Declaración: No guerra contra migrantes + Comment

http://la.indymedia.org/news/2006/01/144486.php

Declaración: No guerra contra migrantes + Comment
by Leslie Radford Saturday, Jan. 14, 2006 at 10:36 PM
leslie@radiojustice.net

Indigenous people, Mexicanos, Chicanos and others march through downtown Los Angeles to demand the U.S. end targeting people of indigenous and Mexican descent.

marchcomp.jpg, image/jpeg, 600x753

The pounding drum, the stomping feet with rhythmic rattles, and the resounding echo of "Pueblo, ¡Si!  Guerra, ¡No! thundered up both sides of Broadway in Los Angeles this morning.  One hundred and twenty-five people marched in the drizzle and unseasonable chill from Olympic to the Federal Building on Temple to declare that the U.S. war on migrants must end.

As shoppers and workers poured to their doorways to support the marchers, twenty members of Danza Cuauhtémoc, escorted by the Aztlan Nation Harmony Keepers, spun, stepped, twirled, and dipped at the head of the procession.  The youngest danzantes, ninas and ninos of five and six years old, led the way.  A boy of about ten pulled the drum, while a teenager pounded out the complex rhythms.

Following the danzantes were members of Comité pro democracia en México, AnswerLA, Jornaleros Unidos de Valle San Gabriel, Frente Unido de los Pueblos Americanos (FUPA), Colectivo Tonantzin, the Orange County Red de vigilancia contra cazamigrantes, brought together by the Anti-Minuteman Watch Network, with an outpouring of anarchists.

At each intersection the east- and west-side contingents faced the passing motorists and each other, and bullhorned across the street, "¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!"  Signs boldly announced Migra: racista y asesina."  Marchers declared, "Esta mi tierra, esta mi lucha."

Outside the Federal Building speaker after speaker decried the U.S. assault on migrants, proclaiming the southwest U.S. and Mexico as ancestral territory.  Today's marchers had coalesced around the needless and tragic Border Patrol killing of Guillermo Martínez Rodríguez on December 20.

Eighteen-year-old Martínez, father of two small children, was shot in the back and killed by a U.S. Border Patrol agent at a distance of less than eighteen feet with a hollow point bullet as he tried to cross into the United States.   He was the last to die on the border in 2005.  A record number of people, estimated at 500, died crossing the border last year, and four have been shot by the Border Patrol since October.  In the eleven years since the U.S.’s Operation Gatekeeper policy authorized the construction of walls and increased patrols across parts of the U.S.-Mexico border, some 4000 people have died trying to migrate.  Prior to Operation Gatekeeper, annually fewer than a dozen people died making the southern passage.  

One march leader deplored the increasing U.S. military presence in Central America and the Caribbean.   In another conversation, a person remarked on the inhumanity of the upcoming trial of Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss in Arizona.  The two face up to fifteen years in prison for transporting two dehydrated border crossers to a local hospital.  

Meanwhile, in the next few weeks the Sensenbrenner anti-immigrant bill will be debated in the Senate.  The bill would classify border crossers, including 1.5 million children, as felons; enable deportation and imprisonment of border crossers without legal counsel or family notification; 700 more miles of wall to divide Mexico from the United States; militarize the border with the newest war technology; and make it a felony to aid an undocumented worker, putting charities and family members at risk of three to thirty years in prison. While fewer than a dozen police lounged on either side of Temple Street, marchers brought together the messages of the day laborers, migrants, those who aid them, and from beyond the grave, the message of Guillermo Martínez and rest who died because of U.S. immigration policies: no war on immigrants.

Report this post as:      
add your comments

"closed"
by Leslie Radford Saturday, Jan. 14, 2006 at 10:36 PM
leslie@radiojustice.net

sorry_we__re_closed.jpg, image/jpeg, 158x194

graphic
by Monk

Note: Go to website to add comments and see pictures! ~~PSL
Report this post as:      
add your comments
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
LATEST COMMENTS ABOUT THIS ARTICLE
Listed below are the 10 latest comments of 28 posted about this article.
These comments are anonymously submitted by the website visitors.

TITLE AUTHOR DATE
++++++++++++++++++++
Immigrant Rights = Humane Rights!
by Peta S. Lopez Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2006 at 2:31 PM
sacranative@yahoo.com  Sacramento, Califas

As a humane being and long-time liberationist it was great to see that there was a good March in Support of the Rights of Immigrants last Saturday in Downtown Los Angeles led by La Raza and others! We had an anti-neo-Minuteman Protest here at the State Capitol of the Golden State of California ~Sacramento~ on October 29th, 2005 and the struggles goes on!
We know that much remains to be done in support of Immigrant Rights and Humane Rights in general.

The United States benefits enormously from the cheap labor of foreign-born Mexican immigrants and the one-dimensional law enforcement approach of the United States is insane and unrealisic.

Plus, there is another complexity. Most Americans are White-Americans and most Whites are racists ~whether consciously or not~ against non-White peoples, especially Mexicans and other dark-skinned peoples born outside the continental United States.

There should be a sound Humane Immigration Policy between the United States and Mexico. This will require the intelligent input from migrants themselves.

Progressive White activists must help to educate their own people and liberate their people from any remnants of racism. Indeed. the US came to us and many of La Raza {Latinos, Hispanics, Indigenous, Chicanos etc.} know that in the past all this was once out land and we do have amnesia about that historical fact. Understand that as human beings we all have basic universal needs and basic universal humane rights! Work with us, not against us! And NO we are not going back to where you think Mexico is! We are here to stay in Aztlan!

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Immigrant-Rights-Agenda/
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Further Comments {go to website}:

Remittances johnk Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2006 at 5:21 AM
How the people should have voted? Border Raven Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2006 at 5:06 AM
Countering the Nazi-Think Anti-Nazi Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2006 at 11:56 PM
The Republicans are on your side moreleigh Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2006 at 10:40 PM
Does SOS Matter? Francisco VIlla Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2006 at 10:34 PM
The Votes (@) Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2006 at 2:49 PM
Silent Majority Confused Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2006 at 2:38 PM
donnie El Chivo Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2006 at 12:21 PM
key pete nice Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2006 at 11:30 AM
We so do not matter ! LOL ! Don Silva Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2006 at 10:59 AM