Report Back from O'odham Solidarity Event with Ward Churchill

A Border Runs Through Them

By BRENDA NORRELL

Censored News

Tucson

Tohono O’odham living on the border joined with Ward Churchill to speak out on “Apartheid in America, Surviving Occupation in O’odham Lands,” on Nov. 13. Ofelia Rivas and her brother Julian Rivas, O’odham living on the US/Mexico border, spoke of the impact and desecration of colonization and border militarization.

Ofelia Rivas said O’odham were never included in the dialogue determining the delineation of the US/Mexico border in the 1800s or the construction of the border wall. “We were not at that table when they made that international border. We were not considered human,” she told the crowd of several hundred people. Responding to questions from supporters seeking ways to help, Ofelia said, “Can you take that border down for us? Can you restore our way of life? Can you give the language back to our young people who have gone though the boarding school experience or those who went through relocation? Can you give those back to us?” she asked.

She said when O’odham elders, the ancestors passed away, they became part of this earth since the beginning of time. “In the beginning, when the world was made, we were here. We were made from this earth. Our ancestors are every part of this land, not just our ancestors, but all the Indigenous Peoples of this world.”

Ofelia said she was inspired by the young people who came to learn because they care. Describing the ongoing struggle of O’odham she said, “We are considered not human today. They can kill us, they can abuse us.” Now, the sacred routes have been closed that O’odham have followed since the beginning of time for ceremonies and to make offerings to the land. “That is the way we live, that is our balance here as human beings.” O’odham continue to struggle every single day because border policies make lives so difficult. Each day O’odham are confronted with the choice to compromise in order to survive and become part of the system. It is a system that makes O’odham “unhuman.”

Many look at the desert, Ofelia said, and speak only of the heat. “But here there is the beauty of the cactus, beauty of animals, beauty of the water that once flowed and the beauty of the original people of this land.” She told those who want to make social change, the place to begin is to view O’odham as human beings. She said O’odham who happen to be born at home, in what is now another country, now need permission to travel. When O’odham cross the border to visit their families and for ceremonies, O’odham undergo demeaning treatment on a daily basis from border agents because of this illegal border. “They didn’t ask us to put that international border there," said Ofelia, founder of the O'odham VOICE Against the Wall.

When confronted by US Border Patrol agents, she said she uses her O’odham language to establish her right of passage. Still, the US Border Patrol has held a gun to her head and to the heads of O’odham elders. Her brother Julian was shot at when crossing the border. Ofelia said she tells young people to say prayers that the hearts of the human race will be changed. She said people need to remember their songs to give back the blessings to Mother Earth and live in harmony with the water, land and people. The Tohono O’odham chairman held a ceremony recently in Washington for a card that gives permission for O’odham to travel on their own lands. “I have a problem with that,” she said of the O’odham border card. “As original people, we’ve always had permission from the Creator to travel on our own lands and that is the only permission we need.”

Ofelia asked for help in monitoring laws being passed in Washington. Currently, the lands of Indigenous Peoples have been contaminated by many forms of pollution, including atom bomb testing. She pointed out that the US waived 37 laws to build the vehicle barrier on O’odham lands. The US dug up O’odham ancestors to build this vehicle barrier. Julian Rivas said O’odham are continuing in the path of resistance fighters like Leonard Peltier. “Indigenous Peoples have a tie to the land, a tie to their beliefs. Their comfort zone is the earth. As non indigenous people, you create your own comfort zone.”

Speaking on indigenous resistance, Julian said “We do it, we don’t just talk about it.” Julian said he continues to cross the border even though his pickup truck has been shot at and has bullet holes in it. “That’s our way of life in resistance.” Julian said after 9/11 there were many changes at the border which affected the O’odham way of life. “They blocked off some of our traditional routes and it instilled a lot of fear in the people.” O’odham became fearful of crossing the border, which they have done since time immemorial, going back and forth in their homelands. Now, the militarization of the border involves at least seven enforcement agencies. Still, traditional O’odham leaders in Mexico have been at the bargaining table with the Zapatistas in Mexico in order to bring further recognition to indigenous peoples in Mexico. “We have no means of funding.”

Julian said O’odham along the border have applied to the Tohono O’odham Nation government in Sells, Arizona, for funds, but have received none. “There is nothing coming out for that. We have to do our own fund raisers for the work we are doing.” “We do follow a traditional order,” he said of the O’odham leadership in Mexico. He said that neither the Tohono O’odham Nation nor the Mexico government can dictate to the O’odham in Mexico. The O’odham traditional form of government is not written down, but it is known to the O’odham. Julian said O’odham in Mexico have fought a toxic waste dump planned for their ceremonial community of Quitovac in Sonora, Mexico. O’odham in Mexico first learned about the toxic dump from people in Mexico. Although the Tohono O’odham Nation government knew about it earlier, the nation was not concerned with it, he said. Activist groups across the Southwest helped traditional O’odham in Sonora fight this toxic dump, he said. Julian said when 9/11 occurred Homeland Security brought in expensive vehicles to run over everything in the O’odham homeland, desecrating the land and sacred area. “They build roads wherever they want to.” “Because of 9/11, everyone with brown skin is labeled a terrorist.” Julian said the Tohono O’odham Nation government speaks of sovereignty, but it is not demonstrating sovereignty. “It is always strings being pulled from somewhere else…We survived 500 plus years of that. With this resistance, we’re going to last another 500 plus years.”

Welcoming guest speaker Ward Churchill, Ofelia Rivas said Churchill has proven to be sympathetic and compassionate about what is happening on the border to Native lands. During questions, Churchill said it should be the O’odham people who determine an action plan for the border. Churchill said video cameras could be used to curb the level of violence by vigilantes at the border. He said people can follow the Minutemen and other civilian border patrols around with video cameras, as the Black Panthers once did in Oakland. After the Panthers followed Oakland police around with video cameras, police brutality dropped more than 50 percent in six months.

Churchill encouraged Tucson area residents to establish “neighborly” relationships with O’odham to work toward change. He said there is no script for instant social change. “The process is called ‘a struggle’ for a reason.” During his talk, Churchill spoke of Leonard Peltier and indigenous land rights. He described apartheid formulated in South Africa, which was strict segregation and flagrantly racist. He said people were outraged in the United States about apartheid, but it was adapted from Jim Crow. Jim Crow in the deep south was an antecedent to apartheid in South Africa. For Native people, colonizers brought mainstreaming. “Mainstreaming means assimilation.”

Churchill spoke of different forms of colonialism in South Africa, US, Poland and Germany. He spoke of how colonialism affected native people, pointing out the short life expectancy for native men as living conditions deteriorated and colonization increased. Churchill described settler state colonizers and the struggle for decolonization which began in the 1940s. Speaking of boundaries and walls, Churchill described the wall in Palestine and on O’odham land. Today in the US, O’odham have to go through “checkpoints,” just like Palestinians. Churchill compared the lethal actions of Israel toward Palestinians to the US Border Patrol’s lethal actions toward O’odham. He said the dehumanizing of Palestinians is manifest in a similar fashion in the US. This dehumanizing of Indians is apparent in movies like the Oscar winning western “Unforgiven.” Further, he spoke of racial profiling in the US, the popularity of Rush Limbaugh and vigilantes at borders.

Angie Ramon spoke of her son, Bennett Patricio, Jr., who was run over and killed by the US Border Patrol. Bennett was walking home through the desert at 3 a.m. when he was run over. Ramon believes, based on the evidence, that her son was intentionally run over and killed after he walked upon Border Patrol agents involved in a drug transfer. Ramon described her struggle for justice and asked why the US Border Patrol left her son crushed on the highway for so long without transporting him to a hospital. "I know he must have still been alive," she said, describing how his fingers were still twitching as he lay dying on the highway. She said both the US Border Patrol and the Tohono O'odham police know what really happened. Ramon said the Tohono O'odham Nation government has not helped her financially with the case, which she took alone to the Ninth Circuit. She said the tribal government receives funds from the US Border Patrol.

During the event, the crowd enjoyed traditional O'odham tepary beans, baked squash and fry bread, cooked by Ramon and her family. The event was a fundraiser for the O'odham Solidarity Project. http://www.solidarity-project.org --Watch videos of this gathering, with additional O’odham interviews by Earthcycles and Censored News: http://www.livestream.com/earthcycles -- Brenda Norrell, Censored News http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com Censored Blog Talk Radio http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Brenda-Norrell Indigenous Uranium Forum videos http://www.livestream.com/earthcycles Earthcycles Longest Walk Radio: http://www.earthcycles.net

Green Scare: Iowa Federal Judge Orders Feldman & DeMuth Detained Indefinitely for Refusing to Testify at Davenport Iowa Grand Jury

Today, Minneapolis-based activists Carrie Feldman and Scott DeMuth refused to testify in front of a grand jury in Davenport, Iowa, and were found to be in contempt of court. They were immediately handcuffed and hauled off by U.S. Marshalls. According to District Judge John Jarvey, who presided over the contempt hearings, both will remain incarcerated until they agree to testify. The state can lock them up for the duration of the grand jury–another 11 months.

For reasons all too familiar and valid to anyone who has followed the escalation of Green Scare repression, both Carrie and Scott refused to cooperate with the grand jury by providing information about themselves and their comrades. We stand in solidarity with them for refusing to be complicit in their own persecution. We will stand with them every day until they are free.

While the law does not compel the U.S. Attorney’s Office to disclose the subject of the grand jury investigation, supporters believe that it is likely related to an unsolved Animal Liberation Front action in 2004 at the University of Iowa. At the time, Carrie was only 15 years old and Scott was only 17 years old; both were residents of the Twin Cities.

However, both have more recently been involved in supporting political prisoners, specifically those incarcerated as a result of the government’s targeting of animal-rights and environmental activists. Carrie, Scott, and their communities feel that this support work has now made them targets as well.

Prior to their grand jury appearances today and the contempt hearings that followed, between 30 and 40 supporters rallied outside the Federal Courthouse in Davenport. The support rally was characterized by a disproportionate law enforcement presence, and the proceedings themselves by a sense in the courtroom that the state’s actions were perfunctory at best. District Judge Jarvey dismissed out of hand arguments offered by both Carrie and Scott’s counsel regarding the need for them to remain free. For instance, Carrie is her ailing grandmother’s caretaker and Scott is currently a graduate student whose intellectual and professional integrity would be irreparably damaged by participating in a sealed investigation. In response, the judge simply read verbatim the legal language about contempt charges and then ordered the two taken into custody immediately.

For his part, U.S. Attorney Cliff Cronk not only ignored the calls that flooded his office on Monday demanding that the subpoenas be quashed, allowing Carrie and Scott to continue on with their lives, but went substantially further down the rabbit hole. In Carrie’s case, in particular, his arguments and implications were egregiously over-the-top. Cross-examining Carrie’s father, for instance, Cronk cynically implied that the elderly grandmother she cares for was a sort of pawn in an elaborate ruse to avoid incarceration. He suggested that a shirt Carrie had been photographed wearing, in which the letters “L” and “F” were visible, was evidence of “membership” in either the ALF or ELF. And he even cited the fact that she has a white rat companion animal as evidence of … something or other. It would all be a rather inspired piece of satire if he were kidding.

With both Carrie and Scott currently incarcerated, it’s unfortunately clear he’s not.

But the community members who attended the morning’s rally – as well as those who publicly gathered in support from Minneapolis to Dallas, TX – aren’t laughing, either. They have vowed to mount pressure on Cronk’s office, demanding Carrie and Scott’s immediate release. Since the grand jury process gleans much of its power from its secrecy, they intend to increase the attention currently being cast on these Orwellian proceedings.

Prior to appearing before the grand jury, Carrie and Scott prepared statements regarding the repression they are facing:

Carrie Feldman

Today I have my second appearance before a federal grand jury that is investigating animal rights actions that occurred at the University of Iowa in 2004. Last month, after being subpoenaed in Minneapolis with one day’s notice, I appeared before this grand jury and plead my Fifth Amendment right to remain silent. Today, that right will be sidestepped with technical legal “protections” that have little or no substantive value. I will once again be put in front of a grand jury with no lawyer present in the room, and once again they will attempt to coerce me to testify.

The prosecutor has filed to grant me immunity. I do not need immunity from prosecution for a crime that I was not involved in and have no relation to. This will not change my decision to refuse to cooperate with the grand jury. I stand here today in solidarity with everyone who has stood up to resist the exploitation of the environment and animals, the repression of the state, and the abuses of the justice system.

In anticipation of my refusal to cooperate, the court has scheduled a contempt hearing for today at ten o’clock. And they’re right. I do feel contempt for a justice system that prosecutes people for property damage that is done in defense of life, while real violence is committed at the hands of vivisectors, the police, and the military on a daily basis. I feel contempt for the federal agents that would use these prosecutions as a pretext to investigate above ground movements and activists like me, with no apparent grounds other than my political beliefs and legal activities. I will not help them to do this, and I will not let them violate my rights and privacy.

Today, I may be taken to jail for up to eleven months, solely for taking a moral stand against an institution that I believe to be corrupt and obsolete. I have not been accused of any crime. So let me ask you this, Clifford Cronk. Is it worth it to you? Is it worth it to you when my friend’s eight year old sobs, wondering if her mother could be going to jail next? Is it worth it, Tom Reinwart? Is it worth it to you when my elderly grandma is without a caretaker? Is this what you work for, Melissa Hendrickson? Is it worth it to tear an innocent 20-year-old woman away from everyone that she loves and cares for? Is this justice?

Thank you for your support.

Scott DeMuth

Hau Mitakuyapi. Cante wasteya nape ciyuzapi do. Iyuskinyan waciyankapi do. Dakota ia Hepan emakiyapi do. Wasicu ia Scott DeMuth emakiyapi do. Damakota do. Oyate mitawa kin hena Bdewakantunwan ewicakiyapi do. Bdote heciya tanhan wahi do. Wanna nina cante mawaste do.

Hello all my relatives. With a good heart, I greet you all with a handshake. It is good to see all of you here today. My name is Scott. My place name is Dakota is Hepan. I am from Bdote, the confluence of the Mnisota and Mississippi Rivers, where the creation of the Bdewakantunwan took place.

Before anything else, I wanted to address you all in the Dakota language. State repression isn’t anything new to this country, or even to this city. One hundred and forty-six years ago, only a few miles from this courthouse, over 300 Dakota prisoners of war were held in a concentration camp. Over a third of them died in their captivity. Whatever happens to me today, whatever I face, it will be easy in light of the hardships those men faced. Right now, my heart is really good. I am glad to see so many people from so many of the communities I am a part of here to support me today. Being part of a community means we help each other. We support each other. We strengthen each other. And sometimes, we must make sacrifices for each other.

Grand juries started as an important part of our justice system to prevent over-reaching prosecuting powers. However, this process has been used historically against political movements. In the context of this history, most recently in the Green Scare, when investigative techniques of law enforcement have been halted by the silence of political movements, grand juries have been used as a tactic to intimidate our communities and as an attempt to coerce testimony from movement members. This is an abuse of a constitutionally mandated process by using it as an investigative tool rather than its intended purpose.

Grand juries can be very disempowering for us all, and especially for those targeted by them. We face questioning without legal counsel present or a right to remain silent. We can be threatened, coerced, and jailed. However, no punishment could be worse than surrendering our values. And this decision, whether we cooperate or resist, is the one thing we, as individuals, have control of in this process. Luckily, this is the choice that allows these grand juries to succeed or to fail.

Our willingness to cooperate and to be complacent, our willingness to be intimidated and to be scared, not only serves to legitimize these proceedings, but it also empowers the tactics of state repression. However, when we as individuals, with the strength and backing of our communities, are no longer afraid of their punishment, choose to resist this process and refuse to cooperate, we dis-empower this tactic and give strength to our communities. We return the strength that is given to us.

So thank you all for giving me that strength. And I only hope to give back as much as has been given to me.

Supporters are still determining where Scott and Carrie are being held. Watch for more information about where to send them mail, as well as other ways to help. Meanwhile, legal funds are needed.

To donate, and for more information about Carrie and Scott, please visit http://davenportgrandjury.wordpress.com.

Toxins found in wetlands threaten to quash land swap

By Louis Sahagun

November 17, 2009

A tipster's recollection of a hazardous substance spill in Los Cerritos Wetlands in the 1950s has led to the discovery of elevated levels of carcinogenic PCBs that could derail a controversial proposal to restore the degraded Long Beach salt marsh, officials say.

The Environmental Protection Agency is scheduled to present the results of its study of the contamination to the Long Beach City Council today.

"The informant, who wishes to remain anonymous, was an apprentice electrician in his late teens in the early 1950s," said EPA spokesman Robert Wise. "He remembered seeing some transformers leaking hazardous chemicals out there and said it was something we need to be concerned about."

Soil testing revealed PCB levels as high as 21 parts per million in certain locations -- 2,000 times higher than state and federally recommended ecological levels, Wise said.

"These numbers would pose an extremely low threat to humans," he said. "It's an ecological threat. The wetlands are home to three federally endangered species."

Now, concerns about potential liability costs are threatening to delay or even quash a proposed land swap designed to protect the remnants of the once-vibrant salt marsh at the mouth of the San Gabriel River.

"Time kills all deals, and it's slowly killing this one," said Mike Conway, the city's director of public works.

Few environmental issues in Long Beach have caused more controversy than the land swap trumpeted a year ago as a way to preserve the 175-acre core of the urban wetlands bordered by Pacific Coast Highway, Studebaker Road and Los Cerritos Channel.

Under the terms of the deal, 52 acres of city-owned land were to be traded to local developer LCW Partners, which owns the wetlands. The city then planned to sell the marsh to the Los Cerritos Wetlands Authority for $25 million.

But it didn't turn out that way. After a year of battles with low-income residents who complained the proposal would benefit the city's wealthier eastern half and intense scrutiny from elected officials and nearby homeowners, it was whittled down to nearly 38 acres of wetlands in return for a downtown service yard.

That proposal was in final negotiations in February when the EPA alerted the developer about the discovery of PCBs, polychlorinated biphenyls, in soil samples, city officials said.

However, the city did not learn about the problem until Aug. 17, two weeks after the City Council agreed to proceed with the land swap, officials said.

In a subsequent memorandum to the mayor and City Council, staffers recommended that the city not close escrow on the deal pending resolution of EPA actions, officials said.

"It makes me worried about what else might be out there," said Long Beach City Councilwoman Gerrie Schipske. "From the beginning, there was a group of us who said, 'This deal doesn't smell right.' "

In an interview, Kenneth Erlich, an attorney representing the developer, said he had no idea why his client did not immediately inform city officials of the EPA's discovery of PCBs on the property.

But now, Erlich said, "LCW is chomping at the bit to do the cleanup work. But we can't because the EPA wants us to do further testing."

The land swap is the latest in a series of efforts over the last few decades to place the privately owned coastal marsh into the public trust.

If the proposal passes, the developers would retain control over mineral rights and continue to pump oil from the wetlands, but the land would be protected from commercial and residential development in perpetuity.

"What troubles me is that the city apparently has not seen fit to do its due diligence, and that is part of the reason we are in this pickle now," said Mel Nutter, an attorney representing the Los Cerritos Wetlands Land Trust, a group dedicated to preserving the wetlands.

"The city really doesn't know what it will be getting if this trade goes forward," he said, "or what the property is worth, or whether a state agency or wetlands authority is ever going to be in a position to actually acquire this property from the city."

louis.sahagun@latimes.com

Oregon prison springs eco-saboteur 'Free' by mistake, then takes him back

By Bryan Denson, The Oregonian

October 02, 2009

The man who drew the longest prison sentence in U.S. history for eco-sabotage walked out of prison this morning. After years of appeals, Jeffrey M. Luers, known to Eugene’s anarchist clan as “Free,” was just that.

But just as quickly, he was sent back to prison.

The Oregon Department of Corrections acknowledged today that it mistakenly allowed Luers to take advantage of a new law, House Bill 3508, which grants reduced sentences for certain classes of inmates. Luers’ sentence for arson made him ineligible for early release, said prisons spokeswoman Jennifer Black, in Salem.

“It’s a mistake we wish hadn’t happened,” she said. “We’re reviewing processes and hoping that it just does not happen again.”

Luers was released from Columbia River Correctional Institution in Northeast Portland this morning and given 24 hours to check in with his parole officer in Lane County. He checked in this afternoon, where he learned of the error.

Authorities took the 30-year-old radical environmentalist back to prison, a rude reversal for those who worked years to get Luers out.

The day began with Luers’ supporters writing on the Friends of Jeff Luers Web site: “We are still pinching ourselves.”

Luers’ appellate lawyer in Salem, Shawn Wiley, weighed in with an e-mail comment to The Oregonian: “This day is long overdue. Jeff is a kind, thoughtful, intelligent young man, and our community benefits much more from his presence in it rather than behind bars."

But their joy was short lived.

Luers' saga began in 2001, when Lane County Circuit Judge Lyle Velure sentenced him to 22 years, 8 months in prison after finding him guilty of two crimes in Eugene -- attempting to set fire to a gasoline tanker owned by a petroleum distributor, then firebombing three pickup trucks at a Chevy dealership.

The sentence drew gasps because it was by far the stiffest punishment handed to an eco-saboteur in the United States. Across the nation, environmental activists and civil libertarians expressed outrage.

At that time, Luers’ crimes were paltry compared to those committed by better known eco-saboteurs. Rod Coronado, for instance, who waged a multi-state arson campaign against the fur industry, was sentenced to less than five years in federal prison.

After Luers was sent to prison, arsons by underground groups such as the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front ceased in Oregon, once a hotbed of environmentally motivated firebombings and vandalism.

Law enforcement authorities said Luers’ long sentence served as a deterrent to those who might consider setting fire to SUVs, mink ranches or Forest Service installations.

In a phone interview from prison in September 2001, Luers told The Oregonian that the gravity of his sentence did not strike him until he lay in a prison bunk one day realizing his parents might die before he is freed.

Luers told the newspaper that he set fire to the pickups to protest gas-guzzling vehicles and the disproportionate amount of pollution they belch into the air.

He described the arson at Eugene’s Romania Chevrolet as a final, desperate act of an environmental crusade that began benignly with letters to politicians, door-to-door work with the Sierra Club and tree sits to prevent logging.

“It was an escalation to a level I’d never gone before and I could never live down,” Luers told The Oregonian. “At that point, for me, I could no longer say I was an activist. In my mind, I’d taken it to the next level.”

The Oregon Court of Appeals ruled in February 2007 that Lane County must re-sentence Luers because Velure erred by convicting him of two counts of arson and imposing consecutive prison terms under Oregon’s mandatory-minimum sentencing law.

Lawyers negotiated an agreement that re-sentenced Luers to 10 years in prison, which would have brought him home this Christmas.

Passage of House Bill 3508 this year gave Luers even more good news. He was one of the roughly 2,000 Oregon prisoners to get notice recently that they were eligible for a fractional reduction of their sentence, Black said. For Luers, this meant freedom a few months early.

But today’s foul-up nixed his freedom.

Luers is scheduled for release on Dec. 16.