[NYTr] Border Fence to Divide Three Native American Nations Date: Sun, 15 Oct 2006 18:19:15 -0500 (CDT) X-Sender-Host-Name: chumbly.math.missouri.edu X-Spam-Class: HAM Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit sent by Bill Koehnlein [As the Berlin Wall of the Americas gets closer to being a done deal, its potential effect on Native Americans has been left out of news coverage of this travesty. The article below is a good overview of the impact such construction will have on the O'odham, Cocopah and Kickapoo nations. -BK] New American Media - October 6, 2006 http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=c17899ed7975f1ada871e1da0c8b52f2 Border Fence to Divide Three Native American Nations by Rodrigo Parms; translated from Spanish by Elena Shore (this article originally appeared in Rumbo http://www.rumbonet.com/rumbo/portada.asp ) Criticism by Native Americans who Live along the Border Three Native American nations and 23 tribes live in the borderlands between the United States and Mexico. The construction of the border separation fence approved by Congress will divide in two the ancient history of these peoples. "The land is the place God put us from time immemorial. I can't imagine that now it will be difficult to visit my family," because of the construction of the fence, said Louis Gussac, chief of the Koumeyaay nation located on both sides of the California border. These sentences are repeated time and time again on the reservations' international limits. The tribes' situation has been difficult since 2001 as a result of an increase in the Border Patrol, the presence of National Guard troops in the last four months and narco-traffic activities in some areas along the border. O'odham, Cocopah and Kickapoo are the three Native American nations that will see their culture and land divided by a fence that is at least five feet tall and, according to Congress, is expected to be completed in May 2008. "Although the project is meant to stop the undocumented, it affects our life," said Gussac. Texas Has its own History Too The Kickapoo nation resides in the Eagle Pass area. These Native Americans see the fence that will be built there as a tragic sign. Congress approved a span of the fence that will go from five miles northwest of Del Rmo to five miles southeast of Eagle Pass. "The territory of this reservation will be permanently divided by the hand of man," said anthropologist and Kickapoo expert Rebeca Brush. Throughout history, the Kickapoo have had to change their traditions. In the 17th century, they lived in the Great Lakes region. A century later they were displaced to Kansas and Texas. "It's one thing to change where you live, but it's something else to have a fence separate the members of a nation," Brush explained. "It's truly a tragedy. The construction of the fence doesn't make any sense," says Josi Aranda, a member of the Kickapoo in Eagle Pass. "This isn't the way to solve a problem that's more complicated and needs a more intelligent solution," explained Jaime Loiacono, the priest of a church in Eagle Pass. "Fifty percent of the high school students on the reservation are Black Rocks. What's going to happen to them?" the priest asked. The mayor of the city, Chad Foster, has expressed strong criticism of the fence. "It's a cure that is worse than the disease," he said before Congress approved the bill. The Kickapoo, despite living in the United States for centuries, were not recognized as a nation until 1983. Two decades later, various miles of fence will divide the land where they live, and the steel beams will be nailed like a threat to the preservation of their unity, family and customs. -- Bill Koehnlein bill@toplab.org "My fellow Americans, major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed." --George W. Bush, May 1, 2003 "...I told the American people that the road ahead would be difficult, and that we would prevail. Well, it has been difficult--and we are prevailing." --George W. Bush, June 28, 2005 U.S. military fatalities through May 1, 2003: 140 U.S. military fatalities through June 28, 2005: 1743 U.S. military fatalities as of October 15, 2006: 2763 (this figure exceeds the number of people killed at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001) Iraqi civilian fatalities through May 1, 2003: 1982 Iraqi civilian fatalities through June 28, 2005 (estimated by IraqBodyCount.net): 22,563 25,560* Iraqi civilian fatalities as of October 15, 2006 (estimated by IraqBodyCount.net): 43,937 48,783* Iraqi civilian fatalities as of July 2006 (estimated by The Lancet): 654,965 *These figures are based on the number of fatalities cited in various news reports and have been criticized, with much justification, for not giving an accurate assessment of the real civilian death count. A much more rigorous and statistically-reliable study, conducted by teams from Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University and Al-Mustansiriya University, and published in The Lancet (the British medical journal) in the Fall of 2004, put the figure at around 100,000 civilians dead. However, that data had been based on "conservative assumptions", according to research team leader Les Roberts, and the actual count at that time was credibly assumed to be significantly higher. For example, The Lancet study's data greatly underestimated fatalities in Fallujah due to the surveying problems encountered there at that time. Most recently, a second Lancet study, released on October 10, 2006, now indicates that 654,965 "excess" deaths of Iraqi civilians have occurred since the outbreak of the aggression and genocide committed by the United States against the people of Iraq. Sources: http://www.iraqbodycount.net/ http://icasualties.org/oif/ http://www.zmag.org/lancet.pdf http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1338749,00.html http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com/Iraq_war.html http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php4?article_id=6271 http://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/Week-of-Mon-20041025/008279.html http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/images/journals/lancet/s0140673606694919.pdf * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================