Searching for Bodies and Justice on the Border
By Brenda Norrell
Guatemalan Sebastian Quinac organizes search parties to find the bodies of his fellow Maya Kaqchikel who die while walking in search of a better life in the Sonoran Desert. These search parties can put even the searchers lives at risk as they walk all day in temperatures reaching 115 to 120 degrees in southern Arizona along the US/Mexico border.
During today's protest of SB 1070 in Tucson, Quinac described the sad effort of searching for the bodies of his fellow Guatemalan Maya in the intense heat of the desert. On Censored Blogtalk Radio, he describes searching for, and finding, a 28-year-old Guatemalan woman, a newly-wed, who was identified by her wedding ring on her finger.
Currently, Quinac is organizing a search party for a Guatemalan father and three sons who have not been heard from in two weeks. Organizing search parties with the Guatemalan Consulate, Quinac said it is important to the families back home that their loved ones be buried in their villages.
Quinac, who fled Guatemala when his own life was at risk, now dedicates himself to human rights. He describes how Indigenous Peoples, from the Guatemala Highlands, Chiapas and Oaxaca, make the life threatening journey on foot, often speaking only their own Native language. They do it because they have no way to survive in their homelands. There is no way to feed their families. Unaware of the intense heat in summer or the vastness of this desert, the heat of midsummer claims the lives of mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters; husbands and wives, daughters and sons.
"It is emotionally very difficult," Quinac said.
Jose Matus, Yaqui ceremonial leader and director of the Indigenous Alliance without Borders/Alianza Indigena sin Fronteras, has been crossing the US/Mexico border for 30 years to bring Yaqui ceremonial leaders across the border for temporary stays to conduct ceremonies.
From Rio Yaqui villages to the border, it is an eight hour drive. At the border the Yaqui ceremonial leaders must deal with the constant harassments of Homeland Security and the US Border Patrol. Since 9/11, Indigenous Peoples have been battered with constant hew restrictions at the border, including demands for documents that traditional Indian people, living for generations in their homelands, do not possess.
Faced with the new law of racial profiling in Arizona, SB 1070, Matus speaks on the rights of mobility and passage for Indigenous Peoples on both sides of the border.
Immediately after this interview with Matus for Censored Blogtalk Radio, a Tucson police officer on a bicycle questioned Matus and this reporter, at the car in South Tucson. The officer asked if either of us had any warrants out for our arrest.
This was clearly a case of racial profiling in the case of Jose Matus. It was just a few hours before Matus joined others from 14 organizations in downtown Tucson to protest SB 1070 and Arizona's new racist laws.
Listen to today's interviews at:
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