Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights

July 8, 2019

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."

Longest Walk walks into Pennsylvania: Beauty of the Road photos by Bad Bear













Photos by Western Shoshone Longwalker Carl Bad Bear Sampson
"We're really tired and exhausted," Bad Bear said. "I myself am doing what I can to finish the last 230 miles strong. All is well and we're keeping the prayers movin'."
The camp site is Laurel Hill State Park for two more nights.
"We are starting the walk this morning from Monongahela, Pennsylvania," Bad Bear said.
July 8, 2019
Update on July 10: Walkers will be camping at Cowans Gap in Penn. for three more nights.

If you're nearby, please join them, with support, water or food, whatever you can share. -- Brenda, Censored News




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Congratulations to Bad Bear for this well deserved recognition from Earth Justice, 'On the Frontlines.'
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July 3, 2019

Appeals Court Blocks Trump's Border Wall in Arizona and New Mexico in National Emergency Challenge


Our friend the Sonoran Pronghorn on the
Arizona Border, whose migration route is now targeted by Trump's Border Wall.
The real national emergency is that the homeland of Indigenous People and wildlife is threatened by a xenophobic president. -- Censored News
July 3, 2019

CONTACT: Virginia Cramer
virginia.cramer@sierraclub.org
CourtneyBourgoin
courtney.bourgoin@sierraclub.org

Appeals Court Blocks Trump’s Border Wall in National Emergency Challenge

The Appeals Court decision includes halting Trump's priority plan for a border wall at Organ Pipe National Monument, near the western side of the Tohono Oodham Nation, on the Arizona border

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal appeals court today denied the government’s attempt to begin construction of President Trump’s border wall using funds unauthorized by Congress. The ruling upholds an earlier district court order that blocks the administration from building wall sections along the southern border in New Mexico and Arizona using illegally diverted military funds.

What if there was never a Snowden or Wikileaks. We would have never known ...





By Brenda Norrell
Censored News

What if there had never been a Snowden or Wikileaks, or any of the whistleblowers?

I would have never known that Google, Facebook, my android phone and the others are all part of the massive spy network of the U.S., U.K. and others. I would have never known to cover my phone and computer camera lens with colored tape, and to take the battery out of my phone at times -- because it is a tracker, and can be turned on remotely as a listening and viewing device.