sleepygaymerdisease:

fatehbaz:

A peaceful, Indigenous demonstration against the border wall in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument ended with demonstrators in a stand off and physical altercation with U.S. Border Patrol agents and National Park Service officers Monday [21 September 2020] afternoon.

Construction was brought to a halt for most of the day. […] The action was put by together the O'odham Anti Border Collective and Defend O'odham Jewed, a network of Akimel O'odham, Tohono O'odham and Hia-Ced O'odham organizers — not all of which are federally recognized tribes.

Ancestral O'odham land spans the Phoenix area and Tucson and continues across the border into neighboring Sonora. Speaking in front of a huge canvas panel reading “Borders = Genocide, no wall on O'odham land,” one Akimel O'odham demonstrator said they’ll keep returning to protect it. 

Before it became a part of Organ Pipe in the 1950s, Quitobaquito and the man-made pond it drains into was home to generations of Hia-Ced O'odham communities. Trenching for the border wall could be seen in the area in front on the thicket of trees surrounding Quitobaquito. Bollard panels lay flat nearby. […]

Demonstrators spent more than five hours at the site praying, singing and chanting over the hum of stalled machinery. Private security personnel and National Park Service were on scene.

Two National Park Service officers approached the group twice throughout the morning and asked them to move to the side, citing safety concerns.

The demonstration continued without incident until around 1pm, when more than a dozen U.S. Border Patrol agents, some armed with paint ball guns and rifles, arrived on ATVs and in SUVs. Two National Park Service officers charged the line of demonstrators, breaking into a brief scuffle trying to forcibly break through the human chain before pulling back. […]

The protesters faced off against a line of Border Patrol agents and Park Service officers for almost an hour as O'odham organizers continued to speak and sing. One Tohono O'odham speaker described how living along the border has shaped her community.

“We cannot move without you all over us, we cannot walk through our desert without these cameras filming everything we do, you don’t have that in your community,” a Tonono O'odham speaker said. “But then you come here, thinking you can take whatever you want.” […]

Another scuffle broke out when park service officers backed by Border Patrol agents moved in on the line again. For several minutes, officers and agents shoved protesters and attempted to pull them away from each other as they crumpled to the ground.

—

Headline,  photo, captions, and text from: Alisa Reznick. “Stand off …” Arizona Public Media. 22 September 2020.

The protestors are on instagram at @ defendoodhamjewed . There are videos and images of this incident. They’ve also been asking for financial aid!

gofundme: https://www.gofundme.com/f/defend-oodham-land-bail-fund

cashapp: $ defendoodhamjewed

paypal: DefendOodhamJewed