Tohono O'odham official orders life saving migrant water tanks removed

By Brenda Norrell

SELLS, Ariz. -- A Tohono O'odham district official ordered Mike Wilson, Tohono O'odham, to remove his life saving water tanks in the Baboquivari District, near the US/Mexico border on Saturday. Baboquivari District Chairwoman Veronica Harvey ordered Wilson to halt and banned for life a group of visiting seminary students.

"Who will speak for the dead?" says Wilson, in response to the latest order. This is the latest attempt to halt Wilson's efforts and follows years of his water containers being slashed and vandalized.

Wilson, undaunted, will hold a press conference in Tucson on Thursday. "No one should die for a drink of water," says Wilson. The press conference is at 1 p.m. on Thursday, September 4, 2008 at the First Christian Church, on the corner of East Speedway and North Euclid in Tucson.

A high percentage of the migrants who die each year, die here in the Baboquivari District of the Tohono O'odham Nation. Many of the dead are Indigenous Peoples. An increasing number of the dead are Indian women walking with their children from Chiapas, Oaxaca and Guatemala, struggling to survive as corporations seize their land for industry and NAFTA cripples economies for the poor.

The Arizona Daily Star describes the order to remove the tanks:

http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/255748