Friday, December 14, 2007

The Gang Rape of our Borderlands


Who will defend the Lipan Apache women from seizure of their lands by Homeland Security?
.
By Jay Johnson-Castro
Inside the Checkpoints
Rio Grande Guardian
December 14, 2007

Inside the Checkpoints is not journalism. It is straight talk about the realities of our Texas-Mexico border. So here’s one more piece of straight talk.

Get ready Fronterizos! Like in California, Arizona and New Mexico, our Texas border is about to be raped by Chertoff, DHS, our government and mercenaries. “Raped” you say? Yes! But this rape would be better defined as “gang rape."

One dictionary defines rape as “an act of plunder, violent seizure, or abuse; despoliation; violation: the rape of the countryside.”

By contrast, “gang rape” is the “rape of a victim by several attackers in rapid succession." In this case, our entire US-Mexico borderlands are being gang raped by the ruling elitists, racist supremacists, Congress, the Administration. Here in Texas, we can add our two Texas Senators, our Texas governor, our Texas legislature, the entertainment media, Michael Chertoff and the Department of Homeland Security and the corporate world, like Boeing, Blackwater, that expect to cash in on the hundred billion dollars to build this wall along the banks of the Rio Grande and secure our borders of amistad.

All one has to do is review the “Open Houses” staged by our government but acted out by a private environmental firm e2M in McAllen, Brownsville and Rio Grande City. In order to dupe the public with a display of scientific sophistication of maps, photographs and environmental studies, Chertoff’s Border Patrol (CBP) and the private company e2M scheduled these “open houses” during this busy holiday season, during the work week and during the work day, when few could actually be present. This private e2M company in turn hired a secret private security firm to protect themselves from us, in order to take our public comments. The company is so secret that no one would tell us what the name of the company was.

Hired greeters, stenographers along with translators were on hand in some superficial mock setting that was served as a form of public hearing. Perhaps 30 chairs were set up in front of a podium and screen. There, in all the noise, a faint voice speaks from a microphone of all the legal steps that e2M and DHS have carried out to fulfill the legal requirements that will lead up to rape our border land with a grotesque border wall that is supposed to be the cure to our country’s problems. Of the hundreds of people present, not even a dozen folks knew that someone was making a “public presentation”.

As this act is being staged, Chertoff has the Army Corps of Engineers sending out threatening letters of ultimatum to the property owners like Eloisa Tamez, who owns land that lies in the path of the border wall and who does not want to let Chertoff’s forces, federal or private, on their sacred land. Such a letter, dated December 7, 2007, can be seen here. So, at the very same time that Chertoff & the private companies are putting on an expensive show to persuade the public that the wall is about national security, individual property owners are being sent warnings in the mail that they and their property will be “raped" and "seized by force, abused, violated”.

Who will defend the individual victims from the unconstitutional dictatorial powers of a non-elected Chertoff and his entourage of private companies that intend to rape our border lands on the pretext of national security so that private companies can make billions of dollars. Who will defend our communities from this rape? Who will defend our culture, our economy, our environment? We hear a lot of rhetoric from our political leaders. But they don’t lead. At this last hour, where the hell are they?

Governor Perry, who vilified the border to get reelected, calls the border wall “ludicrous” and “idiocy." But what has he done to prevent the rape? Nada en absoluto! He, however, continues to brag about the fallacious success of his Operation Linebacker and continues to spend our hard earned tax dollars on private companies who have installed failed surveillance systems.

What measures have our Texas legislators taken to protect our border from the rape of Chertoff and the private companies that are licking their chops? Otra vez, nada! Where are our two Beltway Senators? Well, hell. We know the answer to that one as well. They not only voted for the gang rape, they have cosponsored the funding of the gang rape of our borderlands.

Anyone standing by and allowing the rape of an innocent victim is complicit. By their flagrant lack of action, the elected officials are either complicit or accomplices of this gang rape of our borderlands. Eloisa Tamez, mentioned above, says that “they’re hiding”. They’re not doing anything to protect or defend her. I say they are peaking around the corner and fare more interested in holding on to their titles and offices than they are in protecting our borderlands, our border community and border culture. Since these elected officials will not defend or protect “we the people” from this gang of rapists, who will?

In the end, if no one will prevent us from being gang raped, what are we to do? Lay back and go numb? Or do we defend ourselves, our communities and our neighbors by putting up a dignified fight? Let’s ask those special women in our lives what they would do if they were going to be raped by a gang of powerful and sleazy rapists, who are cheering each other on as they enjoy the conquest and violation of their innocent victims. I asked Eloisa Tamez what she would do under such circumstances. She said she’d put up a fight! Will we help defend and protect her? Will we come to her rescue?


Photo 1: Protest in Brownsville on Dec. 12, 2007. Photo 2: Sterile presentation, as Homeland Security threatens seizure of private lands in Texas for border wall by eminent domain, the e2M presentation at Brownsville hearing/Photos Jay Johnson-Castro

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Censored News is published by censored journalist Brenda Norrell. A journalist for 27 years, Brenda lived on the Navajo Nation for 18 years, writing for Navajo Times, AP, USA Today, Lakota Times and other American Indian publications. After being censored and then terminated by Indian Country Today in 2006, she began the Censored Blog to document the most censored issues. She currently serves as human rights editor for the U.N. OBSERVER & International Report at the Hague and contributor to Sri Lanka Guardian, Narco News and CounterPunch. She was cohost of the 5-month Longest Walk Talk Radio across America, with Earthcycles Producer Govinda Dalton in 2008: www.earthcycles.net/
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