Border Convergence

     Hundreds of people gathered on both sides of the border wall that separates Nogales, Sonora from Nogales, Arizona on October 8 and 9.   The convergence was organized by SOA Watch to protest the militarization of the border that is causing so much suffering and death for our migrant sisters and brothers. 

     This militarization was started by Bill Clinton and has been further escalated by Barack Obama.  A “crisis” of unaccompanied minors that were fleeing violence and poverty in Central America and seeking refuge in the U.S. occurred during summer 2014.  The response of the Obama administration was to pressure the Mexican government to further militarize its southern border with Guatemala.  Millions of dollars were given to implement Plan Frontera Sur (Southern Border Plan) which placed more immigration agents and checkpoints in southern Mexico.

     Sister Guadalupe; of the Hermanos en el Camino shelter in Ixtepec, Oaxaca; told us that the militarization in southern Mexico has forced migrants to pass through more isolated, and dangerous, regions.  She said that nine of every ten migrants arriving at the shelter have been assaulted, and more than half the women have been raped.  Mexico is now deporting more Central Americans than the U.S., and this repression and violence have reduced the number of people arriving at the U.S. border. 

     “I very much appreciate Mexico’s efforts in addressing the unaccompanied children who we saw spiking during the summer,” said Obama in January 2015.  “In part, because of strong efforts by Mexico, including at its southern border, we’ve seen those numbers reduced back to much more manageable levels.” 

     The Nogales Wall was first built by the Clinton administration in October 1994 – just three months after he visited the site of the former Berlin Wall.  The Obama administration built a taller, and stronger, border wall in the summer of 2011.

     “We celebrate unity,” Clinton had said in Berlin.  “We stand where crude walls of concrete separated mother from child, and we meet as one family.  We stand where those who sought a new life instead found death.  Berliners, you have proved that no wall can forever contain the mighty power of freedom.”

     The Clinton administration created the Border Patrol’s first national strategy in 1994, “Prevention through Deterrence.”  The goal was to “Raise the risk…to the point that many will consider it futile to attempt illegal entry… Illegal traffic will be deterred, or forced over more hostile terrain, less suited for crossing.”  Since then, the bodies of more than 6,000 people have been found in the southern border region.  The actual death toll is much higher because many bodies are never found.    

     Last month, we commemorated the 15th anniversary of the attacks of September 11 and I found myself reflecting on how we define terrorism.  It seems to me that terrorism involves the use of violence, targeting civilians, to achieve a political objective.  Thousands of civilians have now died after being forced over hostile terrain along the border in order to deter people from entering the U.S.

     “No más, no more, tear down the border walls!” we chanted during the litany for those victims at the end of the convergence here in Nogales.

  

A deported mother and veterans, followed by Veterans for Peace, 
leading the march along the wall in Nogales,Sonora

   

Woman with gun used to recruit for border enforcement

This billboard of a woman holding erect a large gun could be Customs and Border Protection’s vision of gender equality or it could be aimed at young men with high levels of testosterone and blind patriotism.  The bodies of 49 people were found in the desert of southern Arizona in June and July – victims of this militarization of the border that forces migrants to the most deadly terrain for crossing into the U.S.  The woman and her gun are featured on three billboards located alongside I-10 between Tucson and Phoenix.  Using this image to promote “America’s Edge” on border enforcement illustrates the obscenity of current U.S. policy. 

Vigil to close the School of the Americas moving to Nogales

     The movement to close the School of the Americas (SOA) training center for Latin American soldiers has held an annual vigil in front of the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia for 25 years.  This year, the convergence will be moved here to the Nogales Wall as an expression of resistance to the militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border.  The four-day event will conclude on October 10 – the fourth anniversary of the murder of 16-year-old José Antonio Elena Rodriguez by a Border Patrol agent that fired into Nogales, Sonora from Nogales, Arizona on October 10, 2012.

     Father Roy Bourgeois, founder of SOA Watch, visited Nogales in May 2013 and a vigil was held that evening at the site where José Antonio was killed.  He presented José Antonio’s mother, Aracely, with a photo of him holding a cross with her son’s name during the vigil at Fort Benning the previous November.  The Home of Hope and Peace (HEPAC) was honored to host another SOA Watch delegation that came to Nogales from April 28 to 30 in preparation for the vigil this October.    

     The journey of SOA Watch from its beginning in front of Fort Benning to the border in Nogales parallels my own life journey over those same 26 years.  My first trip to Latin America was to the Mesa Grande refugee camp in Honduras in September 1989.  The camp was home to thousands of people who had fled from the U.S.-sponsored war and repression in El Salvador.         

     A group of 500 people were preparing to return to El Salvador the following month and we met with their “mesa directiva” (elected leaders).  Beto, Arturo, Isabel, Neto, Eulalio and Miguel shared their stories with us and transformed my life.  “We are willing to risk our lives, if need be, to bring our people back to El Salvador,” said Beto, the president.  “By claiming our right to live as a civilian community in the countryside we believe we will be contributing to the process of bringing peace to our homeland.”

     They returned to Guancorita in El Salvador on October 29 and found that most of the community had been destroyed by Air Force bombing.  A few weeks later, on November 16, soldiers went into the Central America University in San Salvador and murdered Father Ignacio Ellacuría (rector), five other Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter.  Many of those responsible for the massacre had been trained at the School of the Americas.

     Then on February 11, 1990, Guancorita was attacked by the Air Force.  Planes and helicopters flew overhead for two hours and fired 15 rockets and 8 bombs around the community.  Four families that were living beneath sheets of plastic ran to seek shelter in a house made out of brick.  One of the helicopters fired a rocket that exploded inside the house – killing five people, including four children, and wounding 16.

     We visited the community the following month and Patrocinio leads us to “la casa de la masacre” (the house of the massacre).  We enter the house and there is a huge stain spread across the right wall.  The bricks are pockmarked with holes from the “esquirlas” (rocket shrapnel).  Five crosses with the names of the victims mark the sites where they died: “Isabel Lopez” and “Anabel Beatriz Lopez” (Patrocinio’s 10-year-old and 2-year-old daughters), “Jose Guardado” and “Blanca Lilia Guardado” (father and 2-year-old daughter), and “Dolores Serrano” (10-years-old).

     Patrocinio tells us about the attack and then takes out his bandana and carefully unrolls it on the ground.  Inside is a piece of the rocket, with the markings in English.  The rockets, the bombs, the helicopters and planes had been paid for with our tax dollars.

     We meet Patrocinio’s spouse, Maria, that afternoon in the neighboring community of Guarjila.  Tears stream down her face as she tells us about the death of her two daughters.  She is eight-months pregnant and shows us the shrapnel wounds on her chest and upper legs.  “It was a miracle I didn’t lose my baby,” she says.  Maria gave birth to a girl who was named Isabel Beatriz in honor of her two sisters that she never met.

     In July 1990, Guancorita was renamed Comunidad Ignacio Ellacuría in honor of the rector of the Central America University and in recognition that both the Jesuit community and Guancorita had suffered massacres.  In November of that year, Father Roy and a few other people held a vigil at the gates of Ft. Benning to commemorate the first anniversary of the massacre at the university.  The vigil would grow over the years with the participation of thousands of people every November. 

     Twenty two years after that first vigil, a Border Patrol agent fires his pistol between the bars of the Nogales Wall at José Antonio who is walking down below on International Street in Nogales, Sonora.  Lonnie Swartz empties the 13-round clip, puts in another clip, and then fires all the bullets in that one.  He shoots José Antonio once in the head and seven times in the back.

     I visited the site of the killing, on the sidewalk in front of Dr. Contreras’ clinic, ten days later.  The wall on the corner had seven bullet holes, up high, with red circles around each one that had been drawn by police investigators.  A few feet away, the side wall had three bullet holes down low, alongside the sidewalk where José Antonio died. 

     On November 2, Day of the Dead, HEPAC helped organize the first procession and vigil to protest the murder of José Antonio.  Other vigils followed to commemorate the six month, one year, year and a half, two year, and three year anniversaries.   

     We will gather together this October in solidarity with the family of José Antonio and all victims of U.S.-sponsored violence; including Isabel and Anabel Beatriz Lopez, Jose and Blanca Lilia Guardado, and Dolores Serrano.  We would be honored to have you join us.