Let’s Learn Nahuatl Worksheet!

Let’s Learn Nahuatl Worksheet!

Plural Nouns:
Nouns ending in –tl that refer to people change the singular suffix to –h when plural. Those that refer to animals change it to –meh.

Examples:

Singular
Tlacatl (person)
Cihuatl (woman)
Ichcatl (lamb)
Pitzotl (pig)

Plural
Tlacah (persons)
Cihuah (women)
Ichcameh (lambs)
Pitzomeh (pigs)

Nouns ending in –tl and –li change these to –tin when plural.

Examples:


Singular
Nantli (mother)
Tahtli (father)

Plural
Nantin (mothers)
Tahtin (fathers)


Nouns ending in –in usually change to –meh when plural.

Examples:

Singular
Pipiolin (bee)
Ocuilin (worm)

Plural
Pipiolmeh (bees)
Ocuilmeh (worms)

The following nouns have a special plural form. They take the above plural suffixes and reduplication of the first syllable.


Singular
Conetl (child)
Pilli (small)
Teotl (god)
Ticitl (physician)
Teuctli/tecuhtli (lord)

Plural
Coconeh (children)
Pipiltin (small children)
Tetoh (gods)
Titicih (physicians)
Teteuctin/Tetecuhtin (lords)

Peace & Dignity Journey

Peace & Dignity Journeys Update


Dear Friends and Family,
Based on prophecy and the wisdom of our ancestors, the Peace and Dignity Journeys is a ceremonial movement designed to re-unite the Eagle and Condor Nations of Iztaxilatlan (North, Central, and South America). The Journeys does this through spiritual running. On May 1, 2008, two groups of runners will simultaneously set out from Alaska and Argentina and will run to hundreds of communities for over seven months en route to Panama.
The Peace and Dignity Journeys is a grassroots Inter-Tribal movement that utilizes indigenous lineages of Wisdom, Design, and Will that aims to bring forth a world that reflects the heart of creation.
Peace And Dignity Journeys has been conducting ceremonial runs since 1992. The Journeys is a grassroots movement that is directed by volunteers.

The Journeys takes place every four years and is dedicated to a specific theme:

• 1992 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance/Dedicated to the
Children
• 1996 Dedicated to the Elders
• 2000 Dedicated to the Families
• 2004 Dedicated to honor Women, feminine, especially Tonantzin

Tlalli (Sacred Mother Earth)

The 2008 Journeys is Dedicated to honor and preservation and protection of Sacred Sites.

This email includes information on upcoming meetings, information on routes, and our current needs. In addition, we will provide you with ways that you can get more involved.

We are now in the last stretch of the organizing and we need various types of support before embarking on the Journeys (May 1-November 17, 2008).

Upcoming Organizing Meetings:

* Organizing Trip to Chiapas, and Guatemala Jan. 26-Feb 5.
* Organizing Meeting in Vancouver, BC on Feb. 23. This meeting is to organize folks in BC, Yukon, and Alberta, Canada
* Organizing Meeting for New York Tributary route, Feb. 16, New York , NY
* Arizona Statewide Meeting, Feb. 9, Tucson, AZ
* California Statewide meeting on March 15, Oakland, CA
* Organizing trip through Sonora, Mexico, March 29-April 3. This trip is to organize with indigenous communities in northern Mexico.
* Plains Route Meeting in Oglala South Dakota TBA
* Plains route/Trail of Tears route Meeting in Chicago, IL TBA
* Organizing Meeting in Washington State TBA


2008 Peace and Dignity Routes

This year there will be approximately eight routes that runners will traverse throughout the North (Alaska-Panama). There will be two Main routes beginning from the North. Main routes are routs that are over 3,000 miles in length. Other routes are called tributary routes; tributary routes feed into main routes.


Main Routes

The West Coast Route will begin out of Alaska. Runners will run throughout the West Coast until reaching Panama. The Plains Route will also begin from Alaska. However, these runners will head south-east through Canada and enter the U.S. somewhere in the Plains (North Dakota or Minnesota). Then the runners will make their way to Colorado and New Mexico. The Plains Route will connect with the West Coast Route in Mexico, where they will merge and run together to Panama.

Tributary Routes:

New York Route

This route will probably from northern New York State and the runners will make their way west until connecting with the Plains route in a location TBA.

Trail of Tear Routes-----
This route will begin is still in the process of being organized. However, at this point it may begin in Tennessee and make its way to southern Illinois.

California Inland Route-----

This route will split form the West Coast Route and will head towards central California. From there it will head east into Arizona and will re-connect with the West Coast Route in Sonora, Mexico.

Tri-State Route-----

This route will also split form the West Coast Route in either Washington State or Oregon. These runners will run south east through Nevada and will run through northern Arizona and head south through eastern Arizona. This route will also re-connect with the West Coast route in Sonora, Mexico.

San Francisco Peaks Route------

There will be a group of runners that run from the San Francisco Peaks, Arizona and connect to the Tri-State Route.
There will be other tributary routes in the San Diego, California area and throughout Arizona.


Website

Organizers/ Coordinators you can now upload your information about your meetings, events and runs on the Peace and Dignity website (www.peaceanddignityjourenuys.com). This way your can advertise your events, gains support from other coordinators and let folks who are doing work for the Journeys throughout the hemisphere, know what is going on.


Peace and Dignity E-Newsletter

Rene Reyes, our webmaster has created a Peace and Dignity E-Newsletter. This medium will allow folks to track the progress o f runners throughout the span o f this years Journey. In addition, this newsletter will provide coordinators with a way to gain support from the broader public. Keep in mind that the E-Newsletter will provide folks with the option to accept or decline receiving this information from the Journeys.


Your Email Contacts are Needed

Although the Journeys touch thousands and thousands of people it is sometimes difficult to maintain communications with all of the stakeholders. Therefore, we are asking all of the coordinators from Alaska through Panama to send us your email contacts of people who are involved or may want to get involved in the Journeys. This way they can have access to the newsletter and other communiqués from throughout the North. Please send your emails contacts to Rene Reyes
( rene_reyes@yahoo.com ).


Needs

Vehicles

We need at least six vans (12-16 passenger) and three lead vehicles such as a Toyota 4runner, Nissan Pathfinder or something similar. We don't want new vehicles, as long as they can make it to Alaska and then all the way to Panama. Vans carry runners and their equipment. Lead vehicles are used by coordinators support the runners by taking care of various logistical matters. Some of these logistics are making sure that the runners have food and coordinating events with hundreds of hosting communities.

Funds

Our target is to raise at least $100,000. If anyone is interested in learning more our fundraising efforts, please let me know.


Tlazo,
Jose Malvido
Peace and Dignity Journeys Northern Coordinator


Alaska-Panama

www.peaceanddignityjourneys.com

Zapatista Women Encounter Themselves

As the Rebel Year Turns

Zapatista Women Encounter Themselves

By JOHN ROSS

La Garrucha, Chiapas.
http://www.counterpunch.com/ross01082008.html

Dozens of Zapatista companeras, many of them Tzeltal Maya from the Chiapas lowlands decked out in rainbow-hued ribbons and ruffles, their dark eyes framed by "pasamontanas" and "paliacates" that masked their personas, emerged from the rustic auditorium to the applause of hundreds of international feminists gathered outside at the conclusion of the opening session of an all-women's "Encuentro" hosted by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) here at year's end.

The Tzeltaleras' line of march which resembled a colorful if bizarre fashion parade, seemed an auspicious start to the rebels' third "encounter" this year between "the peoples of the world" and the Zapatista communities and comandantes - an anti-globalization conclave last December and an "Encuentro" in defense of indigenous land this summer preceded the womens' gathering.

Although the call for the event was issued under the pen of the EZLN's quixotic spokesperson Subcomandante Marcos, the author of a recently published erotic coffee table book in which his penis plays the role of a masked guerrillero, the impetus for the women's "Encuentro" sprung from the loins of the Zapatista companeras.

Last July, at the conclusion of a meeting with farmers from a dozen counties in the hamlet with the haunting name of La Realidad ("The Reality"), a young rebel from that community, "Evarilda", apparently without clearing the invitation with the EZLN's General Command, called for the all-womens' encounter, explaining that men were invited to help with the logistics but would be asked to stay home and mind the children and the farm animals while the women plotted against capitalism.

True to Evarilda's word, at the December 29th-31st gathering which drew 300-500 non-Mexican mostly women activists to this village, officially the autonomous municipality of Francisco Gomez, and which honored the memory of the late Comandanta Ramona (d. January 2006), men took a decidedly secondary role. Signs posted around the "Caracol" called "Resistance Until the New Dawn", a sort of Zapatista cultural/political center, advised the companeros that they could not act as "spokespersons, translators, or representatives in the plenary sessions." Instead, their activities should be confined "to preparing and serving food, washing dishes, sweeping, cleaning out the latrines, fetching firewood, and minding the children."

Indeed, some young Zapatista men donned aprons imprinted with legends like "tomato" and "EZLN" to work in the kitchens. Meanwhile, older men sat quietly on wooden benches outside of the auditorium, sometimes signaling amongst themselves when a companera made a strong point or smiling in pride after a daughter or wife or sister or mother spoke their histories to the assembly.

The role of women within the Zapatista structure has been crucial since the rebellion's gestation. When the founders of the EZLN, radicals from northern Mexican cities, first arrived in the Tzeltal-Tojolabal lowlands or "Canadas" of southeastern Chiapas, women were still being sold by their families as chattel in marriage. Often, they were kept monolingual by the husbands as a means of control, turned into baby factories, and had little standing in the community. Those from the outside offered independence and invited the young women to the training camps in the mountain where they would learn to wield a weapon and a smattering of Spanish and become a part of the EZLN's fighting force. 14 years ago, on January 1st 1994, when the Zapatistas seized the cities of San Cristobal and Ocosingo and five other county seats, women comprised a third of the rebel army - women fighters were martyred in the bloody battle for Ocosingo.

Key to bringing the companeras to the rebel cause was "The Revolutionary Law of Women", officially promulgated that first January 1st from the balcony of the San Cristobal city hall which decreed that women should have control over their own lives and their bodies. The law, which had been carried into the Indian communities by Comandantas Susana and Ramona, often meeting with hostility from the companeros, was "our toughest battle" Sub Marcos would later note.

Integrating women into the military structure, which was not tied to local community, proved easier than cultivating participation in the civil structure, which was rooted in the life of the villages. Although women occupied five seats on the 19-member Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee (CCRI), the EZLN's General Command, their numbers fell far shorter in 29 autonomous municipal councils and the five "Juntas de Buen Gobierno" ("Good Government Committees") which administrate Zapatista regional autonomy.

But as the Zapatista social infrastructure grew, women became health and education promoters and leaders in the commissions that planned these campaigns and their profile has improved in the JBGs and autonomias.

Women's Lib a la Zapatista has been boosted by the rebels' prohibitions against the consumption of alcohol in their communities. Whereas many inland Maya towns like San Juan Chamula are saturated in alcohol with soaring rates of spousal and child abuse, the Zapatista zone has the lowest abuse indicators in the state, according to numbers offered by the womens' commission of the Chiapas state congress. As a state, Chiapas has one of the highest numbers of feminicides in the Mexican union - 1456 women were murdered here between 1993 and 2004, more than doubling Chihuahua (604) in which the notorious "Muertas" of Ciudad Juarez are recorded. The low incidence of violence against women in the zone of Zapatista influence is more remarkable because much of the lowland rebel territory straddles the Guatemalan border, a country where 500 women are murdered each year.

With the men tending the kids and cleaning latrines, the women told their stories in the plenaries. Many of the younger companeras like Evarilda had grown up in the rebellion - which is now in its 24th year (14 on public display) - and spoke of learning to read and write in rebel schools and their work as social promoters or as teachers or as farmers and mothers. Zapatista grandmothers told of the first years of the rebellion and veteran comandantas like Susana, who spoke movingly of her longtime companera Ramona, "the smallest of the small", recalled how in the war, the men and the women learned to share housekeeping tasks like cooking and washing clothes.

"Many of the companeros still do not want to understand our demands," Comandanta Sandra admonished, "but we cannot struggle against the mal gobierno without them."

The Zapatista companeras' struggle for inclusion and parity with their male counterparts grates against separatist politics that some militant first-world feminists who journeyed to the jungle espouse. Lesbian couples and collectives seemed a substantial faction in the first-world feminist delegations. Although no Zapatista women has publicly come out, the EZLN has been zealous in its inclusion of Lesbians and Gays and incorporate their struggles in the rainbow of marginated constitutioncies with whose cause they align themselves.

Sadly, the Encuentro of the Women of the World with the Zapatista Women did not provoke much formal interchange between the rebel companeras and first-world feminists - who were limited to five-minute presentations on the final day of the event. Nonetheless, a surprise Zapatista womens' theater piece did imply a critique: in the skit, a planeload of first-world feminists with funny hair (played by the companeras) lands in the jungle to deliver the poor Indian women from oppression.

Among international delegations in attendance were women representatives from agrarian movements as far removed from Chiapas as Brazil and Senegal, organized by Via Campesina, an alliance that represents millions of poor farmers in the third world, and a group of militant women from Venice, Italy who have been battling expansion of a U.S. military base in that historic city. Political prisoners were represented by Trinidad Ramirez, partner of imprisoned Ignacio del Valle (67 year sentence), leader of the farmers of Atenco. A message from "Colonel Aurora" (Gloria Arenas), a jailed leader of the Popular Army of the Insurgent People (ERPI), who now supports the EZLN, was read. Although he reputedly lives only a few villages away, Subcomandante Marcos (or his penis) did not put in an appearance at the womens' gathering.

Ladling out chicken soup at her makeshift food stand, Dona Laura told La Jornada chronicler Hermann Bellinghausen that once the womens' "Encuentro" had concluded, everything would return to normal - "only normal would be different now."

Although the Encounter amply demonstrated the increasing empowerment of the Zapatista companeras, how much of what was said actually rubbed off on those who came from the outside is open to question. "I didn't really get a lot of it," confided one young non-Spanish-speaking activist on her way home to northern California to report back on the womens' gathering to her Zapatista solidarity group.

Be that as it may, the EZLN is going to need all the women - and men - it can muster in the months to come. 2008 looms as a difficult year for the rebels with the "mal gobierno" threatening to distribute lands the Zapatistas recovered in 1994 to rival Indian farmer organizations and paramilitary activity on the uptick.

As has always been the case since this unique rebellion germinated, the Zapatistas turn the corner into another year in struggle.

EDITOR'S NOTE - After 11 years and 600 editions, MexBarb/BMB is now self-distributed by the author. If you already have a one-year subscription, you now have a lifetime subscription. If you did not have a subscription, you too have a lifetime subscription. If you think a lifetime subscription is a good thing send a donation to me at 3258 23rd Street/Apt. 3/San Francisco 94110 Ca. WARNING! There is no way to get off this list! You will receive 40 to 50 BMBs a year until either you or I gasp our last. In solidarity John Ross. Contact: johnross@igc.org

Hip Hop Politics

Hip Hop Politics

I Am an Emcee

By SHAMAKO NOBEL
http://www.counterpunch.com/nobel01082008.html

I am an emcee. I am not an activist. I don't know when or how I got tagged an activist other than my work with R.E.F.U.G.E. (Real Education For Urban Growth), the Riekes Center's Academy of Hip Hop or Hip Hop Congress. However, you can trace my roots to all of those activities back to my emceeing. I've been organizing since I was young, so I guess saying that I was an organizer would be too far fetched. However, I'm a cultural organizer, and I'm primarily interested in organizing those involved with the elements and the production of culture directly and indirectly.

I've spoken with many folks about the question on whether or not Hip Hop is a movement. They cite the Civil Rights Movement, The Labor Movement, the Media Reform/Media justice movement and they say it does not compare. They say there aren't enough numbers, or there isn't enough political power or awareness, and while all of this is happening they refuse to allow those who would represent this movement speak for themselves.

My favorite example is the Mural Arts Movement of the late 1960's and early 70's. This movement most closely resembles that which has taken place in Hip Hop because it marked a return of art to the people. The people had something to say and through this art, they would be heard. No critic or museum would deny them. Very few who were or are aware of this movement dispute its classification as a movement. Yet, very few who discuss whether or not Hip Hop is a movement mention this critical American transition period as an example and a forbearer of Hip Hop of this way.

The models and methods that came out of the Mural Art's movement very much parallel the models we see in Hip Hop today. The use of workshops, the development of collectives, and the desire to implement co-ops are all present in the landscape of American Hip Hop. In fact the most difficult obstacle of the Mural Arts movement was that they didn't have the ability to nationalize, which is not at all the case today. Technology has considerably lessened that burden and that has directly contributed to the growth and development of HHC as an organization and the globalization of Hip Hop. A good man and friend of all of Hip Hop-Rushay-comes to mind as technology has made Rushay a household name for many American Hip Hop heads, even though he's located in South Africa. He even has a 310 area code.

The two questions I ask myself first when thinking about whether or not Hip Hop is a movement are 1)Is it a natural form of dissent and 2)What is the focus of Hip Hop's energy. When we look at the American mainstream and what many consider to be the failure of Hip Hop's foray into American politics, we could very easily say that perhaps, after all this time it is not, and that it's energy has been lost to corporate media and a watered down mainstream.

I don't believe that for a second though.

In my travels around the country, I have had the opportunity to witness a healthy and robust Hip Hop that is highly unaware of it's own existance. I've ciphered all over America will some of the illest emcees on the streets. I've seen brilliant graph scattered on the walls of cities and suburbs alike. Not only do I still see break crews in great numbers, but they are interacting with new forms of dance like crump and hyphy and this occurs without resistance or beef. From what I can tell, despite the fact that cats aren't famous, Hip Hop is huge.

Now a lot of people will say that this is bogus and that a bunch of writers and rappers don't mean anything. But where you find the graph is also where you find poverty. Where you find the emcees is also where you find the prison industrial complex. Where you find the DJ's is also where you find police accountability problems. This is probably why many people mistook me for an activist or mistook HHC for a political organization.

I've always been an emcee, and Hip Hop Congress has always been an organization that's about the culture of Hip Hop and all of those who participate with authenticity and connection finding common ground to work towards collective interests. It just so happens that sometimes that collective interest is getting played on a station owned by corporate media, or riding on the police for snatching up your boy with no just cause, or fighting for the right to your housing.

I have a confession to make. I organized an Urban Arts based phone banking for a political candidate. In retrospect, it felt kind of dirty but it was sort of justifiable twofold experiment. The first was to see if you could organize the Urban Arts Community in a manner similar to labor unions for the purposes of such an activity. The second was to see how the Urban Arts community would respond to such a request.
We managed to get 30 people out which was actually a pretty impressive number at the time. Of the 30, 11were functional callers. At least 4 people told me never to do such a thing again unless it was about police accountability work or something to that affect. Pretty much everyone agreed on that. Ironically, the institution that I worked for, The South Bay Labor Council, pretty much took an approach on youth that stated that rather than delve into their issues, they'd rather groom them for the labor movement. Further, any candidate that was focused on the youth vote was desperate because youth don't vote. Thus, the catch 22 of Hip Hop and Politics.

Hip Hop, like all art of the streets and of the people, is first and foremost about being heard. Politics, doesn't want to hear the young people because they're not into expressing their voices through a system that believes they're only worthwhile as a desperate tactic.

This is why they can't see the movement. They don't see the millions of emcees, graff writers, DJ's, promoters, break crews, organizations large and small, independent labels and the new artist/fan as a movement because it doesn't want to legislate all the time-all this despite the fact that there's increasing evidence to point to the impractically of seeking justice through legislation.

But what candidate is talking about police accountability.

Hip Hop was blamed for riots in France. It kept Snoop Dogg out in Brazil. It's hard to find in the Filipines unless you go to where the poor people are. There are Zulu chapters in Japan and Hip Hop is all over Asia, has been for years. Journalist Davey D reported on many occasions that International Hip Hop is organizing and trying to connect to the US.And the mainstream, which we have already determined is not the ally of Hip Hop in it's most raw forms, refuses to tell you any of this in any comprehensive manner. But Hip Hop has always expected that. That's why it's Hip Hop.

So, as we enter this election I would just like to talk to you emcee to emcee; artist to artist; cultural producer to cultural producer. They are going to try and use you. They are going to throw issues around, and organizations around, and money around and if it succeeds you will hardly benefit. If it fails, they will say you are nothing. But know this first and foremost, as an emcee they still don't understand what makes you tick. They still don't understand ciphers, and crews and why you HAVE to be down for the block. They'll throw people in your face that pretend like they understand, but they don't. And they won't care about your art because ultimately although they'd never admit it, they really don't care about you.

Cyphers aren't gonna change the world. But surely the people in them have the ability to. Maybe not through electoral politics or their album, but there are millions of us with collective interests. Not just in America, but all over the globe.

We created a global culture. Let's give ourselves the credit of being able to figure out what to do with it, whether or not they agree.

Shamako Nobel (aka The Sword of the West) is President and Executive Director of the Hip Hop Congress and CEO of Rondavoux Records. He can be reached at:
shamako@hiphopcongress.com

Apaches Defend Homeland from Homeland Security

Land Seizures and Militarization in the Border Zone

Apaches Defend Homeland from Homeland Security

By BRENDA NORRELL
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

RIO GRANDE, Texas.

Apache land owners on the Rio Grande told Homeland Security to halt the seizure of their lands for the US/Mexico border wall on January 7, 2008. It was the same day that a 30-day notice from Homeland Security expired with the threat of land seizures by eminent domain to build the US/Mexico border wall.

"There are two kinds of people in this world, those who build walls and those who build bridges," said Enrique Madrid, Jumano Apache community member, land owner in Redford and archaeological steward for the Texas Historical Commission.

"The wall in South Texas is militarization," Madrid said of the planned escalation of militarization with Border Patrol and soldiers. "They will be armed and shoot to kill."

It was in Redford that a U.S. Marine shot and killed 18-year-old Esequiel Hernandez, herding his sheep near his home in 1997.

"We had hoped he would be the last United States citizen and the last Native American to be killed by troops," Madrid said during a media conference call on January 7 with Apaches from Texas and Arizona.

Dr. Eloisa Garcia Tamez, Lipan Apache professor living in the Lower Rio Grande, described how US officials attempted to pressure her into allowing them onto her private land to survey for the US/Mexico borderwall. When Tamez refused, she was told that she would be taken to court and her lands seized by eminent domain.

"I have told them that it is not for sale and they cannot come onto my land." Tamez is among the land owners where the Department of Homeland Security plans to erect 70 miles of intermittent, double-layered fencing in the Rio Grande Valley.

Tamez said the United States government wants access to all of her land, which is on both sides of a levee. "Then they will decide where to build the wall. It could be over my house." Tamez said that she may only have three acres, but it is all she has.

Tamez' daughter Margo Tamez, poet and scholar, said, "We are not a people of walls. It is against our culture to have walls. The Earth and the River go together. We must be with the river. We must be with this land. We were born for this land."

Margo Tamez said the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples now guarantees the right of Indigenous Peoples to their traditional territories.

Rosie Molano Blount, Chiricahua Apache from Del Río said the Chiricahua Apache have proudly served in the United States military."We are proud to be Americans," Blount said, adding that the Chiricahua have always supported the United States government.

Now, with the increasing harassment of people in the borderzone, Blount said the people have had enough.

"Ya Basta! Enough is enough!" Blount said, repeating the phrase that became the battle cry of the Zapatistas in Mexico struggling for Indigenous Peoples' rights.

Blount said there needs to be dialogue concerning the issues at the border, but not forced militarization or a border wall. She also directed a comment at Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. "Don't come here and divide our families Chertoff. You believe this is the only way to do things."

Michael Paul Hill, San Carlos Apache from Arizona, described how US border agents violated and molested his sacred items, including a sacred stone, Eagle feather and drum used in ceremonies while crossing the border.

"They called me a foreigner." Hill described how Border Agents told him that he might "get away" with crossing the border in Nogales, Arizona, with ceremonial items that were not manhandled, but not in Texas.

After participating in a an Apache ceremony in Mexico, when Hill andother Apaches reentered the United States, a SWAT team in full riot gear was waiting for them and interrogated them.

"It was incredibly frightening," said Margo Tamez who was also there. She pointed out how the escalating militarization at the border is terrorizing people as they go about their lives, working, with their families and in their ceremonies.

Isabel Garcia, cochair of Derechos Humanos in Tucson, Arizona, said,"Arizona has been a laboratory for the criminalizing of the border."

Pointing out that the Arizona border is the ancestral homeland of the Tohono O'odham, she said, "These borders are where people have lived since time immemorial." Garcia described the climate of militarization and abuse by Border Patrol agents.

Garcia pointed out that "cowboy" Border Agents ran over and killed18-year-old Tohono O'odham Bennett Patricio, Jr., while he was walking home in 2002. His mother, Angie Ramon, is still seeking justice for the death of her son.

Garcia also described the deaths from dehydration and heat in the Sonoran Desert in southern Arizona, where failed border policies have pushed migrants walking to a better life into treacherous desert lands.

"Two hundred and thirty-seven bodies were recovered in one year and most were on the tribal lands of the Tohono O'odham."

Further, Homeland Security recently waived 22 federal laws to build the border wall in the San Pedro wilderness area in Arizona, she said. Attorney Peter Schey, director of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law in Los Angeles, said America does not need a"Berlin Wall."

Schey, renowned immigrant rights attorney, said Section 564 of the Homeland Security section of the Omnibus Appropriations Bill supersedes earlier legislation. Homeland Security is now required to have consultation with the communities. Schey said this means real consultation and real consideration of the community's input and data. Schey took his first action on behalf of Texas property owner Dr. Tamez on Monday, the same day that a 30-day notice to Texas land owners expired with the threat of eminent domain land seizures looming. Schey informed Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to halt the impending seizures of private lands.

Schey said Section 564 strikes provisions of the earlier Secure Fence Act and requires Homeland Security to consult with property owners like Dr. Tamez in order "to minimize the impact on the environment, culture, commerce, and quality of life" in areas considered for construction of the border fence.

"Furthermore, we believe that the new statutory provisions invalidate the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for fence construction published on the Department's behalf on November 16, 2007, pending completion of the required local consultations and other requirements as outlined in the Omnibus Bill," Schey told Chertoff in the letter.

Meanwhile, Homeland Security declared that it will use the principle of eminent domain to take possession of land currently held by private ownership. DHS has also presented waivers requesting that the landowners grant DHS personnel access to their property for a twelve-month period in order to conduct surveys for the intended construction project. The property owners were informed that if they do not voluntarily allow the federal agents on their property, the U.S. government will file a law suit so that Homeland Security authorities can have unimpeded access to private land, despite the owners' opposition. Homeland Security has stated that it will seize property even without the consent of landowners if necessary to complete the construction of the border fence. Many landowners, as well as civic leaders and human rights activists, oppose the U.S. government's plans to allow federal law enforcement agents access to private property. The government's demands and aggressive tactics are in conflict with settled rights of private property ownership and are particularly disconcerting to the Indigenous peoples' communities impacted by this undertaking.

The Texas communities along the international boundary zone are largely made up of Native Americans and of land grant heirs who have resided on inherited properties for hundreds of years. Homeland Security plans to complete the Texas portions of the fence before the end of the 2008 calendar year.

Homeland Security has already built walls along much of the California and Arizona international boundary zone with Mexico despite opposition from the government of Mexico.

Brenda Norrell is human rights editor for U.N. OBSERVER & International Report. She also runs the Censored website. She can be reached at: brendanorrell@gmail.com

Press Release: Lower Rio Grande Lipan Apache & Basque-Ibero Land Grant Defense

For Immediate Release
January 6, 2008

Contact:
* Peter Schey, (323) 251-3223, Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, scheypeter@aol.com, pschey@centerforhumanrights.org
* Margo Tamez, (509) 595-4445, Hleh Pai Dne (Lipan Apache) and Jumano Apache, hleh.pai.nde.defense@gmail.com
* Arnoldo García (510) 928-0685; National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights; agarcia@nnirr.org


Indigenous Communities Call on Homeland Security to Stop Border Land Grab,
Respect Property and Human Rights

"Our lands are not for sale. The U.S. government must stop its illegal attempts to intimidate us. The Department of Homeland Security cannot take away our homes and neighborhoods for border militarization," declared Eloisa Tamez, a member of the Lipan Apache people and Basque descendent living in the Lower Rio Grande region. Mrs. Tamez is part of a coalition of Indigenous peoples and border community groups that are calling on the Department of Homeland Security to stop confiscating their private property and lands along the U.S.-Mexico border. DHS plans to use this property to build a border wall on it.

On Monday, January 7, 2008 at 10:00 am PST a coalition of individual property owners, their legal representatives along with Native American and border community leaders will hold a national telephonic media conference and briefing (see call-in number information below) to announce their intent to fight the Department of Homeland Security's threatened seizure of their property along the United States-Mexico border. DHS is attempting to use its powers of eminent domain in order to illegally seize private lands and build the controversial border security wall.

The Indigenous peoples and border communities telephonic media conference is taking place on the same day that the DHS 30-day notices expire, leaving Texas landowners along the international boundary terrorized by the possibility of losing ancestral land.

Mrs. Tamez and other owners who property abuts the border are threatened by federal agents' unwelcomed entry at any time into their properties and homes and the increased militarization of their neighborhoods. They are calling on DHS to stop its intimidation tactics and respect their property and human rights.

In this unprecedented telephonic media conference, representatives of Indigenous peoples, whose lands have been bisected by the U.S.-Mexico border, will share historical and current stories of their experiences along the hyper-militarized international border region. Also, renowned immigrant rights and human rights attorney Peter Schey, of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, will take his first action on behalf of Texas property owners.

Last month, DHS Secretary Chertoff stated DHS's intent to seize privately-held property in south Texas if property owners fail to cooperate with government efforts to erect the border wall, approved by Congress last year as part of a strategy to eliminate unauthorized migration and drug trafficking. DHS declared that it will use the principle of eminent domain to take possession of land currently held by private ownership.

DHS has also presented waivers requesting that the landowners grant DHS personnel access to their property for a twelve-month period in order to conduct surveys for the intended construction project. The property owners were informed that if they do not voluntarily allow the federal agents on their property, the U.S. government will file a law suit so that DHS authorities can have unimpeded access to private land, despite the owners' opposition. DHS has stated that it will seize property even without the consent of landowners if necessary to complete the construction of the border fence.

Many landowners, as well as civic leaders and human rights activists, oppose the U.S. government?s plans to allow federal law enforcement agents access to private property. The government's demands and aggressive tactics are in conflict with settled rights of private property ownership and are particularly disconcerting to the Indigenous peoples' communities impacted by this undertaking.

The Texas communities along the international boundary zone are largely made up of Native Americans and of Spanish land grant heirs of Mestizo (Native American-European "mixed blood") origin who have resided on inherited properties for hundreds of years. DHS plans to complete the Texas portions of the fence before the end of the 2008 calendar year. DHS has already build walls along much of the California and Arizona international boundary zone with Mexico despite opposition from the government of Mexico.

In Arizona, the wall cuts through Native American ceremonial crossing areas as well as through a national wildlife park. Indigenous communities are calling on the U.S. government to stop this land grab and respect the rights of migrants, Americans and indigenous peoples at the U.S.-Mexico border.

National Telephonic Media Conference
Monday, January 7, 2007, 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time
(1:00 PM Eastern, 12:00 PM Central, 11:00 AM Mountain)

Call In Information and Number for Media: (913) 312-0730
Confirmation Code: 7423323
Media Conference Title: Border Communities Defend Land Rights

INDIGENOUS SPOKESPERSONS on the call:
* Enrique Madrid, Jumano Apache community member, Texas Historical Commission, Redford, TX
* Gabriel Carrasco, Chief of the Jumano Apache, Redford/El Paso, TX
* José Matus, Yaqui, director of Alianza Indígena Sin Fronteras, Tucson, AZ
* Rosie Molano Blount, Chiricahua Apache, Del Río, TX
* Michael Paul Hill, San Carlos Apache, AZ
* Ofelia Rivas, Tohono O'odham, AZ, founder of O'odham Voice Against the Wall
* Eloisa Tamez, Hleh Pai Nde, TX (Lipan Apache-Basque-Ibero)
* Margo Tamez, Hleh Pai Nde, TX; (Lipan Apache-Jumano Apache) Moderator