21 january 2003
back in mexico! just north of tampico
just when you thought it was over......
the caravan is back! in smaller numbers and WITH THE TRUCKS FULL OF AID this time!
you probably received the urgent action alert I sent out with my last journal. well, with all the people faxing that letter to mexican president vicente fox, along with the protests at 15 different mexican embassies and consulates last wednesday, the 15th, the government decided to let the aid through. people pressure works! hehhe... I was in austin, tx, and organized a few people to go down and meet with the mexican consulate there. we gave them a copy of that letter, and explained the situation. at the same time, other meetings were going on in other branches of the mexican consulate, including in mexico city, where staff from the pastors for peace were meeting with the heads of customs. apparently, while they were there, there were so many faxes coming into president fox’s fax machine that his secretary had to turn the machine off! there was also a lot of media coverage in mexico (and a little bit in the us), and all of this, combined with the international protests, put enough pressure on the mexican government that they TOTALLY changed their tone in the negotiations and gave their full support to the passage of the trucks. they don’t want this kind of bad publicity. they’d rather just let us pass.
so I found out that the aid was going to be able to cross, and rushed down to the border along with four other folks from the pastors for peace to bring the aid down to chiapas. I was in amarillo, texas when I got the call, where I had been participating in a ‘palestine truth tour’. The tour is travelling around the country giving testimony to what is going on in palestine. most people in the us have no idea what’s going on there, because the american media gives it NO coverage whatsoever. so to find out, you really have to go there yourself. that’s what I did last summer, and why I was able to be on the tour. in palestine, I found myself in the midst of an extremely brutal occupation where people were being killed EVERY day. none of this is on the US news – not the 24-hour a day curfew that’s been imposed on all palestinians to the point where they can no longer get food and water sufficient to survive, not the closure on all palestinian cities, towns and villages that prevents people from going to work, school or their own fields to farm, not the WALL that is being built by the Israeli government along the border with Palestine – a wall that is two meters higher than the Berlin wall, not the illegal settlements being built on Palestinian land by Israeli settlers who are armed and backed by military might, not the continuous destruction of Palestinian homes by Israeli bulldozers, not the continuous patrolling by tanks and the shooting of unarmed people, including children, by the occupying Israeli army – none of this is on the US news! hell, most americans don’t even know that Israel was created ON the country historically known as Palestine, and that in order to create the country of Israel in 1948, hundreds of Palestinian towns and villages were destroyed, thousands of Palestinians killed, and hundreds of thousands forced to flee from their homes into exile – where they remain until today. and on their former land, Israelis now live. that BASIC bit of middle east history appears to be ABSENT from most americans’ education on the issue. it’s incredible how little people in the US know about israel and palestine, and yet how quick they are to form an opinion on the issue.
I guess you can tell that I feel strongly about it – you would too, if you had gone there and seen how people are suffering. it is SO WRONG. I urge you to find out more, and to GO THERE YOURSELF, if you can. there’s nothing like personal experience to counter propaganda and lies. and believe me, there is a LOT of propaganda out there about this issue. if you want to read my report, you can see it at:
http://palestine.indymedia.org/news/2002/07/62017.php
and there are daily reports from other internationals in palestine RIGHT NOW at:
http://www.palsolidarity.org
but back to the caravan......I hopped on a bus, headed down to the border, and jumped in a truck full of aid with a few other folks – and we’re headed back down to chiapas! the border crossing took all day yesterday, and half of today as well, waiting for all the proper authorizations to come through. the customs agents took their sweet time going through the stuff in the two trucks. they didn’t go through EVERYTHING, but they did make us search high and low for specific boxes that they just HAD to see. particularly, they wanted to see the boxes that were designated for an autonomous zapatista clinic. they didn’t seem to worry so much about the ones designated for a clinic run by catholic nuns, but the boxes headed to the autonomous clinic had to be dug out and searched through. what a headache! and they also found some vitamins that expire in april. all medicine is supposed to have at least six months left until its expiration date, and these vitamins only have three months of shelf life until they expire. but at the same time, twenty children have died in chiapas in hospitals due to lack of medicines! I doubt they will sit on the shelf for more than three DAYS, let alone three months! these people NEED these medicines! and they’re going to be used, most of them , just as soon as they arrive. I don’t think the customs officials need to worry about the medicines reaching their expiration dates without being used.
the customs officials were not very respectful of the way things were packed, and they certainly didn’t seem to care that there were things that needed to remain sanitary, because they were going to be used in clinics. there was a box of sheets, for instance, for hospital beds, that the customs offficials were examining. we were on a FILTHY loading dock – it was cement that had turned BLACK, it was so dirty. and these officials were pulling out the clean white hospital sheets, letting them touch the ground, throwing them over their shoulders like gym towels – just generally, not respecting the fact that these sheets would be lining the beds of sick people that would need to avoid germs and dirt. They pulled out hospital gowns and were doing the same thing with them. and WE had to unpack and reload all the boxes – they wouldn’t even help do that! it was a horrible and demented process, and one that no people should have to go through in order to bring medical supplies, bikes and school supplies to their sisters and brothers in need.
and the border itself was really crazy – highly militarized, US border patrol vehicles policing the river that marks the border (the Rio Grande) day and night. we had to go back and forth a few times in the last couple of days, getting everything together, and when you cross over to the US side, there’s always a huge line waiting to cross into the US, and one of those electronic highway construction signs that has messages like: ‘US Dept. of Agriculture fines increased jan. 1, 2003 $100 - $1000’, ‘Welcome to the USA!’, ‘Be prepared to declare all items, show INS documentation’,‘God Bless America’, ‘Seized in 2002: 36,952 pounds of marijuana, 3,420 pounds of cocaine, $281 million’, ‘Dogs at work! Do not tease dogs!’, ‘Terror threat ongoing. Expect delays.’... the messages on that sign all just seemed a little surreal, sitting in that line and knowing it would be easy for me as an American citizen to cross back into the country, but virtually if not totally impossible for a mexican person to cross. what makes me better than any mexican person? my little blue passport? WHY should my life be considered more valuable than any one of theirs? it’s ridiculous. and yet......henry kissinger, a man who has basically singe-handedly determined US foreign policy for five presidential administrations in a row, has said that he uses the equation ‘one american life is worth ten foreign lives’. and this is the man determining OUR foreign policy!! I don’t agree with that equation!! I don’t think my life as an American is worth any more than anyone else’s in the world! I want to challenge US foreign policy – THIS is MY foreign policy – this aid. bringing medicine and supplies to people who need it. this is the kind of foreign policy _I_ want to be a part of, not one that considers American lives more valuable than foreign lives, and sends guns and bombs all over the world to enforce that idea.
during the preparations for border crossing, I had to receive some money by western union. when I went to get it, they wanted me to put a THUMBPRINT on the checks in order to receive cash. I’m sorry, but am I the ONLY ONE who considers this new policy kind of TWISTED?? I DISAGREE WITH PUTTING THUMBPRINTS ON CHECKS! It’s not going to stop any fraud – if someone wants to get the cash, they will. the thumbprint is not going to be looked up immediately by the cashier to see if the person IS who they say they are. they’re going to get the cash and leave! and maybe later, it will turn out that there was fraud, but what good is it then? the person is long gone with the cash! it’s not going to stop them!
what it IS going to do is to create a national database of thumbprints, of everyone who has ever cashed a check with this method. that way, the thumbprint can replace the social security card as a form of national identification. it is something that is on your body, and you can never change or remove, a way to securely identify each and every individual. what’s wrong with this, you ask? why not just ACCEPT using thumbprints as identification? Everyone else seems to be accepting it. WHAT HAVE YOU GOT TO HIDE?? That’s the question it always comes to – people are giving up privacies left and right to prove they are ‘with’ the president, and not on the ‘other’ side with the terrorists. after all, there are only two sides, right?
wrong. imagine you’re an ‘illegal’ person. I know, this can be kind of hard as an american, with all the privileges and prejudices therein. but imagine, just try to imagine, that you were born into a poor family in mexico. that you have never been given respect, but have been looked down upon and kicked around like a dog. that you have worked and worked and worked and gotten nowhere, your family is suffering with not enough to eat. so you decide to take the risk and cross the border. you know it is illegal, but you’ve tried the legal way to get a visa, and after spending your entire life savings on the process, have been rejected. thousands of people make this choice every year. hundreds are shot by the border patrol while making the attempt.
and we, as privileged people, born into the privilege of being US citizens, members of the most powerful empire the world has known to date (to our knowledge anyway), WE may have ‘nothing to hide’ and so accept these violations of liberty. but what if we were not so privileged? what if we had come from a different background, what if we had sneaked across the border to make money to feed our families and had no papers, no official US passport. what if our very existence were considered ‘illegal’? Would we feel differently then?
But actually, when I hear all these people saying they have ‘nothing to hide’, I wonder......if a true justice were to ever come about, how would these people justify their lifestyles? The clothes that were made in sweatshops, the diamonds fueling the war in Sierra Leone, bought on VISA cards in shopping malls that were built on stolen land.....all of these elements that make up american lifestyles are CRIMES against people in poorer countries in other parts of the world. could these american consumers claim ‘ignorance’ as their excuse? I don’t think so.....because a small amount of research would turn up the realities of the origins of these products. How could someone stand in judgment, in front of the eyes of a tiny child in Nigeria whose parents were killed by Shell Oil to maintain their holdings in that country, and say to that child, ‘Well, I just didn’t know....’. The truth is, you don’t WANT to know. if you DID want to know, it is not that hard to find out. but people don’t want to connect their lavish lifestyles with the poverty and squalor in other parts of the world. people DON’T want to know where the products they are purchasing are coming from. if they DID start to make those connections, they’d realize very quickly that they DO have something to hide. and not from the US government, but from the true justice – the eyes of a child. that child who will look at you so honestly and openly and asks, ‘why are you paying, with your taxes, for the bombs that are being dropped on us?’. and you are going to have to answer that child. will you know what to say when it happens?
Call Western Union and tell them you disagree with this policy of putting thumbprints on checks. If people power can push the aid across the border, maybe it can push back against policies that violate the rights of the least well-off in our society – in this case, the people who are considered ‘illegal’ because they weren’t born on the US side of the line (kind of ironic, considering this is a nation of immigrants – the only ones with any real claim to this land are the native americans. the rest of us could be considered ‘illegal immigrants’ by them). of course, this policy is not directly targeted at ‘illegal’ immigrants – but this, and other measures that lead to a national identification system of all citizens, ends up affecting them most.
anyway here we are, across the border, almost to tampico, five people and ten tons of aid. we’re winning!
23 january 2003
minatitlan, mexico
whew! talk about harassment! these national security guys won’t leave us alone! we’ve been travelling three days now, and we’ve been stopped at about six army checkpoints and we’ve had the municipal police following us almost the whole way. and on top of all that, on the first night, the national security officials came knocking on our doors at 4:00 in the morning, trying to get a list of our names!! we were sleeping soundly when we heard a loud knock at our door. one person in the group went to answer it and they said they need a list of our names. I said for them to go ask Corinne, who was in the next room (she’s the spokesperson for the group). I knew she would be pissed, and she was. She told them off – told them we are on a caravan of peace, and it is totally uncalled for to wake us up in the middle of the night like that, as well as completely unnecessary. They didn’t tell HER they wanted a list of names, when they talked with HER they said they were just looking out for our safety and checking up on us. which makes me think that when they knocked on OUR door, and saw who answered it, they thought we would be gullible enough to just give them a list of names. they didn’t want to deal with Corinne, because she had been so tough and steadfast in dealing with them the last time.
but I don’t want to be too negative....it’s only the army and the police that have been giving us a hard time. we’ve had some good press coverage in the newspaper and the radio down here – people at towns we’ve gone through have said they saw us in the paper, and thanked us for the work we’re doing. we’re getting lots of waves and smiles from folks on the road as well.
a number of things have been happening down here since we left – the most disturbing and relevant event was the death of 31 newborn infants in a government-run clinic in a town called Las Margaritas (towards the jungle of Montes Azules) at the end of december. apparently there was an outbreak of pneumonia because the clinic wasn’t following proper sanitation procedures, and then they didn’t have the medicine or capacity to deal with the pneumatic babies, so 31 of them died. it was horrible......
can you imagine? all those newborn infants dying of pneumonia.....
and at THE SAME TIME while ten tons of aid, most of it medicines and medical supplies, were being stopped at the border and not allowed to enter! I mean, when we say EMERGENCY AID, we mean it! and this is exactly why! who knows, maybe some of those babies lives could have been saved, but for want of a small amount of BASIC medicine, they died.
so just two days ago, 200 indigenous women of the tojolabal indigenous group took over the clinic where those babies died in protest of the government’s indifference of their suffering, and demanded the resignation of the corrupt government-appointed clinic head. they also demanded more clinics, medicine and training of medical personnel. the government sent the head of the region down to negotiate with the women. I’m not sure where that’s at right now, but apparently they are in negotiations to deal with the womens’ demands.
the other thing is the farmers’ protest against this latest stage of NAFTA, which was imposed on the 1st of january and lifts all farm tariffs on products from the US. this means that there will be an influx of cheap, genetically modified, factory farmed corn, chicken and other products from the US which will put mexican farmers out of business. the average farm size in mexico is 7 acres – the tariffs were in place to protect these small farmers from competition with the mega factory farms of the US, which receive ENORMOUS subsidies from the US government. there was supposed to be a border blockade on jan. 1 by the campesinos (farmers) union, but they called it off at the last moment because they were trying to negotiate with the government. but now the mexican government is basically capitulating to the US government, which is capitulating to the corn, meat and dairy industries of the united states. and so the campesinos are threatening a day of protest on jan. 31, and possibly a general strike on the 5th of february. I guess we’ll see how things go.... |
BUSQUEDA / SEARCH