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ARTICLES POSTED OCTOBER 1998 News Articles Listed Below:
Colombia: Journalist Jose Arturo Guapacha Killed, (posted 10/29/98) BOGOTA-On 15 October 1998, JosÈ Arturo Guapacha, director of the local bi-monthly "Panorama", was murdered, reports Reporters sans frontiËres (RSF). He was shot in the head in the city of Tulu·, close to Cali (Valle Department), by a gunman who was waiting for him near a garage.Guapacha had been practising journalism for some twenty years. He had worked for RCN and Todelar radio stations, and had been director of "Panorama" for the last ten years. RSF saysit "is deeply concerned by this latest assassination of a journalist, even if it is not possible, for the moment, to confirm if Guapacha was assassinated for exercising his journalistic activities or due to other motives." RSF says that four media professionals have been killed this year "because their investigations bothered police, narcotics dealers, paramilitary groups or local authorities." There have been no convictions in their murders either. The four are Oscar GarcÌa CalderÛn, journalist for the Bogot· daily "El Espectador", murdered on 22 February; Nelson Carvajal, Radio Sur news director in Pitalito, murdered on 16 April; BernabÈ CortÈs of TelepacÌfico in Cali, murdered on 19 May; and Luz Amparo JimÈnez, correspondent for the Cadena A television station in Valledupar, murdered on 11 August. Franc Contreras, Mexico City Investigating Human Rights Glass Houses, (posted 10/29/98) FOR RELEASE: WEEK OF OCTOBER 16, 1998 As we approach the 50th anniversary of the United Nation's Declaration of Human Rights this December, Amnesty International (AI), has decided to focus its attention on the treatment of individuals in the United States who are routinely subjected to human rights violations. It will also continue to monitor other human rights violations of those who die in increasing number attempting to evade the long arm of the U.S. Border Patrol-migrants from Mexico. The never-ending violations reported by AI include, rape, brutality, theft and destruction of property, and the unnecessary use of deadly force, which under other circumstances would be considered cold-blooded murder. The recent flurry of shooting deaths of migrants by U.S. Border Patrol agents in the San Diego area beg to be examined. Because of increased resources going to "interior enforcement," Amnesty International should also examine the practices of all agents of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). Much of INS' work is not restricted to the border, but extends to all four corners of the United States and smacks of selective enforcement. We've long equated their work with that of "hunter battalions" because they are trained to search solely for red-brown individuals as opposed to guarding the border. Caucasian citizens or visitors need not fear INS agents, but neither should anyone else because of skin color. As AI continues to examine the treatment of Mexican and Central American migrants, it should also monitor all U.S. law enforcement agencies in general. "Driving while brown" in the United States is as perilous as "driving while black." What's even more perilous about being red-brown is that in many instances a person doesn't even need to be driving in order to be targeted by INS officers. Immigration raids-at work sites and homes-are increasingly becoming a part of Americana. This discriminatory practice of targeting people because of their appearance is itelf a human rights violation. But often this particular practice is a prelude to other more serious human rights violations, which include the unnecessary and illegal use of force-sometimes deadly force. Police brutality should also be categorized as a human rights violation. However, because police brutality in this country is simply seen by some as an extension of law enforcement activities, it is rarely viewed for what it is: a systematic tool to repress young men of color. In fact, because of the wars on crime, drugs and immigration, excessive force is seen by some as simply the price to pay for these wars. Not anymore. People nationwide are calling for a halt to these violations, and now Amnesty International might become the instrument to help terminate these practices. Once AI begins to analyze the treatment of people of color by law enforcement agencies, it will necessarily have to examine the U.S. judicial and penal system, which is seemingly hell-bent on locking up every dark young man in this country (and increasingly young women). This incessant drive to selectively incarcerate people of color is also a human rights violations. The crimes that young people of color are charged with are often real, but it is what the state chooses to do with the offenders that merits examining. If sentencing included education and rehabilitation, then perhaps there would be nothing to examine. But the fact remains that incarceration (increasingly in profit-driven private prisons) seems to be the preferred method of dealing with "symptoms" of despair, hopelessness, joblessness, alienation and dehumanization. Sadly, we know that more money is being spent nationwide on building new penal facilities than on building new institutions of higher learning. That says a lot about societal priorities. Perhaps the work of Amnesty International will result in a national re-evaluation of how society deals with migrants and all people of color. Perhaps this work will also result in their rehumanization. COPYRIGHT 1998 UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE Gonzales & Rodriguez can be reached at 505-242-7282 and XColumn@aol.com If you need info regarding the color version of the 1847 Disturnell Map- the official map of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo-which shows the "Antigua Residencia de los Aztecas" in Utah-please call or write to above number/e-address. Pinochet's Arrest Signals the Globalization Of Human Rights, (posted 10/29/98) FOR RELEASE: WEEK OF OCTOBER 23, 1998 More significantly, his arrest could potentially send a clear message to past, current and future dictators that, sooner or later, they will have to pay for their crimes. This particular case involves the possible extradition of Pinochet to Spain to face charges that he was responsible for the deaths, detention and torture of dozens of Spanish citizens in Chile between 1973 and 1983. During his era, Pinochet was not alone. A list of living indictable ex-dictators and military chiefs going back to the 1960s could easily number in the hundreds. We have compiled a top-10 list from the Americas, gleaned from human rights organizations. Each one is accused of perpetrating mass crimes against his own citizens, including charges such as illegally seizing power, organizing death squads, ordering extrajudicial executions of noncombatants, rape, torture, illegal detentions, the ordering of untold massacres, and even turning a blind eye to said crimes. While their crimes vary, what they have in common is that most are alumni from the military School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Ga. They should be presumed innocent of crimes against humanity until proven guilty:
Other names that barely missed this list are Gen. Hugo Banzer Suarez, current president of Bolivia, and military dictator during 1971-78; Vladimiro Montesinos, Peru, head of Servicio de Inteligencia Nacional (SIN); former dictator "Baby Doc" Duvalier, Haiti; and Gen. Raoul Cedras, Haiti. Tito Albarenga, a former political activist in El Salvador and current resident of the United States, quips that if those on this list were subject to a "three strikes and you're out" law for repeat offenders, "they would be refried in hell for light-years." Regarding the arrest of Pinochet, Albarenga says that it may signal the globalization of one human rights standard, creating a climate where dictators have nowhere to run. Pinochet's arrest does pose a question for the international community: Who decides who is indictable? Some human rights activists would add people such as Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo, for his role in the war against the Zapatistas and their supporters in southern Mexico. Others speculate that Fidel Castro of Cuba might one day be picked up to answer to charges of human rights abuses. Responding to such speculation, Castro has responded by saying he has no fear of traveling anywhere. On the other hand, Blase Bonpane, director of the Office of the Americas, a human rights organization in Los Angeles and Maria Jimenez of the American Friends Service Committee in Houston would place former President Ronald Reagan and former Vice President George Bush at the top of any list for their roles in waging illegal and covert 1980s wars in Central America. Bonpane and Carlos Ugalde, a Latin American studies professor at Glendale College in Southern California, note that the United States, under Reagan, was already found guilty by the World Court in The Hague in 1986 of waging an illegal war against Nicaragua in the 1980s. The court awarded Nicaragua $17 billion dollars, but the United States rejected the court's jurisdiction. That judgment, Bonpane says, was one of the reasons the United States, virtually by itself, futilely fought this year against the creation of the International Criminal Court of Justice-a court that would allow individuals to sue human rights violators. This court theoretically could be subjected to political pressures; however, world public opinion could certainly help keep its work in check. Despite those concerns, Jimenez says of Pinochet's arrest, "It's a great day for humankind." COPYRIGHT 1998 UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE Extensive University of California Report Documents Latino Demographics, (posted 10/29/98) A new University of California report on Latino demographics shows a dramatic increase in the stateís number of Latino residents and citizens in the 1990s, and a quadrupling of the percentage of California Latinos between 1950 and 1990. This population is expected to represent more than one-third of the stateís population by the turn of the century. The 218-page California Policy Seminar (CPS) report is the second edition of the California Latino Demographic Databook, originally published in 1993. The new edition gives the first detailed picture of the California Latino population in five years. The report was funded by the UC Latino Policy Research Program (which CPS administers) and UC MEXUS, the universityís Institute for Mexico and the United States. It was authored by researchers from the UC DATA project of the UC Berkeley Survey Research Center, including UC Berkeley graduate student researcher Jon Stiles and data archivist Frederic C. Gey. A summary of the report and links to some of the maps, figures and report tables-as well as ordering information-are available on the web at http://www.ucop.edu/cps/demodatabrief.html. The report documents the size, growth, and distribution of Californiaís Latino population; age, sex and household characteristics; language, education, employment, and income patterns; and Latino political participation and citizenship. Tables and figures compare Latinos by national origin, birthplace, time of immigration, and citizenship. Contrasting data for non-Latino whites, African Americans and Asian populations in California are also presented. The bookís illustrations make clear the differences in the composition of both the stateís Latino and non-Latino populations, and also identify the level of growth of the Latino population between the 1980 and 1990 censuses for other U.S. counties, showing how Latino population growth in California compares to that in other areas. The section on Latino political participation and citizenship is new, and shows that the Latino portion of adult citizens in the state ó the population eligible to vote ó jumped 10.1 percent from 1980 to 1996. The number of Latinos who actually took advantage of their voting privileges increased from 6.6 percent in 1980 to 11.5 percent in 1994. Andres Jimenez, director of the California Policy Seminar, said that, ironically, the rise of anti-immigrant policies in the 1990s has driven the Latino population toward higher levels of electoral participation. Faced with anti-immigrant sentiment and denial of social services to legal immigrants, Jimenez stated, ìthe community responded with a greater presence among the stateís electorate. After becoming citizens and registering to vote, Latinos vote at essentially the same rates as whites, 83.1 percent and 84.7 percent respectively, and more than either blacks, 76.5 percent, or Asians, 79.5 percent,î the report said. Report statistics were drawn from U.S. Census records, the Annual Demographic Files and Voter Supplements of the Current Population Survey, the 1987 and 1992 economic censuses, the California Basic Educational Data System, California Department of Health Services vital statistics, Immigration and Naturalization Service records, and voter registration lists. Because of the length of time it takes to release decennial census data, this book should be a useful source of information for the next five to eight years. Program to Imprison Immigrant Felons Prompts Strong Feelings, (posted 10/29/98) PHOENIX (AP) -- Guillermo Sanchez-Regalado wasn't just sent back to Mexico when he was nabbed with other illegal immigrants this summer. Sanchez, 30, was sentenced Thursday to two years in federal prison for being a felon who had crossed the border illegally. Sanchez served a prior prison term in the United States for selling $80 worth of cocaine. Sanchez is part of a rapidly growing group of illegal immigrants being targeted for prosecution and prison time on the U.S. side of the border: Those who come back here after being convicted of a serious crime and deported. At the current rate, more than 1,000 mostly Mexican illegal immigrants with criminal histories will be sentenced to prison by year's end in Arizona. The cost to taxpayers: $30,000 per inmate per year. Prosecutors say the crackdown is a way to lock up a dangerous group of criminals. "These aren't immigrants coming here to work," said Roger Dokken, an assistant U.S. attorney in Phoenix. "They're coming here to commit crimes. But defense lawyers call the policy a racist overreaction to a problem that isn't as bad as Congress apparently thinks it is. And a Border Patrol spokesman chalks up some of the increase in border violence to illegal immigrants afraid of the stiffer prison penalties if they're caught in the United States. "This is a racist policy," public defender Alex Navidad said, claiming prosecutors rush defendants into plea agreements that deny them judicial procedures such as grand jury review and the right to appeal. "We're saying just coming into the country is as serious as manslaughter," he said. "It doesn't make sense," Navidad said. "We're saying, 'We don¥t want you here, but we¥re going to spend $60,000 to keep you here for two years."¥ Border Patrol spokesman Rob Daniels in Tucson said the prospect of prison time "is part of the mix" of factors contributing to a sharp rise in violent confrontations between border agents and illegal immigrants. The 159 assaults in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 more than doubled the previous year's tally, Daniels said. Another factor in the increase is that the beefed-up Border Patrol is encountering more illegal immigrants smuggling drugs. Congress in 1996 stiffened the penalties for criminal deportees who return to the United States and broadened the definition of crimes that make a deportee subject to the law. Lawmakers also funded thousands of new Border Patrol positions to step up enforcement, and a new fingerprint-checking system helps authorities quickly determine if a particular immigrant has been deported before. Prosecutor Elizabeth Overholt, who handles dozens of the cases each year, says the defendants get what they deserve. "They tend to have long and varied criminal histories," she said. Two of her recent cases included a Culiacan man with convictions for assault and battery, car theft and robbery; and a 37-year-old with convictions on drug and sexual indecency charges. Another defendant had been apprehended 53 times by police or immigration authorities, Overholt said. Because of the severity of the new program's sentences, and its cost to taxpayers, prosecutor Dokken said a public-education campaign in Mexico may be in order. "For the cost of incarcerating one person, we could probably run ads down there so that these folks don't come back here and get surprised and do time in jail," he said. Meanwhile, Phoenix public defender Jeanette Alvarado said her clients are stunned to learn about the prison time that awaits them after being caught at the border. "They're shocked," said Alvarado, the attorney for Sanchez. "They don't believe us. They say, 'I didn¥t hurt anyone. I didn¥t do anything. I just crossed the border."¥ Not all the prosecutions begin with capture by the Border Patrol. Federal officials also check Maricopa County jail inmates to determine whether they are here illegally; illegal immigrants are screened for criminal histories and many are referred to prosecutors. John Sands, the top federal public defender in Phoenix, said the law has pitfalls for prosecutors. He told of a case involving a pregnant woman whom prosecutors wanted to send to prison for two years. "That meant the baby would have become a U.S. citizen automatically," Sands said. And because authorities couldn't make contact with her relatives in Mexico, Sands said, the baby would have been put up for adoption. When the case came to court, Sands said, U.S. District Judge Stephen McNamee decided to sentence the woman to the time she'd already served. Clinging to Street Life, (posted 10/27/98) Hardship Snaps at Their Heels as Two Juarez Boys Plod Through a Real-Life Obstacle Course 1/4/98 Albuquerque Journal By Rene Romo CIUDAD JUAREZ-Juan Manuel and his pal Juan Carlos are growing up fast. At age 10, they began to learn the gritty art of street survival, providing and fending for themselves. They are homeless on the streets of Juarez, choosing that existence over life at home or in one of the city's shelters. The two boys, now 12, shuffle to the corner of a dirt lot where the wind deposits paper cups and other trash. "There's no blanket, but there is cardboard," says Juan Manuel Saenz Reyes of the material he and Juan Carlos Vasquez Rodriguez use for a bed on abandoned slabs of concrete. They got their blanket back later that night. The dusty pair are among thousands of children who roam the city's boulevards. In Juarez, as in other large Mexican cities, the streets are where poverty or circumstance force hordes of children to work, beg and, to a lesser extent, live full time. A recent estimate, sponsored by the United Nation's Children's Fund, pegged the number of children working or living on Juarez's streets at 2,570. Perhaps 500 street children are homeless, social workers say. The census is part of an effort to count street children in Mexico's 100 largest cities. The count is the first nationwide census on working children, including homeless youth, ever undertaken in Mexico. The data, along with in-depth interviews of the children, will be used to help Mexican officials develop a strategy to confront the problem. Some Juarenses believe the phenomenon is growing, as more families spill into the border industrial town in search of work or passage into the United States. Juan Carlos and Juan Manuel say problems at home prompted them to hit the streets. "I wish my (biological) dad would come back to us,"
Juan Carlos says in Spanish. "I don't know if he's dead
or alive." He says the boy is undisciplined and, even when the parents bring Juan Manuel home from the street, "If there's any problem, he leaves. "I love my children a lot, but I want to put him in a shelter." Juan Manuel's mother found her son at a strip of taco stands in downtown Juarez in mid-November and took him home. The boy says it was the first time he had been home in one year. He stayed a week. "My father was fighting with my mother, and I didn't want to see it," he says. The family lives in a hut with no running water, but there is a television. Cooking is done on a hotplate set on cinderblocks. Seven people sleep in the tiny home. Hardship and humiliation Life on the streets shows on Juan Manuel and Juan Carlos. Their faces are dirty, their hair askew, their clothes have not been washed. Juan Carlos has blisters on his feet from shoes too tight. When a fellow street dweller returns their prized blanket, they carefully hide it in a crack in a cement building foundation near their sleeping place. They can read, slowly, but both left school by the fourth grade. They and others cling to their street lives, despite its hardships. In late October, the pair met up with a friend, 10-year-old Roberto Garcia Morales, who had fled a week earlier from a guardian after stealing 200 pesos. (Roberto, a lively child with a hard squint in his eyes, says his mother died from alcohol, his father from inhaling too many drugs. A shelter director says the boy's deceased parents were both heroin addicts.) After two days with Juan Carlos and Juan Manuel, Roberto decides he has had enough and asks to be taken to a shelter. The request sparks an angry outburst by Juan Carlos, who says the boys made a pact to remain with each other on the street. Whoever wanted out had to suffer a beating first, Juan Carlos declares. "We have rules," Juan Carlos says as he tries to punch Roberto. Later that night, Juan Carlos and Juan Manuel curl up together on the cardboard in the overnight chill. Within a week of entering a shelter called Nuevo Camino on
Juarez's southern edge, Roberto leaves without a word. But the sight of frail girls bobbing through the packed lanes of Juarez's international bridges or of little boys selling gum on traffic medians is no less heartbreaking here. "Poor little kids," says Juana Santos Cepeda, walking by the dirt lot off of swanky Paseo Triunfo de la Republica with her 10-year-old daughter when she observes Juan Carlos and Juan Manuel stirring from their cardboard bed. "It's a shame to see them like that. It's very sad." Street kids a common sight Extreme poverty, abandonment, or the hostility of a stepfather entering the home of a single mother are common causes for children to live or work on the streets, says Juan Monarrez, coordinator of a federal program called Minors in Especially Difficult Circumstances. The sight of street children is especially common in border cities. Many poor families trek north from Mexico's poorer south, lured by work in assembly plants or the prospect of crossing into the United States. The peso devaluation of December 1994 that precipitated an economic crisis and drastically lowered the incomes of Mexican families "was literally throwing children out into the street," Cohen says. The Border Patrol's increased vigilance has left many families stuck in border cities, their savings depleted. The children are forced to beg to supplement family income. But some children move north on their own. Some Juarenses
are skeptical of the government's ability and determination to
get children off the streets by providing money for more youth
shelters or placing more social workers on the streets. Angel Cajiga, director of the Nuevo Camino shelter, says government officials usually are more interested in building highly visible projects, such as roads, than they are in aiding the poor. Cajiga also says the government doesn't have enough money to go around-to handle its construction needs as well as social problems. Nuevo Camino, a 5-year-old shelter that houses 19 children between the ages of 6 and 16, is part of a network of public and private shelters around Juarez for abandoned or neglected children. Cajiga sometimes provides shelter to children sent by city welfare authorities, but says he gets no money from the city. The city only operates one shelter, which houses about 60 children, and relies on private shelters to house others. Irma Del Real, an attorney with the city Commission for the Defense of Children and the Family, says the city reimburses private shelters for school registration fees. But Cajiga says he relies entirely on donations. Most shelters are privately run, often by religious groups. The state runs an elementary school for children who either work or live on the street, but it only accommodates about 40 children a day, and retired teachers provide two hours of tutoring each day. "These are problematic children and the other schools won't accept them," says Jose Ibarra, director of the federally sponsored Center for Attention to Children of the Border. UNICEF's Cohen says the most important strategy the federal government can adopt is to educate families about the importance of their children attending school. "This is not something that coercion is going to solve," Cohen said. "This is not the kind of thing that can be solved by a government decree." Facing a sad end In the meantime, determined street dwellers such as Juan Carlos and Juan Manuel fend for themselves. They usually hang out near the Sanborn's department store on Triunfo de la Republica, a favorite destination of the city's upper middle class and a good spot to beg or sleep. On a good day, they might collect as much as $10, more than many maquila wages and enough to buy meals at nearby restaurants, such as Burger King and Peter Piper Pizza. Both have mastered one line in English, which they gleefully recite: "One dollar for lunch." Juan Carlos talks sentimentally about visiting his mother, whom he sees only occasionally. He took her a cake last Mother's Day. He wants to go home for a visit. "I'm going home to see if my stepfather is gone yet." When the weather grew biting cold at night, he did return home for one week-then left again. Juan Manuel is more circumspect. Will he go home someday? "Yes," he says. When? "When they find me." No one teaches them discipline or provides guidance. They spend many days wandering in a Wal-Mart store or watching television in an indoor ice skating rink called Play Magix Family Fun Center. Both are highly suspicious of shelters, even though they might obtain an education and a stable environment there. Juan Manuel says he wants to grow up to be a police officer, Juan Carlos a firefighter. Neither has an answer when asked how long they will live on the street or what the future will hold. "I'm losing time to learn to do many things," Juan
Manuel acknowledges quietly at a taco stand. "I want to
learn." When Cajiga meets Juan Manuel and Juan Carlos late one evening,
he eyes them warily. He worries that the two undisciplined street
kids will teach bad habits to other children in his shelter.
The boys decline an offer of a bed. That night, Juan Manuel and Juan Carlos return to their cardboard bed on the slabs of cement. They find their blanket and wrap themselves in it, as cars whiz by on Triunfo de la Republica. A short while later, a cold rain begins to fall. Donations can be made to: Immigration Laws Abused (posted 10/27/98) David Bacon, Op-Ed, Tuesday THERE IS an immigration crisis in the United States, but it is not caused by uncontrolled borders or too many immigrants. It is a sweatshop crisis-the unjust enforcement of immigration law that is bringing back conditions in the workplace reminiscent of a century ago. Undocumented workers pump $63 billion into the California economy. Whole industries make large profits on immigrant labor. But workers themselves only receive a small percentage of it. Meanwhile, immigration raids and employer sanctions undermine the ability of immigrant workers to fight for better pay and treatment. Even more disturbing, as immigrant workers have sought to organize unions, employers have used immigration law, often with the cooperation of the federal government, to stop them. A report issued this week on the impact of immigration raids by the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights details case after case in which immigration enforcement has been used to deny immigrants their workplace rights: In Silicon Valley, Shine Building Maintenance used a check of workers' immigration documents as a pretext to fire its pro-union workforce during an organizing drive. Last year in San Leandro, the Mediacopy factory, in cooperation with the INS, used threats of document checks to terrorize workers before a union election. Ninety-nine people were picked up for deportation. Last year, a federal court upheld the firing of a pro-union garment worker in New York, Gloria Montero, after the company's lawyer called the Immigration and Naturalization Service on its own pro-union workers during an organizing drive. A federal judge ruled that this was legal. Employer sanctions require employers to demand immigration documents from workers. But document verification has become an increasingly common employer tactic to stop union organizing. Federal law says all employees, regardless of status, have union rights. But an employer doesn't have to rehire a worker it fires for union activity, if that worker is undocumented. In the San Francisco Bay Area, immigration raids keep wages low. Raids focus on low-wage jobs-fast-food workers, car-wash employees and day laborers. The fear of raids keeps workers from demanding higher wages, undermining everyone in these occupations, immigrants and native-born alike. Federal law says all workers are entitled to mandatory minimum wage and overtime, regardless of immigration status. But employer sanctions keeps workers from enforcing that law, too. In 1992 the INS signed a memorandum of understanding with the Department of Labor, requiring inspectors to turn over the names of undocumented workers who call them about wage and hour violations. A Department of Labor survey shows that less than 40 percent of licensed garment factories in Southern California pay the federally mandated minimum wage and overtime. Yet in Los Angeles the INS initiated a series of raids against sweatshop workers, called Operation Buttonhole, based on information from Department of Labor inspectors. When workers can't assert their rights, their wages drop. According to UCLA professor Goetz Wolff, the average hourly wage of California womens' garment workers fell from $6.37 in 1988, when employer sanctions became part of federal law, to $5.62 five years later. Deteriorating wages in L.A. and Bay Area sweatshops hurts the economy of our whole community. California labor believes that the use of immigration law as a weapon against workers must be stopped, especially the memorandum of understanding between the INS and the Department of Labor. ©1998 San Francisco Chronicle Page E21 UT Students Stage Sit-in for Affirmative Action 10/23/98 (AP) AUSTIN - About 40 students protesting in favor of affirmative action occupied a ground-floor area of the University of Texas tower Thursday night, and administrators decided to wait them out. "We will not remove them from the building," said Patricia Ohlendorf, UT's vice president for administration, who negotiated unsuccessfully with the protesters. The students would be allowed to stay beyond the tower's usual 11 p.m. closing, Ms. Ohlendorf said, but they wouldn't be able to get food. "People tried to bring us pizza and other food, but the police wouldn't let it in," said Carl Villarreal, a 23-year-old sociology major from Corpus Christi. "And they also locked the bathrooms." Protesters staged the sit-in after UT president Larry Faulkner met with about 200 students but refused their demands to publish a statement on affirmative action and conduct town-hall meetings on the subject, students said. Ms. Ohlendorf offered instead to hold a meeting with four protesters on Monday and promised to schedule a town-hall meeting, but the students rejected the counteroffer and vowed to stay all night. J. Reed, one of the student leaders, said protesters are upset that the university has dismantled virtually all affirmative-action programs after a court struck down minority-preference admission policies for the university's law school. "The university has been deceiving us. . . . They act as if they're restricted from considering race in all university policies, but the ruling only applies to admission to the law school," said Mr. Reed, a 21-year-old radio-TV-film and English major from Alva, Okla. Thursday's protest at UT coincided with rallies and student walkouts from Yale to the University of California at Berkeley in support of affirmative action. Feds Enter Oregon Case, (posted 10/27/98) October 21,1998 (KHOU-TV) Houston---The Houston FBI office says it is now investigating the death of a young man during a botched police raid. Pedro Oregon, 22, was shot a dozen time when six officers crashed into his apartment without a warrant. A Harris County grand jury refused to indict the officers on felony charges this week. Special Agent in Charge Don Clark said the FBI probe was prompted by citizen complaints, including requests by Mayor Lee Brown and the Mexican consul. But he indicated the bureau has been watching the grand jury investigation when he said the FBI has "the responsiblity and sometimes the obligation to monitor cases to determine whether we should be involved." Five members of the Houston City Council joined the chorus calling for a federal investigation of the Oregon shooting Tuesday. District Attorney Johnny Holmes says he is not surprised that a grand jury refused to indict six Houston police officers on felony charges in the shooting death of Pedro Oregon. Holmes says he still believes the officers entered Oregon's apartment illegally, because they did not have a warrant. But he says the key fact is that citizens are legally obligated to submit to police searches whether they are legal or not. He says the evidence shows Oregon did not submit. Instead, Holmes says Oregon ran to his bedroom and grabbed his gun. He says that evidence will become public when one of the officers is tried for trespassing. Officer James Willis was the only one of the six officers indicted and the trespass charge is a misdemeanor. A police department internal affairs investigation continues against all six. Dump Setback Called Boost for Bush, (posted 10/27/98) Controversy Hampered Efforts to Win Hispanic Vote, Some Analysts Say 10/23/98 Dallas Morning News AUSTIN - Gov. George W. Bush's political stock got a big boost in El Paso with Thursday's decision to scuttle the nearby controversial Sierra Blanca low-level radioactive waste dump, analysts say. The issue could re-emerge if a company largely owned by one of his longtime political backers makes a bid for the business in the upcoming legislative session, the observers said. The three members of the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission - all Bush appointees - voted unanimously not to license the site because of safety concerns. The proposed dump was bitterly opposed by many in El Paso, just 90 miles to the west, and across the border in Mexico. The controversy, some said, was undermining Mr. Bush's efforts to win over Hispanics along the border and in El Paso, one of the state's strongest Democratic strongholds. Mr. Bush has been a frequent visitor to El Paso this year, wooing voters there in his bid to become the first GOP candidate for governor to carry El Paso County. His Democratic opponent, state Land Commissioner Garry Mauro, attempted to take some of the credit for Thursday's decision. "My campaign has made Sierra Blanca a major issue in the governor's race, and it appears the move to make Sierra Blanca a national dumping ground for radioactive waste has been stopped," he said in a prepared statement. "Gov. Bush's political appointees to the TNRCC have finally said what I've been saying all along, that this site is unsafe for a nuclear waste dump." Mr. Mauro has dogged Mr. Bush for weeks regarding the dump, repeatedly calling on him to intervene with his TNRCC appointees to kill it. The governor didn't take the bait, but assured opponents that the decision on whether to proceed would be based only on safety. And he said Thursday that is just what happened. "The state's environmental officials have determined the site is not safe. Therefore, the dump will not be built at Sierra Blanca, period," he said. With Sierra Blanca out of the way, Dallas businessman Harold Simmons is expected to make a pitch to take the waste at his company's hazardous waste site in nearby Andrews County. That would require a change in the law and could put Mr. Bush on the spot politically if such a bill came to his desk. Mr. Simmons and his partners in the dump, including former U.S. Rep. Kent Hance, have been big contributors to Mr. Bush. They also have donated $90,000 to lieutenant governor candidates Rick Perry and John Sharp, The Dallas Morning News reported Wednesday. While the proposed dump didn't pose a serious threat to Mr. Bush's re-election, the decision helps him with Hispanic voters along the border, observers say. "This certainly didn't hurt him in El Paso," said
longtime Austin political consultant George Christian. The timing
of the vote on Sierra Blanca, just 13 day before the Nov. 3 election,
raised suspicions. But Mr. Christian said he doesn't think it
was political."This certainly didn't hurt him in El Paso,"
said longtime Austin political consultant George Christian. "I think most of them probably recognized that this was going to be a tough sale," he said. "This has been a struggle from day one." Mr. Christian, a long-time consultant to Texas Utilities, said he was not speaking for the company. Austin consultant Bill Miller said the decision helps Mr. Bush "a ton." Any questions about whether it was politically motivated are irrelevant because Mr. Bush's administration is ultimately responsible, he said. "In this business, everything is political," Mr. Miller said. "The fact is he has responded [through his appointees] to the community and the acknowledged deficiencies in the project. "It is a smart move? Does it help his election? Yeah, so what?" Panel Rejects Nuclear Site in West Texas Earthquake Risk, Other Factors Cited, (posted 10/27/98) 10/23/98 Dallas Morning News AUSTIN - Texas environmental regulators handed a stunning defeat Thursday to another state agency that wanted to build a low-level nuclear waste dump in the West Texas desert. By a 3-0 vote, the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission
denied a license for a dump near Sierra Blanca in Hudspeth County,
prompting loud applause from opponents and, later, a street party
in the commission's parking lot. Commissioners ruled that the dump project - bitterly opposed by many officials and residents from West Texas and nearby Mexico - didn't adequately weigh earthquake risks or potential social and economic effects on the area. The vote virtually throws out eight years of work by the Texas Low-level Radioactive Waste Disposal Authority, a state agency ordered by the Legislature in 1991 to put a waste dump in Hudspeth County. The decision means the Legislature that convenes in January will have to start over in trying to decide what to do with low-level radioactive waste from nuclear power plants and hospitals, authority officials said. "The Legislature confined the site to an area in southern Hudspeth County," authority General Counsel Lee Mathews said. "With this decision, we will need to find out what they want to do now." The vote could boost the fortunes of a company owned by Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons - a political supporter of Gov. George W. Bush - and former Texas Railroad Commissioner Kent Hance. Their proposed site in Andrews County, near New Mexico's southeast corner, could face less opposition because it's far from Mexico and does not raise the same issues cited by regulators about Hudspeth County. "I don't know of anyone besides Andrews County" pushing for a dump site, said Bill Miller, a spokesman for Mr. Simmon's company, Waste Control Specialists. As regulators deliberated the case for the Hudspeth County dump, authority attorney Doug Caroom appealed to the commissioners not to scrap the $50 million the authority has spent so far. "It would seem to me to be tremendously wasteful," he said of studies and other work on the project, which would have stored radiation-contaminated tools, pipes, clothes and other waste from nuclear power plants and hospitals. Commission chairman Barry McBee called that argument irrelevant. The commissioners had to deny the dump a license because the authority hadn't proved that the site is safe from earthquakes and won't cause social and economic harm, he said. Without a better effort by the authority, "We cannot have the truly, completely sufficient picture of this facility," Mr. McBee said. He called the authority's review of key elements of the Sierra Blanca site disappointing. "This is a case that's about science, but it's about
full and complete science," Mr. McBee said. "We don't
have that before us today." "The governor of Texas does not want this dump to go forward two weeks before the election," said Bill Addington, a leading opponent of the plan. Mr. Bush had offered qualified support for the project while Democratic challenger Garry Mauro opposed it outright. Reporters from Mexico and from Texas' radioactive-waste partner states, Maine and Vermont, crowded the commission's meeting room at a North Austin office park. Lawyers, environmental activists and others filled all 196 seats in the room. During five hours of arguments and questions, the state administrative law judges who recommended denial of the license said the authority failed to present a convincing case for the site's safety. "We have no direct evidence as to how long the [earthquake] fault is, where it goes or how it might be connected" to other geological hazards, said Senior Administrative Law Judge Kerry D. Sullivan. With almost no definitive information available on the fault, added Administrative Law Judge Mike Rogan, the authority could not offer the "reasonable assurance" of safety that state rules require. But Mr. Caroom, attorney for the authority, said the site
is virtually incapable of harming people or the environment. David Frederick, attorney for the Sierra Blanca Legal Defense Fund, said the commissioners shouldn't license a facility without enough information. "We are affecting generations far beyond our own," Mr. Frederick said. "It would have been relatively easy to develop tons more data, but the decision was made not to do that." David C. Duggins, attorney for the utilities that operate the state's two nuclear power plants, said radioactive waste from hospitals and research labs is now stored in warehouses, many in metropolitan areas. "This is a health and safety issue of the highest order," Mr. Duggins said. Nuclear power plants, on the other hand, are sending their low-level waste to a dump near Barnwell, S.C., which he described as an expensive facility in constant danger of shutting down. South Carolina uses Barnwell as a big source of state revenues, Mr. Duggins said. "Texas' electric ratepayers are funding South Carolina's public works," he said. But Tom Keever, assistant county attorney for El Paso County, said that's exactly why South Carolina won't close the Barnwell dump. That facility is seeking more waste, not less, he said - in part because decade-old estimates of the volume of low-level waste needing disposal were too high. "Simply put, this is for the benefit of the South Texas Project and the Comanche Peak project," Mr. Keever said, referring to nuclear plants operated by Houston Lighting & Power and TU Electric. West Texas local governments that aren't getting money from the authority are strenuously opposed to the site, said Russell Leachman, an attorney for the city of El Paso, three Texas counties and Juarez, Mexico. He said the authority made a deliberate decision to limit its research on socioeconomic impacts. At one point, he said, one of the authority's experts said a radiation leak might stimulate the local economy by pumping in cleanup money. Patriot Games: Border Patrol's Ranks Swell With Hispanics, (posted 10/27/98) By Marjorie Valbrun SAN DIEGO (Wall Street Journal) -- Three hours into his 10-hour
shift one cool California night, Jose Martinez is summoned over
his truck radio: A dozen Mexicans have been caught sneaking across
the border. "Give me a chance, officer," one man says wearily in Spanish. "Yes," another says, picking up the chorus, "give us a break." And so on. The laments are common among the hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants who attempt to make their way from Mexico into the U.S. each year-along the roughly 2,000-mile border stretching from San Diego to the Gulf of Mexico. But for Border Patrol agents like Mr. Martinez, a first-generation American whose father was an illegal immigrant from Mexico and whose dark hair, olive complexion and flawless Spanish easily identify him as a Mexican-American, the words carry extra weight. "They call us traitors," Mr. Martinez says. "They say, 'How can you do this to us? We could have been your parents. It could have been you coming over a couple of years ago."' To that, he responds: "It's nothing personal. I'm just doing my job." It's a poignant irony of multicultural America that the Border Patrol has 2,912 Hispanic agents, more than any other federal agency, making up 38 percent of the patrol's rank and file, compared with 25 percent in 1985. For most of its 74 years, the Border Patrol, a unit of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, was a bastion of tough-talking, gun-slinging Anglo cowboys. Now, many of them, like Mr. Martinez, are Mexican-Americans.
For the Hispanic agents, the job pits their national identity against their ethnic identity. Every day, their allegiance to duty and country is tested alongside their sensitivities to the compatriots of their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents. "It's a tough job," says Marco A. Ramirez, 46 years old and an agent for more than 13 years who was born in Sacramento, Calif., but raised in Mexico. "The way I see it, you carry the badge in one hand, and in the other hand, you carry your heart." Some people-including illegal migrants themselves and their advocates had hoped that bringing in so many Hispanic agents would change the culture of the Border Patrol and turn it into a more compassionate, more lenient institution. As it turns out, the Hispanic agents have proven to be firm. Indeed, their presence on the force hasn't reduced the number of complaints of agent abuse of migrants and detainees. Just last month, four border crossers were shot in separate instances over a four-day period by Border Patrol agents who said the migrants threatened them with rocks. Two of the crossers were killed, prompting investigations by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other law-enforcement agencies. The names and racial identities of the agents haven't been released. Hispanic agents "have been just as abusive and in some cases worse than the other agents," says Roberto Martinez, director of the U.S./Mexico Border Project in San Diego, a border-monitoring project of the American Friends Service Committee. "They have this attitude that these are lowly Mexicans coming over and that they have no rights. They feel no relation to them. They have no sympathy for them." Hispanic agents say, and their non-Hispanic colleagues agree, that they are no harder than other agents on migrants. Further, Mr. Martinez and other agents say, the public seldom gets a chance to witness the human touch agents bring to their work, such as sharing a lunch with lost, hungry migrants or giving them life-saving medical attention. Agent Martinez says he has often happened upon migrants left alone to die by their group because they were too injured, weak or dehydrated to go on. And over and over, the agents say, they are just doing their jobs. Also, while proud of their ethnic heritage, they stress that they are Americans. To many of the border crossers, though, they are simply Mexicans in green uniforms. That, agents say, helps explain why the migrants resort to pleading, cursing and sometimes violence against them, as much as against their non-Hispanic colleagues. Agents are routinely attacked with rocks- 129 times since 1996. They have had knives, machetes and guns wielded against them and even have had Molotov cocktails hurled at them from the Mexican side of the 10-foot-high steel fence that separates the two countries. One agent was shot and killed earlier this year by a drug smuggler at the Arizona border. To Mr. Martinez, the insults and such "are like water
on the dike, it just slides off my back. It doesn't bother me
at all." High-Speed Pursuit Nabs 22 Illegal Immigrants, (posted 10/23/98) ALPINE, Calif. (AP) -- A high-speed chase that reached speeds of 110 mph ended with the arrest of 22 suspected illegal immigrants, authorities said. California Highway Patrol officers spotted a white van driving in the wrong direction on Interstate 8 Tuesday in Alpine, about 24 miles east of San Diego. The van eventually made it over to the correct side of the highway, and exited on Interstate 15, authorities said. CHP officers pursued the van to Escondido, about 31 miles north of San Diego, and rammed it with their patrol car from behind. The van stopped, and several of the occupants tried to flee, authorities said. They were apprehended and handed over to the U.S. Border Patrol. No one was hurt in the incident, CHP authorities said. Car Crash Kills Two Border Patrol Agents, (posted 10/23/98) ARTESIA, N.M. (AP) -- Two U.S. Border Patrol agents returning to California from a training session and an Ohio woman were killed in a head-on car crash on a rain-slick southeastern New Mexico highway. Senior Agents Thomas J. Williams, 32, of National City, Calif., and Jessie A. DeLaOssa, 33, of Temecula, Calif., along with Lois Joanne Gill, 60, of Circleville, Ohio, were killed late Tuesday afternoon. Williams and DeLaOssa were in a westbound car that collided with an eastbound car that Ms. Gill was in, New Mexico State Police said. The collision occurred on U.S. 82, about 12 miles east of Artesia, and the wet roadway was a factor in the crash, state police said. The agents were dead at the scene, and Ms. Gill was pronounced
dead at Artesia General Hospital, state police said. Williams joined the Border Patrol May 1, 1994, and DeLaOssa
joined Nov. Williams and DeLaOssa had completed a session on advanced training skills at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center at Artesia prior to the crash, officials said. "They were both recognized as having the abilities and skills to attend the training and become part of our training program for other agents," said John T. Moore, a supervisory agent in San Diego. "We like to have agents in those positions (trainers) who have field experience and the ability to be leaders, which evidently both of these agents had," said Moore, who worked with DeLaOssa. "He was exceptional. Jessie was someone you could always count on to be there until the job was finished. He never complained," Moore said. Moore said he knew Williams professionally. "He was highly respected, very professional and dedicated to his duty," Moore said. "You can imagine the shock and dismay we have now," he said. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. People Against Racist Terror (PART) Immigrant's Death in Houston Draws Rights Query, (posted 10/23/98) By RICK LYMAN HOUSTON-Mayor Lee Brown, Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, D-Texas, four City Council members and several civil rights leaders are asking the Justice Department to determine whether the fatal shooting of a Mexican immigrant by six Houston police officers in July violated federal civil rights laws. The case of Pedro Oregon, 22, shot 12 times by officers who had burst into his bedroom while chasing an informant's tip that drugs were being sold in the apartment, has strained relations in the nation's fourth-largest city between police, city officials and a sizable Hispanic community. The tension was worsened by a county grand jury's decision on Monday indicting only one of the six officers and only on a misdemeanor charge of trespassing. In Washington, the Justice Department responded Tuesday that
it was aware of the Oregon case. "It's something we are
already looking at, something that has been open for some time
now," said Christine DiBartolo, a spokeswoman. "I think it is very significant that the mayor has called for the attorney general of the United States to initiate an investigation and I am heartened by certain members of the City Council who are likewise calling for investigation," said Richard Mithoff, a lawyer for the Oregon family. "The whole incident is senseless and it just drives home, unfortunately, the tragic notion that there are really two Americas." Brown issued a statement intended to soothe tempers, saying that the grand jury decision was "just one step in a series of steps to be taken in this case." He promised that the police department's internal investigation would continue, and asked for the separate federal investigation to augment it. Mithoff has filed a civil suit demanding $35 million in compensation for Oregon's death, but said the family would be willing to negotiate a settlement if it came with changes in city policies and police procedures. Paul Nugent, another lawyer for the Oregon family, said he found the grand jury's decision "disgusting and puzzling," and said he could not understand why only one officer was indicted. The shooting occurred on July 12 when six members of a Houston
police task force in a largely Hispanic section of the city burst
into Oregon's apartment following what they said was a tip from
an informant that drugs were being sold there. Police officials, quoted anonymously by The Houston Chronicle, said that Oregon had brandished a gun and that the shooting had started when one of the officers' weapons accidentally discharged, striking another officer. The officers believed the shot came from Oregon, the officials said. A gun was found in Oregon's bedroom, Mithoff said, but it had not been fired. The officers had no warrant to enter the apartment. And despite several searches that night and on subsequent nights, police officers were unable to find evidence of drugs in the apartment or any evidence linking Oregon, a landscape gardener, soccer coach and father of two, to the drug trade. But John Holmes Jr., the district attorney of Harris County, said the shooting could still be justified if Oregon had resisted, because under Texas law it is unlawful to resist any police search or arrest, even an illegal one. "I am unaware of any evidence suggesting that the persons in the residence did not know the entry was gained by police officers," Holmes wrote in July in a letter to The Chronicle. Nugent said the case had stirred many Hispanic residents in Houston because it resembled other incidents of police abuse. "This young man was a soccer player," Mithoff said. "He coached a little girls' soccer team. He went to bed early that night because he was coaching a game the next morning. And they shot him 12 times from the back in the middle of the night in his own bedroom." License Denied for Radioactive Dump Near Mexican Border, (posted 10/23/98) 10/22/98 AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - A state commission refused to approve a radioactive waste dump in a poor, tiny town near the Mexican border Thursday, citing concern over a geologic fault line beneath the site. The Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission voted 3-0 against issuing a license for the project, which had the approval of the federal government and the support of state officials who felt it would help the area's economy. Environmentalists and Mexico opposed the dump as too dangerous, as did people in Sierra Blanca, a town of about 700. "The place had no future with a dump," David Frederick, an attorney for the Sierra Blanca Legal Defense Fund. "It may not have a great future now, but at least there won't be a dump." The dump was to take in tons of Texas' low-level radioactive waste, most of which is generated by utilities, and waste from Maine and Vermont. "We have a part of Texas that is in great need, and this facility could have helped that," commission chairman Barry McBee said. But McBee said he and the other commissioners had too many questions about the safety, 90 miles east of El Paso and 16 miles from the Mexican border. The dump would be in the most seismically active region of the state, above a key source of groundwater for communities. The Texas Low-level Radioactive Waste Disposal Authority, a state agency created to find a site for the dump, has 20 days to file for a rehearing. If that is denied, the agency could go to court to try to have the commission's decision overturned. Doug Caroom, lawyer for the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Authority, had argued that the site is needed to dispose of radioactive trash generated by power plants, industry, medical labs and universities. "The real issue is, what are we going to do with our radioactive waste?" Caroom asked. "This site is completely safe to people and the environment. If we can't license this site, you can't license one at all." Texas began searching for a dump site in 1983. As the license vote neared, anti-dump activists marched on the governor's mansion in Austin this week and a group of Mexican congressmen staged a hunger strike. U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson gave assurances the U.S. government would notify Mexico in advance of waste shipments and let Mexican officials to inspect construction and operation of the dump. Speak Out Announces Indigenous Speakers, (posted 10/22/98) During this fall season we thought you might want to take a closer look at Indigenous issues across this land, considering many of these struggles are ongoing and a concern for us all. Speak Out has many powerful, inspiring Indigenous speakers and artists who address very important themes: *PETER BRATT *WALT BRESETTE *WARD CHURCHILL *CARRIE DANN *Lakota Harden/Tashina Skawin *MARIANNETTE JAIMES-GUERRERO *WINONA LADUKE *KEVIN LOCKE *GINA PACALDO *GRACE THORPE *MADONNA THUNDER HAWK *HAUNANI-KAY TRASK *JOHN TRUDELL <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Sierra Blanca Protests Sweep Both Sides Of the Border, (posted 10/22/98) Activists and Residents Fear Safety Concerns Go Unaddressed With just days remaining before an expected Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission (TNRCC) decision to license the proposed Sierra Blanca low-level radioactive waste disposal site in west Texas, cross-border opposition to the dump is picking up steam. On October 11 and October 12, for example, citizens in both Mexico and the United States staged rallies to demand that Texas state authorities reject the facility, planned for a location roughly 80 miles southeast of El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Jurez, Mexico, and only about 15 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border. Opponents charge the dump site is located on earthquake-prone ground and could eventually leak radioactive elements into underground aquifers and the nearby Rio Grande river. Over the last 70 years, some 64 quakes of 3.0 or greater on the Richter scale have occurred within 200 miles of Sierra Blanca. According to the United States Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the West Texas Geological Society, one regional fault runs directly under the proposed site: In 1931 the small town of Sierra Blanca experienced a quake that measured 6.1 on the Richter scale. All six existing low-level radioactive waste burial sites in the United States have registered leaks. Supporters counter that earthen covers and other measures will prevent any leaks or spills from occurring. Although Texas Gov. George Bush Jr. has stated that the project won't be approved if new information indicates any danger, all the legal steps to make the dump a reality have been, for all practical purposes, set in place. According to Bush, "the evaluation of the safety of the project [should be] based upon sound science, not hysteria." Bush's aggressive lobbying on behalf of the dump has convinced many that the governor's concern with safety only runs skin deep. After years of debate, the fate of Sierra Blanca now rests with the TNRCC, having recently cleared a number of hurdles at the federal level. In late July, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a Radioactive Waste Compact permitting the exportation of radioactive waste to Texas from the States of Vermont and Maine, stripping the bill in the process of amendments designed to limit waste received by Texas to just those two New England States. The axed amendment would also have provided a means for residents of Sierra Blanca to register official opposition to the dump on grounds of environmental justice. Saddled with a high poverty rate, the largely Latino town of Sierra Blanca already receives 250 tons of New York City sludge each week at a disposal facility constructed there in 1992. In 1994, President Bill Clinton issue an Executive Order on Environmental Justice that was supposed to, argue activists, protect less politically powerful communities of color like Sierra Blanc! a from being sited with dumps unwanted elsewhere. The Senate followed up with a vote in favor the compact on September 2nd, and sent the bill to President Clinton. Clinton signed the bill into law soon after. A Movement Blossoms Sierra Blanca Encourages a New Activism On Sunday, October 11, about 150 people from Mexico and the United States joined hands on the Bridge of the Americas between El Paso and Ciudad Jurez to symbolize the international alliance against the waste dump. Before they were chased off by U.S. bridge security personnel, who also warned photographers not to take officers' pictures, the demonstrators chanted slogans at passing motorists and vowed to oppose any radioactive dumping in the Chihuahua Desert. The same day, Greenpeace-Mexico and other organizations rallied outside the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City. According to the Mexican daily La Jornada, actress Ana Colchero and members of the popular rock group Cafe Tacuba were among those in attendance. On October 12, Dia de La Raza, hundreds of Jurez schoolchildren
briefly blocked three international bridges on the Mexican side
of the border. Earlier, Felix Perez, Jurez spokesman for the
International Ecologist Alliance of the Rio Bravo, accused the
backers of the Sierra Blanca project of pursuing an environmentally
racist policy. Besides siting a dump close to the Mexican border,
the facility is in a majority Hispanic, low-income community
on the U.S. side. On the U.S. side, activists also kept busy. Members of the Sierra Blanca Legal Defense Fund recently marched for three days in the August heat from El Paso's Lower Valley to Sierra Blanca. In September, they also delivered petitions with nearly 30,000 signatures to Gov. Bush and the Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission. SBLDF organizer Ed Patrykus, the owner of a small lot in Sierra Blanca, said he enrolled in the movement "to protect that beautiful stretch of scenery and the wildlife and the Rio Grande." On the political front, Sierra Blanca became an issue in this year's Texas state gubernatorial race. The latest protests cap a year of intensive organizing against the dump. In March, the Border Environmentalist Coalition emerged at a Jurez conference and united anti-Sierra Blanca dump activists with Native American opponents of the Ward Valley project in California and Mexican residents of Hermosillo, Sonora, who've been battling toxic lead waste disposal in their own community. The spring also witnessed a hunger strike by Jurez City Councilman Jose Luis Rodriguez and the first protest by the city's public school students. In many ways, the Sierra Blanca movement represents the kind of cross-border linkages activists have envisioned ever since the NAFTA debate raised awareness regarding the deteriorating border environment. Thousands of citizens from both sides of the frontier have taken a stand on preserving their shared ecology while remaining divided by a politically imposed border. Veteran El Paso community activist and SBLDF activist Andy Mares identified Sierra Blanca as the catalyst for future efforts to protect the vast Chihuahua Desert bioregion from further environmental degradation. Felix Perez considered the current groundswell of anti-nuclear sentiment to be the fruit of six years of hard work by NGOs and environmental groups. Today political parties, churches, public and university students, educators, and civic organizations have all enlisted to the cause. "Teachers are participating and talking to their students and parents," commented Perez. "They're educating themselves on this subject in order to have sustainable development in the future. This obviously doesn't stop here. This is a permanent struggle." The Jurez organizer added that vigils are planned in different Mexican cities for October 21, the day prior to the expected Sierra Blanca license decision. Turning to international tribunals, one group of Mexican legislators joined with Greenpeace and other environmental organizations last month in filing a notice with the Canada-based Commission on Environmental Cooperation (CEC)-- the body charged under the NAFTA side agreement with considering environmental disputes between the trade partners-advisiing that if Sierra Blanca is licensed they will formally complain to the CEC. In addition to charging the U.S. with failing to honor the 1983 La Paz accords between Mexico and the United States, intended to protect the border environment, activists working on the planned CEC submission will also try to focus the institution's attention on Texas' compliance with the federal Low Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act and what they assess as a recurring failure by the U.S. federal government to enforce radiation regulations in the state. The siting seems to clearly violate the terms of La Paz, which prohibits the construction of such dumps in a specified area on both sides of the border. Alberto Szekely, one of the 1983 agreement's principal authors, told the Mexico City News in a recent interview that the U.S. is obligated under the agreements to re-site the dump. "As chief negotiator for the peace accord," said Szekely, "I am worried about the attempts to deny that this document [the La Paz agreements] is a genuine legal obstacle to the construction and operation of the radioactive dump site. The peace accord was signed precisely to prevent a project of this nature to be placed within the border area that both parties agreed to respect." If the Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission gives a green light to Sierra Blanca on October 22, activists are prepared to explore various strategies to keep the dump from opening. They include pursuing the NAFTA complaint with the CEC, going to the United Nations and World Court, and lobbying Texas state legislators to deny funding for the waste dump. Sierra Blanca Rises To the Top Of Mexican Political Debates At the same time, the dump issue has risen to the forefront
of Mexican political discourse. Sierra Blanca was transformed
into an unusual unifier in a usually fractious political scene:
All the country's five major political parties came out against
the project. Mirroring the federal congress' anti-dump stance,
the state congresses of Chihuahua and Coahuila passed resolutions
against the dump, as did the city councils of Ciudad Jurez, Chihuahua
and Ciudad Acua. One possible explanation for the Zedillo Administration's hedging could rest with Mexico's own looming need to get rid of radioactive waste from the Laguna Verde nuclear plant and other facilities. Activists such as Felix Perez fear Chihuahua and other border areas are under consideration for such a facility. If erected, a site built within the restricted zone as defined by the La Paz Accord would certainly undercut any Mexican opposition to Sierra Blanca based on the binational agreement. *Kent Paterson is a freelance writer based in Albuquerque, NM.
SOURCES OF ADDITIONAL INFORMATION Sierra Blanca Legal Defense Fund Website "Nuclear Dump Near Border Passes First Step," borderlines,
vol. 4., no. Richard Boren, "Waste on the Way? West Texas Town Targeted
for Nuclear "Decision on Proposed Sierra Blanca Nuclear Waste Dump
Pending," INCITRA Action Kit: Hazardous Waste (Directory of contacts
and resources
KEY CONTACTS Sierra Blanca Legal Defense Fund, El Paso: Sierra Blanca Legal Defense Fund, Austin Binational Coalition Against Toxic and Nuclear Dumps: International Ecologist Alliance of the Rio Bravo: El Paso Solar Energy Association: Texas Low Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Authority: Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission: Texas Governor George Bush: E-the People: Info-highway Meets Interstate on Bus Trip for Democracy, (posted 10/19/98) 1.27 p.m. ET (1728 GMT) ON HIGHWAY 101 IN CALIFORNIA (AP) ó Tires hum against the concrete as the rock-'n'-roll-style tour bus glides north toward San Francisco. On the horizon, over the Pacific, a rosy-pink sunset reflects against the vehicle's silvered side. Passing motorists squint and wonder. Inside, four people play seven-card stud. One after another, they meet the bet of a tall, boyish-looking man. "OK, I've got a full house," he says, his smile
apologetic. He has won again. His effort is called E-the People. His tools: this bus painted
to look like a mail box, a large dose of determination and the
Internet. "This," says Sheshunoff, "is a trip
Tocqueville would have taken if he'd had the 'Blues Brothers'
soundtrack." The Web site (http://www.e-thepeople.com)
uses state-of-the-art software to simplify a time-honored practice,
helping folks to send a letter quickly to their congressional
representative, state senator, mayor, even the dogcatcher. They type in their address, and it's converted into a ZIP
code plus a four-digit extension. That is converted to a latitude
and longitude coordinate, which is matched to a voting district.
Next, they type in their area of concern ó in this case,
street repairs. That triggers a search of a database of more
than 140,000 elected city, state and federal officials. The technology took Sheshunoff a year to put together. One complication he had to overcome: Voting districts for a city council member are not the same as for a U.S. representative. But he said he measures his team's accomplishments on a more accessible scale. Once, deep in west Texas, a woman came to the bus asking who to talk with to get her gutter fixed. Quickly she got her answer, explained Sheshunoff's friend, Charles Wachter, a New York University film student making a documentary about the trip. "She saw the bus as the physical representation of real change." "In order to enjoy the inestimable benefits that the liberty of the press ensures," Tocqueville wrote, "it is necessary to submit to the inevitable evils that it creates." It's 7:40 a.m. in Los Altos, Calif., south of San Francisco. Five minutes until a segment on E-the People goes live on KTVU, the local Fox affiliate. Trouble is, the production crew can't find anyone with a government gripe. Judging by the number of BMWs and Mercedes rolling by, things are going pretty well here. Yet for the television crew, the acrid smell of panic lingers in the early morning air. Producers and interns rush around the bus, parked in a small-town intersection, button-holing early commuters who stop at a Starbucks coffee shop. Stephanie Kelmar, the KTVU producer, approaches a man sipping coffee. "Hi," she says. "E-the People is here. It's an interactive town hall that lets people talk to the congressman or city councilman using the Internet." No thanks, he gestures. The minutes are ticking away but Sheshunoff sits on the bus, prepping his laptop for the live demo. He hopes this works. And he hopes his meetings with local media pay off, too. E-the People is financed through sponsorships and licensing deals, so he needs all the attention he can get. He does expect to make a profit, after all. Seshunoff doesn't charge for the service. Instead, he licenses it to newspapers and TV stations and he sells advertising. So far, more than 45 newspapers and 20 TV stations have signed on, agreeing to use their Web sites and evening broadcasts to refer people to the site. He splits the advertising dollars with his media partners. With two minutes to air, Brian Copeland, the morning face
of KTVU, has no one to interview. He steered the company away from its original business plan,
gathered his E-the People database of officials and finished
up the software, organized a cross-country whistle-stop tour,
and still found time to fall in love. Tocqueville again: "I have never been more struck by
the good sense and the practical judgment of the Americans than
in the manner in which they elude the numberless difficulties
resulting from their federal Constitution." "There is no doubt that those politicians who first figure out a new medium enjoy an advantage for a generation," he tells Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., in Los Angeles. As examples, he mentions Franklin Roosevelt's mastery of radio and Ronald Reagan's of television. "Your challenge is to get me more e-mail," Boxer says. "My challenge is to answer them in-depth." Later that day, at Gaviota, between San Francisco and Los Angeles, E-the People makes a beach stop. Stripping down to shorts and swimsuits, Sheshunoff, Lopez, Wachter and scheduler Jamie Glover leap into the crashing waves and play catch with E-the People flying discs. A lifeguard watching them grumbles: "The commanding officer at Vandenberg Air Force Base is trying to ban surfing at Surf Beach." An Air Force spokesman acknowledges the base has been reviewing safety conditions at the beach. The lifeguard wishes he could make the military understand the unfairness of a ban at this prime surfing spot. Sheshunoff pads up the beach and squints up to the lifeguard's chair. "You could send a petition," he says, and tells the lifeguard about E-the People. He gives him a flying disc with the Web address. "Keep it," Sheshunoff says. "Cool!" the lifeguard says. He holds it up like a dinner plate. "Another tool!" "To attempt to check democracy would be ... to resist the will of God," Tocqueville wrote. Rolling north into the night, the crew is cozy, eating up miles en route to Portland, Ore., and Seattle. Sheshunoff is already making plans to extend the tour past the Pacific Northwest, to aim east into the country's heartland. Again, clicks on the tabletop signal the start of another hand of seven-card stud. The group uses E-the People lapel buttons as nickel poker chips. "Too often, people throw up their hands and say people are cynical," says Sheshunoff, betting three more buttons. The other three players peer at their cards and, one by one, they fold. "It doesn't have to be that way," he says, and scoops up the pot of buttons. British Police Arrest Pinochet on Murder Charges, (posted 10/19/98) 1.35 p.m. ET(1736 GMT) By Sue Leeman LONDON (AP). Former Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet,
whose 17-year rule was marked by human rights abuses and a climate
of fear, was under arrest Saturday in the deaths, detention and
torture of Spanish citizens. Chile said it would protest to British authorities, arguing that the 82-year-old senator-for-life has diplomatic immunity. But Britain said he does not, and Prime Minister Tony Blair's office said it was "a matter for the magistrates and the police." Pinochet, whose ruthless regime ended eight years ago and was widely criticized for its human rights record, was recovering from surgery in a London clinic when he was held Friday night. No hearing date has been set. Scotland Yard refused to reveal Pinochet's whereabouts, but his Santiago spokesman, Fernando Martinez, said he was in a London clinic when police came for him. A regular visitor to Britain, Pinochet underwent surgery Oct. 9 for a herniated disc, a spinal disorder that has caused him pain and hampered his walking in recent months. Police officers in flak jackets accompanied by a support vehicle were stationed outside the London Clinic in central London where he is rumored to be. Official at the clinic refused to comment. In a statement issued in Porto, Portugal, where President Eduardo Frei was attending the Ibero/American summit, the Chilean government said it is "filing a formal protest with the British government for what it considers a violation of the diplomatic immunity which Sen. Pinochet enjoys." The statement, read by acting foreign minister Mariano Fernandez, demanded "that steps be taken to allow an early end of this situation." Chile has previously said it does not recognize the authority of foreign courts over incidents within Chile. Spanish Foreign Minister Abel Matutes, also attending the Ibero American summit, said his government "respects the decisions taken by courts." British law recognizes two types of immunity: state immunity, which covers heads of state and government members on official visits, and diplomatic immunity for persons accredited as diplomats. Jeremy Corbyn, a lawmaker from Britain's governing Labor Party, applauded the arrest. "It will be the first time this ghastly dictator has faced questions," he told Sky television. "He is one of the great murderers of this century." Richard Bunting of the human rights group Amnesty International, which has frequently criticized Pinochet, said the British government was "under obligation to take legal action" against him. It was not clear which clinic was treating Pinochet, who turns 83 next week. Staff at the London Bridge Hospital, where he reportedly had surgery, refused to comment. He has a pacemaker and hearing aid, but is generally in good health. Baltasar Garzon, one of two Spanish magistrates handling investigations into human rights violations in Chile and Argentina, filed a request to question Pinochet on Wednesday, a day after another judge, Manuel Garcia Castellon, filed a similar petition. Castellon's probe into murder, torture and disappearances in Chile during Pinochet's regime began in 1996. Garzon is also investigating the disappearance of hundreds of Spanish citizens in Argentina during the 1976-83 military dictatorships. Pinochet is implicated in Garzon's probe through his involvement in "Operation Condor," in which military regimes in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay coordinated anti-leftist campaigns Pinochet, the son of a customs clerk who ousted elected President Salvador Allende in a bloody 1973 coup, remained commander-in-chief of the Chilean army until March, when he was sworn in as a senator-for-life, a post established for him in a constitution drafted by his regime. While in power he also pushed through an amnesty covering crimes committed before 1978, when most of his human rights abuses allegedly took place. One official report says 3,197 political opponents died during his term and 1,102 people remain unaccounted for after being detained by his security agents. 1847 Map Ends Immigration Debate, (posted 10/6/98)
Our recent column in which we revealed the existence of the 1847 Disturnell Map, the official map of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, has triggered an avalanche of letters from hundreds of readers in every corner of the country. The map, which is housed in the National Archives in Washington, D.C., indisputably shows a site-"Antigua Residencia de los Aztecas," or Ancient Homeland of the Aztecs-somewhere in the Four Corners region of the U.S. Southwest. During a recent trip up the Colorado River, we found that the site is not in northern Arizona (as we originally wrote), but in Utah. The map shows that the ancient homeland is north of an area called "Apacheria" near the "Nacion Navajoa" and also the land of the "Moquis"-the name given to the Hopis by the Spaniards. Many of the original place names were first changed by Spaniards, then subsequently by the U.S. government after the 1846-48 war against Mexico. This map incontrovertibly proves that rather than being foreigners, Mexicans (and Central Americans, who were also Nahuatl-speaking peoples) are indigenous to Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah. It also corroborates the oral traditions of Hopi, Pueblo and Lakota Indian elders -- that Nahuatl-speaking peoples are their relatives. One reader who is familiar with the area, Esteban Diaz of San Bernardino, Calif., wrote: "My grandfather was born in that area of Apacheria (he was Apache), and he would always tells us that this was our land. Clearly he was right." To us, it's as if the map has lifted an oppressive aura of "suspicion" from the psyche of Mexicans/Central Americans-populations that have been deemed to be illegitimate by some in U.S. society. Another reader, Anita Quintanilla in Berkeley, Calif., wrote: "I would like a copy of the map to display in a prominent place for the whole world to see!" Some readers are speaking of putting the map up as a billboard along the U.S./Mexican border that proclaims "Welcome to Your Ancestral Homeland." The "Antigua Residencia" site also corresponds to the general location that Cecilio Orozco, a professor of education at California State University at Fresno, has long contended is the "Aztec" point of departure on their southward migration. http://www.inconnect.com/~rvazquez/sunstone.html He argues that the migration story of Mexican people was never a myth. In fact, he has located the point of departure in Utah and, more generally, the Four Corners region. This area, he said, was called-"the old, old colorful land." He has published two books on the subject, "The Book of the Sun, Tonatiuh" (self-published) and "Las Letras del Licenciado Alfonso Rivas Salmon" (Marin Publications). The actual name of the people who lived in Tenochtitlan (present day Mexico City), when the Spaniards arrived there in 1519, was Mexica (pronounced Meshica). Several hundred years earlier, one of the migrating tribes had been called Aztecs, and the original name of their migrating descendants were the Nahuatl (people of the four rivers), said Orozco. He's found evidence of a glyph in Sego Canyon, Utah, from 500 B.C., which he said corresponds to the "Book of Tonatiuh," also known as the Aztec calendar. Orozco said he came upon the site through a process called "archeo-astronomy." He saw a photograph of four rivers in Utah in 1980, and based on previous research, recognized a mathematical formula in the photo that led him to believe that this was the place of origin of the Mexicas' ancestors. Subsequent trips and research has confirmed his thesis, he said, adding that there are at least 2,500 archeological sites in the area. The moral argument used against Mexicans in the immigration debate-that they are invading aliens-has been rendered completely baseless by Orozco's research and the map. It ends the debate. He related that he spends lots of time presenting this information to children so that they know that "our roots are absolutely here in the United States." Mitch Garcia, a reader from Colorado, wrote that when he's told to go back to where he came from, his mind travels to Saguache, Colo., and a bit farther to northern New Mexico, homelands to at least five generations of his family: "This is information that was not documented in a book, but rather in our hearts by mama and papa and their mamas and papas. I then come back to the present and realize I'm really not that far from 'home.'" No child should ever be made to feel like an alien anywhere in the world. This map, to the chagrin of xenophobes, moves our society in a better direction. COPYRIGHT 1998 UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE Both writers are authors of Gonzales/Rodriguez: Uncut & Uncensored (ISBN 0-918520-22-3 UC Berkeley, Ethnic Studies Library, Publications Unit. Rodriguez is the author of Justice: A Question of Race (Cloth ISBN 0-927534-69-X paper ISBN 0-927534-68-1 Bilingual Review Press) and the antibook, The X in La Raza and Codex Tamuanchan: On Becoming Human. They can be reached at PO BOX 7905, Albq NM 87194-7905, 505-242-7282 or XColumn@aol.com Gonzales's direct line is 505-248-0092 or PatiGonzaJ@aol.com Professor Cecilio Orozco can be reached directly at: cecilioo@csufresno.edu Or you can visit his website at: http://www.inconnect.com/~rvazquez/sunstone.html Copies of the map in color can currently be obtained at two locations. Contact them by e-mail or call them for details: Espresso Mi Cultura Books, 5625 Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood, CA 90028 323-461-0808, Josie Aguilar: XicanoBks@aol.com Izkalli, c/o Sylvia Ledesma 505-877-0665, 1028 Ann Ave. SW Albq NM 87105: Izkalli2@aol.com Various groups around the country are contemplating kicking off a national campaign to put up billboards of the map along the border or other highly visible places. When further info |
