVE Organization; Ben Carnes for the Leonard Peltier Defense; Rosa Clemente, US Vice Presidential Candidate for the Green Party; Kathleen Cleaver of The Panther Nine from San Francisco; King Downing, National Coordinator of the ACLU's Campaign Against Racial Profiling; Jenny Esquiveo, spokesperson for Eric McDavid, political prisoner; Chairman Fred Hampton Jr., Prisoners of Conscience Committee and Mumia Abu Jamal, current political prisoner recorded from Death Row. They were joined by Cha Cha Jimenez, founder of the Young Lords, Puerto Rican Resistance Prisoners; Ricardo Romero, National Coordinator for the Mexican Liberation Organization; Natsu Saito, author, activist, and human rights scholar, Guantanamo Inmates and a spokesperson for the Cuban Five.
In this era of George Bush, secret renditions and Abu Ghraib, the spirit of resistance lives.

Arizona: Say 'No' to US torture

Southwest Weekend of Witness
HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE WILL JOIN TOGETHER IN SOUTHERN ARIZONA ON NOVEMBER 15 & 16 TO SAY 'NO' TO TORTURE
Save the dates ... plan to join us!
Saturday, November 15
Tucson, Arizona
Plan for Action: Civil Initiative to Stop the Training and Practice of Torture will be held from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Pima Community College, Downtown Campus. We will work together on a plan for beyond the weekend that will accomplish this goal, followed by:Sign makingAn evening programProcession to federal building for a vigil
Sunday, November 16
Sierra Vista, Arizona
10 a.m. - 3 p.m. An anti-torture rally with music and speakers at Veteran's Memorial Park, ending with a procession to and presence across the street from the main gate of Ft. Huachuca. Ft. Huachuca is the home of USAICS, the U.S. Army Intelligence Center and School, and has a long history of complicity in U.S. crimes of torture. The torture manuals used at the School of the Americas came from Ft. Huachuca.
For several years, in solidarity with the annual vigil and action at Fort Benning, Georgia to close the U.S. Army's School of the Americas (now the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation) there has been a growing grassroots demonstration at the gate of Fort Huachuca to protest our country's slipping standards on torture, being practiced in our name and with our tax dollars in places like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. The November 2008 demonstration at Ft. Huachuca will take place the week before the Ft. Benning vigil and action.
If you have questions, please write to southwestwitness@gmail.com and someone will get back to you as quickly as possible. Updated information will be posted at http://southwestwitness.org/
To find out more about the November 21-23 vigil & action at Ft. Benning, visit http://soaw.org/
(Photo: Saying 'No' to US torture at Tucson courthouse. Photo Brenda Norrell)