All Notebook Entries

Innocent Bystander Lizbeth Marin Garcia Was Shot While Sitting in a Friend's Living Room

By Julio Manuel L. Guzman, El Universal

Matamoros, Tamaulipas.  A bullet allegedly shot by members of the Mexican military took the life of a US citizen as she rested in the living room of a house located in a downtown neighborhood in Matamoros.

However, current putsch regime is facing expulsion for its failures

Nearly five months after the ruling aristocracy of Honduras used that nation’s military to oust the president of the country, Manuel Zelaya, from power and send him into exile, a “de facto” government, headed by a former leader of the Honduran Congress, Roberto Micheletti, remains firmly entrenched in power — with national elections only weeks away.

Any pretense that the upcoming elections will be free and fair can only be supported by an equal pretense that the current “de facto” government is somehow a legitimate alternative to the democratically elected and now deposed Zelaya administration.

By Brenda Norrell

TUCSON -- There were two events over the weekend that deserved national and international news coverage. Those events were the O'odham Solidarity Event "Apartheid in America" and the Southwest Weekend to End Torture, with a vigil and arrests at Fort Huachuca Army base. Only a few reporters covered these events. The University of Arizona's Wildcat sent a reporter and photographer to the O'odham Solidarity Event. Stanley Throssell, publisher of O'odham newspaper The Runner, also covered the event. The Sierra Vista Herald covered the torture protest. TV channel 13 KOLD did come to the torture resisters' training on Saturday.

We're being bombarded via the Mainstream Media with all these different opinions as to whether Obama needs to hurry up and send more troops to war or not. Basically the left wants peace and an end to Bush policies, and the right more war and a continuation of Bush policies. But what struck me was this one liberal commentator, telling us socialists and liberals to 'tone it down' (I don't remember his exact words)...

By Brenda Norrell

Photo by Brenda Norrell: Angie Ramon, Tohono O'odham, prepares squash for 'Apartheid in America.'

The final paragraph of Herz's article is:

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During the vigil to halt US torture, soldiers remove one of five persons who crossed the line into Fort Huachuca Army Intelligence Center, to expose US torture training here. Photo by Brenda Norrell.

Updated Nov. 16, 2009

Judge Can Make History Right by Keeping Pleadings in Ex-DEA agent Richard Horn’s Lawsuit on the Books

Former DEA agent Richard Horn, with the help of his attorney, former federal prosecutor Brian Leighton, recently brought the mighty CIA to its knees.

For some 15 years, Horn waged a legal battle in federal court against a former CIA official whom Horn alleged had illegally eavesdropped on him as part of a CIA- and State Department-backed effort to thwart DEA’s anti-narcotics mission in Burma in the early 1990s.

By Brenda Norrell

TUCSON -- Racism in America did not disappear when Barack Obama became president. Native American homelands are still targeted by corporations and some tribal governments, targeting the land for coal mining, power plants, oil drilling and toxic dumps.

Government Allows Misleading and False Information to Spread in the Corporate Media

On October 24, Chiapan state police arrested Rocelio de la Cruz Gonzalez and Jose Manuel de la Torre Hernandez, both leaders of the Emiliano Zapata Peasant Organization (OCEZ).  Narco News' Fernando Leon reports that the men say police tortured them during interrogation.  De la Torre Hernandez said in a statement: "Multiple times they put a nylon bag over my head, suffocating me, so that I would answer affirmatively to a list of questions.  [The questions included] if our organization OCEZ has weapons and a relationship with the church and with former and current Carranza mayors.  They also shot mineral water up my nose until I passed out."  De la Torre told his lawyer that police made him sign papers without reading them during the torture session.  Police tortured him until he passed out, then they woke him up to sign papers while he was still groggy.

On October 25, a contact sent this reporter an email with the subject "Official Communique."  The email was written in the style of a government press release, but it contained no media contact information nor was it signed by a government agency.  The contact believed the email was the government's official press release regarding the de la Torre Hernandez and de la Cruz Gonzalez arrests.  The contact had received the email from a local reporter who also seemed to believe the email was the government's official press release.  However, this "Official Communique" did not appear on the Chiapas state government's "Public Relations Institute" website, where all official state government press releases are posted, nor did it appear on the Chiapas State Attorney General's Office website, where press releases regarding arrests are posted. 

The "Official Communique's" absence from the websites where all official government communiques are posted is particularly noteworthy due to the wild claims made in the "communique." 

So much room for speculation, in regards to Major Hasan going on a rampage on his own troops... The way I look at it, this is a microcosm of 9-11 with Hasan essentially playing the role of Bin Laden. It's a fact that an Islamic dimension is present if reports that he yelled out 'Allah Akbar' as he began firing are true. But suddenly, because it's a US Military member, the guy could actually have legitimate reasons for what he did, or maybe he's a misunderstood recluse, or we don't really know, but no one is calling for him to be hanged the way they did for Bin Laden.

By Brenda Norrell

Photo of Hopi imprisoned at Alcatraz

KYKOTSMOVI, Ariz. -- Hopi gathered at the 'Water is Life' conference in Kykotsmovi on Friday, Nov. 6, 2009, to protect their aquifer and waters from mining and contamination from Peabody Coal on Black Mesa. It is also a time to remember the 19 Hopi imprisoned at Alcatraz who refused to allow their children to be indoctrinated in US colonial boarding schools.

Ex-Workers from Luz y Fuerza del Centro Tried to Enter the Pachuca Station and Hung Red and Black Banners in the Nuevo Necaxa, Puebla, Hydroelectric Plant

Wire Reports
El Universal

Ex-workers from defunct Luz y Fuerza del Centro power company intensified their actions in simultantaneous protests outside the company's buildings in two states.

In Hidalgo, the protesters created a protest encampment (plantón) outside the Juandho division in the Tetepango municipality, where the majority of the residents are ex-Luz y Fuerza workers.  Meanwhile, in Tula and Pachuca, they burned banners, flags, and sticks. The situation remains tense, and they are expected to be forcibly removed.

"I just get back junk mail from the White house." --Gerald Delorme

By Brenda Norrell

By Brenda Norrell

Photo: Ofelia Rivas at the Indigenous Uranium Foum at Acoma Pueblo/Photo by Brenda Norrell

Ending litigation, filed by former DEA agent Richard Horn, will cost taxpayers a pretty penny

Former DEA agent Richard Horn, and his attorney, former federal prosecutor Brian Leighton, have struck a deal to end a long-running legal case in which Horn accused former CIA and State Department officials of spying on him and sabotaging his anti-narcotics mission in Burma — now known as Myanmar.

By Brenda Norrell

Photo: Angie Ramon, Tohono O'odham, views the crosses in memory of the migrants who died crossing the Sonoran Desert, at the Dia de los Muertos on Oct. 31, 2009, in San Xavier, Tohono O'odham land. Ramon remembered her son Bennett Patricio, Jr., who was run over and killed by the US Border Patrol. Based on the evidence, Ramon said her son walked upon US Border Patrol agents invovled in drug smuggling in the desert at 3 a.m. and was intentionally murdered. She took the case to Ninth Circuit federal court, but found no justice. Photo Brenda Norrell.

Profiteering from misery: Alaskan Natives' private migrant prison for profit is disturbing trend in violation of the traditional teachings of Native Americans

By Brenda Norrell

Photo: Outdoor migrant detention center on Tohono O'odham land, where temperatures can reach 116 degrees in summer, known as 'The Cage." Photo by Ofelia Rivas.

TUCSON -- Native Americans say the disturbing trend of profiteering from foul and abusive private migrant prisons by American Indian Nations violates traditional teachings to honor the sacredness of life and all humanity.
The San Xavier District of the Tohono O'odham Nation has planned a migrant prison in secret for years. Recently, outcry from neighbors at Sahuarita, Ariz., halted the plan. However, a second site selected in secret is east of Three Points, Ariz. and has not been made public.

Recent DOJ pleadings in state-secrets case appear to rely on fabrications

U.S. government attorneys seem to have made another major blunder in the closely watched state-secrets privilege case involving former DEA agent Richard Horn.

Government lawyers who are seeking to advance national security claims in Horn’s case have already been accused of committing a fraud on the court. In addition, Paul E. Forster, a former agent with the State Department Inspector General’s Office (OIG) is now prepared to testify in the case that his superiors whitewashed an investigative report that substantiated Horn’s charges against CIA and State Department employees.

By Brenda Norrell

TUCSON -- In a sudden change of heart, the editor of the Arizona Daily Starr said he would like to offer his neighborhood for the Navajo Generating Station.
After encouraging the EPA to forget about new clean air standards, he said he realized that this was an act of environmental racism. He said he realized that his desire to continue this polluting power plant on the Navajo Nation was wrong.

By Brenda Norrell

SKY CITY, Acoma Pueblo, N.M. -- Where were the news reporters during the 7th Southwest Uranium Forum? Only two people identified themselves as news reporters at the gathering, a correspondent for Washington Post and another from the Four Corners Free Press.

Where was the American Indian media? Where were the Native American newspapers and radio stations?

Recently, Associated Press and the Arizona Republic were quick to attack environmentalists by rewriting the press releases of politicians and corporations. But where were their reporters when Indigenous Peoples gathered to tell their stories of how uranium mining, and the radioactive waste strewn and left behind, caused the deaths of their children, parents, brothers and sisters?

Conflicting Press Releases Cast Doubt on Government Claims

This past October 16, the Mexican Federal Police transferred Chiapan peasant leader Jose Manuel “Don Chema” Hernandez Martinez to a maximum-security federal prison located in Nayarit, 26 hours from his home.  Don Chema is a leader of the Emiliano Zapata Peasant Organization (OCEZ).  The government claims that it transferred him “for his own safety.”

On October 9, the government claims to have uncovered a massive weapons stockpile—reportedly the largest weapons seizure in the history of Chiapas, and the biggest weapons seizure in the entire country so far this year.  The Chiapas state government says in a press release that “according to statements made by the men detained in this operation, the arsenal would be linked to José Manuel Hernández Martínez.”

Streaming live video: Indigenous Uranium Forum
Acoma Pueblo
http://www.livestream.com/earthcycles

By Brenda Norrell

ACOMA PUEBLO, N.M. -- The Indigenous Uranium Forum will be broadcast live Thursday, Oct. 22, at 8:30 a.m. Mountain Time, through Saturday noon. Earthcycles www.earthcycles.net will provide live coverage, carrying the voices of Indigenous uranium victims to the world. Acoma Pueblo and Havasupai leaders join Anishinabe Winona LaDuke at the forum. Uranium victims and activists will speak from Pueblo, Navajo, Goshute and Lakota lands, along with Indigenous Peoples from Bolivia, Canada and Alaska.

In a memo issued ''to the DEA, FBI, and US Attorneys around the country'' in charge of carrying out the War on Drugs-TM, the Obama administration basically said (if you read between the lines as I do) that there was nothing wrong with the act of smoking pot in and of itself, but when violence, pushing drugs on minors, money laundering, etc. are also part of the mix, THEN the adjoining act of doing drugs becomes intertwined also in the overall illegal activity...

Government Transferred “Don Chema” to a Federal Maximum-Security Prison

The way the government is treating Jose Manuel Hernandez Martinez, also known as “Don Chema,” one would think he’s the head of a drug cartel.

Movement for Justice in El Barrio

For Immediate Release
Contact Juan Haro, (212) 561-0555

Most Powerful Landlord in East Harlem, Multi-National Dawnay, Day Group, Comes Crashing Down

October 14, 2009—In a battle of David and Goliath proportions, tenants and members of Movement for Justice in El Barrio fought back against the attempts of the multi-billion dollar London-based corporation Dawnay, Day Group to push low-income families from their homes.

Thousands of East Harlem tenants have just been notified that the 47 buildings they reside in have been seized, due to Dawnay, Day’s failure to pay its massive outstanding debts, and are now under receivership, completing the demise of this multi-national company, a powerful threat to the community of El Barrio.

Agents — Two Since Retired, One Now Leading High-powered Task Force — Call Claims “Absurd” and “Despicable”

A top gun with the DEA’s Special Operations Division, along with two fellow law enforcers, are not what they seem, if Gaetano (Guy) DiGirolamo Sr., a convicted heroin dealer, is to be believed.

The trio are, in fact, drug dealers themselves, argues Yale law professor Steven B. Duke in court pleadings filed on behalf of his client, DiGirolamo.

A Spanish Company and National Action Party Members Hope to Exploit Luz y Fuerza's Fiber Optic Network

Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME) Secretary General Martin Esparza claims that President Felipe Calderon busted his union in order to take control of a 1,100-kilometer fiber optic network.  The fiber optic network in question was built with public money and was the property of Luz y Fuerza del Centro, the government-owned electricity company that the military and federal police shut down this past weekend.  The union's opposition to Calderon's agenda of cronyism and privatization is at the heart of the dispute, according to Esparza.

In an interview with the Mexican weekly Proceso, Esparza explains how politicians from the president's National Action Party (PAN) facilitated a foreign company's exploitation of Luz y Fuerza's fiber optic cable, while simultaneously stifling Luz y Fuerza's bid for a permit to utilize its own infrastructure to provide television, internet, and telephone services.

By Brenda Norrell

TUCSON -- In the new Southern Border Rights Campaign, the Alianza Indigena Sin Fronteras/Indigenous Alliance Without Borders, is working toward national guidelines to ensure border rights for Indigenous Peoples in their homelands, from California to Texas.

by Brenda Norrell

TUCSON -- Activist Ward Churchill will speak at a benefit for the traditional O'odham resisting oppression and abuse by US Border Patrol agents and protesting the construction of the US/Mexico border wall in their traditional homeland.
Ofelia Rivas, founder of the O'odham VOICE against the Wall, said funds raised at the benefit will support the struggles of the O'odham living on both sides of the border, on O'odham lands in southern Arizona and Sonora, Mexico.
Rivas points out that the US border wall construction has resulted in the unearthing of O'odham ancestors, in violation of spiritual laws and federal laws. The wall is now a barrier to annual sacred pilgrimages of the O'odham.
"The wall has destroyed the sacred resting places of our ancestors and has closed our ceremonial routes," Rivas said.