Brenda Norrell: Uncensoring: Arizona border and Palestine

15.7.09

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Brenda Norrell, Censored News

Thanks to my friends on the Arizona border who spotted the Israelis
working on the spy equipment on the Arizona border a couple years ago.
Otherwise, we might not have known that Elbit Systems, the Israeli
military contractor who created the Apartheid spy equipment for the
Apartheid wall in Palestine, was the same company installing spy
equipment to spy on US citizens in the region south of Tucson. This
was during the protest at Arivaca, Arizona, when US citizens protested
the fact that the spy equipment was pointed toward them, and not
toward the border to the south. (The desert mountains made a view of
the border impossible.)

The spy tower was constructed by the US contractor Boeing and
subcontracted to Elbit Systems of Israel. The spy towers were a huge
dysfunctional disaster, but one thing is for sure: No one in the US
knows who is now spying on them.

In the same way, those responsible for kidnapping and torturing
innocent people in secret prisons may never be held responsible. Will
Obama do more than tread water? Will he hold the torturers
responsible, along with those who gave the orders? Will Bush and
Cheney do more than appear in celebrity poses? Will Obama ensure that
Bush and Cheney are held responsible for war crimes in violation of
the Geneva Conventions? It not, regardless of what else he does, Obama
will have failed as a president.

My friends on the Arizona border also pointed out the Wackenhut buses
who transport the migrants arrested. Those US dollars contracted to
Wackenhut were actually going to a corporation based in England and
Denmark: G4S. So, with all those US contract dollars going to foreign
corporations, what was the real reason for the US border frenzy,
fueled by television news which fed into the xenophobia and racism
which targets migrants. What the television news, now hypnotizing US
citizens with news of Hollywood and sensationalism, does not report is
what is happening to Indigenous Peoples.

As US corporations seize their land, Indigenous Peoples are chased off
their lands. Those who resist are murdered, raped, tortured and
disappeared. The US trained many of those torturers at the School of
Americas and other installations, from the Zetas who run the drug war
in Mexico, to the murderers who have seized Indigenous lands in
Central and South America.

Among those was Fort Huachuca in Arizona, not far from where the
Israelis were spotted. The torture manual of the School of Americas
was made public in 1996 and was produced at Fort Huachuca. That
torture manual led to the murder, torture, rape and disappearance of
Indigenous Peoples.

This is where the Sanctuary Movement in Tucson saved the lives of tens
of thousands of Indigenous Peoples up until the 1990s. Standing in
south Tucson with my friend Amy, she said, "We brought more than ten
thousand people through here, and saved them from torture and death."
Amy died some years ago, but this legacy lives on.

There are many alive in southern Arizona who still know the truth and
risk their lives to help those fleeing US-fueled torture aimed at
corporate profits. Profits which fuel the campaigns of politicians.
Wrapped in wet towels in heat over 112 degrees, one of my friends
showed me the real border a couple years ago.

Nearby on Tohono O'odham land, other friends searched in life
threatening heat for the bodies of Mayan women who were walking to a
better life. Their children survived, no doubt given the last drops of
water by their mothers. My friends did not find the bodies of their
mothers.

Another Tohono O'odham friend found a little grave, with a tiny cross
with Mayan beads. This was a child, an unknown victim of the real war,
a war that thrives on US deceit, misinformation, racism, nationalism
and the greed for money and power of politicians and multi-national
corporations.

Thank you to all of you who risk your lives and prison to make a
difference, to save lives of people you have not yet met and also for
revealing the truth. You are the real heroes.
These are some of the stories now censored in the US.
If we don't tell them, who will?

--
Brenda Norrell, Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com
Censored Blog Talk Radio
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Brenda-Norrell
Earthcycles Longest Walk Radio:
http://www.earthcycles.net

Labels: Geneva Convention, Tohono O'odham, torture