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Tuesday, August 28, 2012

La Matanza de Izalco '32


Entrevista con Don Luis Palucha,
nativo de Izalco, Sonsonate - El Salvador relatando
La Matanza de Izalco en 1932,
y la tortura y muerte de
José Feliciano Ama.
YouTube:







Links: 





Festival de Resistencia 2012


Los Comités de Defensa del Barrio
Festival de Resistencia
2012
¡ SOMOS PUEBLO !
Tehuan Titlacah
Conozca sus Derechos - Know Your Rights
El Derecho de Memoria - The Right of Memory 
CELEBRANDO LA LUCHA
Para defender los
Derechos Civiles – Derechos Humanos - Derechos Indígenas
Derechos de la Madre Tierra
Sabado 22 de septiembre de 2012
2nd Avenue and Grant Street
Phoenix, AZ
5:00 PM – 11:00 PM
MARCH FOR JUSTICE TO MARICOPA COUNTY JAIL AT 6:00 PM

Waila O’otham
Grupo Escuadra
MAZAMEH
El Maldito Angel

Comida – Musica – Cultura – Compromiso
COMUNIDAD
 ¡ Gratis – Free !
Este evento esta patronizada por las familias de los
Comités de Defensa del Barrio
No se permite ni drogas ni alcohol

TONATIERRA
WWW.TONATIERRA.ORG
YouTube:
MAZAMEH
Clanes de Destino

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Atonal, Nacion Nahuat Pipil

Atonal, Nacion Nahuat Pipil

Atonal es el presunto líder indígena que dirigió a los índigenas del Señorío de Cuzcatlán en las batallas de Acaxual y Tacuzcalco siendo aquel que disparo la lanza que dejo cojo para toda la vida al conquistador español Pedro de Alvarado

Historia

En cada provincia había Caciques, quienes eran dirigentes subordinados al gran Señor de Cuzcatlán, siendo designado para la zona de los izalcos (cacicazgo de Izalco), el gran príncipe Atonal cuyo nombre significaba: Sol de Agua. Así, este príncipe guerrero tuvo como misión enfrentar a los invasores españoles en 1524. En pleno Consejo de príncipes, Atonal tomó la palabra y exclamó: Mi vida por nuestra gente oh gran Señor. Esta afirmativa declaración produjo en el Atlacatl una inmensa satisfacción y en todos los presentes el Espíritu de lucha y de solidaridad se manifestó como nunca antes.

En Acaxual, el príncipe dispuso parapetos a más de tres mil hombres. Otros tres mil los llevó a los alrededores de Tacuzcalco, en donde esperaba presentar la batalla definitiva a los Conquistadores, si estos salían librados de la de Acaxual. Atonal y sus ayudantes preparaban la estrategia que había de detener a los invasores; colocó unos cuantos espías a lo largo de las veredas costeras desde el Río Paz hasta la ciudad de Caluco.Había puesto un parapeto entre Mochicalco y Acatepeque, ahí colocó un Calpulli (pequeña unidad de combate integrada por una decena de los mejores guerreros pipiles).

Pedro de Alvarado llega cerca de Acaxual el 8 de junio; su instinto le llama a pasar de largo y no acercarse a la llanura. Pero el destino se impone; frente a él hay un inmenso lago de fango: la zona pantanosa. Debe dar un giro más hacia el Sur; no puede evitarlo. Cuando la soldadesca castellana lo hace, el grueso de los guerreros pipiles los rodean. Ante aquella desagradable sorpresa Pedro de Alvarado ordena: ¡Fuego con todo!. ¡Viva España. Acaben con los indios. ! Y se desata el combate fiero.

En medio de aquella carnicería, Atonal lucha con denuedo, en una mano su Lanza mataba enemigos y en la otra, un mazo, hecho de tronco de maquilishuat, con el cual daba tremendos "mazazos" que los dejaba totalmente inmóviles.

Pedro de Alvarado, montado en su caballo pelea, pelea sin tregua, dando el ejemplo a sus combatientes. Entonces Atonal prepara su Lanza y levantando su brazo derecho, la tira, fuerte, directo, hacia la cabalgadura del altivo español. La Lanza sigue su camino sin detenerse, y se clava, poderosamente en el muslo de Pedro de Alvarado (lo que lo dejara cojo para toda la vida); aquel lanzazo es tan fuerte que atravesando su pierna y montura, hiere de muerte también al Caballo.

Los supervivientes Pipiles buscan hacia Tacuzcalco para unirse al otro grupo que allí espera a los invasores, Atonal se reúne con el destacamento de guerreros que ha dejado cerca de Tacuzcalco; organiza el combate y los alerta sobre la presencia inminente de los Conquistadores. Los españoles acampan en el trayecto para poder vendar las heridas de su jefe.Cinco días después de la acción de Acaxual, la tropa castellana enfila hacia Tacuzcalco; allí los esperan alrededor de cinco mil Pipiles.

La batalla de Tacuzcalco fue más sangrienta que la de Acaxual; pero al final los españoles se impusieron gracias a sus mejores Armas. Al ver tan grande destrucción entre sus hermanos, Atonal escapa con los sobrevivientes hacia los montañas.Pedro de Alvarado lo ve y ordena a sus hermanos Gonzalo y Jorge: seguidlo, rápido; alcanzadlo y matadlo. Él es el culpable de mi cojera.

Atonal y sus hombres se han protegido detrás de unas grandes rocas, están dispuestos a vender muy cara su derrota. En aquel trance mortal, Atonal recuerda su promesa:mi vida por nuestra gente, oh gran Señor y lanzando un atronador grito de guerra, se sale de su escondite y se abalanza sobre sus perseguidores; en una mano lleva su pértiga y en la otra su mazo. El príncipe logra llegar cerca de sus enemigos, su Jabalina se clava en el hombro de uno de los hombres.Pero cuando se aprestaba a dar un golpe mortal con su porra a Jorge de Alvarado, Gonzalo, mejor ubicado, usa su mosquete y dispara dos veces, Atonal cae herido de muerte.

Afirman los sobrevivientes que después del Martirio, su cuerpo fue llevado con amorosa devoción, por sus hermanos hasta la ciudad de Caluco.El alma de aquel Soldado, fue tomada por varias Águilas (que aparecieron del horizonte) y depositada en el "cielo de los dioses", a la diestra del Señor Quetzalcóatl, en donde vive para siempre.

OJARASCA: Ser Indio en Arizona

ojarasca

ojarasca

Recolección de pimientos en Valle de San Joaquín
 

Ser indio en Arizona

Con sólo cruzar la frontera, el peso de los estereotipos raciales cae como plomo sobre paisanos y centroamericanos que buscan internarse en el territorio del dólar, del trabajo duro y sin derechos pero mejor pagado que en sus países. No sólo es cosa de ser o no güero (y el resto es “latino”), sino de parecer indio, y seguramente serlo. El racismo estadunidense en el bórder es caricaturesco, y por algo, caldo de cultivo del fascismo Minuteman y del Partido del Té, como se llama ahora la ultraderecha republicana que tiene como heroína a la reina del softporno político, Sarah Palin.
 

Arizona fue durante años destino final de los jubilados, cuando había. Pasada la conquista de los cowboys, llegaron ellos. Se pobló de blancos sedentarios. La crisis inmobiliaria que desestabilizó el sistema financiero capitalista en 2009 tuvo Arizona como escenario ejemplar. Quebrados los blancos, su atávico odio a los prietos recuperó motivos. La cara dura y arrugada de la gobernadora Jan Brewer es un buen retrato de su base social.
 

Arizona no sólo sirve para el tránsito de ilegales procedentes de comunidades y poblados indígenas de México y Guatemala, sino que es tierra ancestral de pueblos que allá llaman originarios, víctimas de más de un siglo de conquista, genocidio, arrinconamiento, discriminación. No extraña que también para ellos, ciudadanos de Estados Unidos, la nueva ley SB 1070 sea una amenaza seria.
 

En un hecho histórico, las tribus de Arizona tomaron el lado de los migrantes. El enviado del diario español El País, Guillermo Altares, sin esconder la cruz de su parroquia reportó desde Phoenix: 

“Una especie de mística indigenista flota en el movimiento hispano organizado en contra de la nueva ley de inmigración. ‘Hasta ahora los indios iban a lo suyo y es la primera vez que se unen a algo más’, señala uno de los dirigentes locales de la lucha contra la legislación”.

Altares relata una manifestación en dicha ciudad que “arrancó con una ceremonia india, y sus representantes fueron los primeros que intervinieron desde la tribuna; esa inspiración indigenista [sic] trata de conectar con discursos como el del boliviano Evo Morales, pero también es cierto que el peso de nativos americanos es enorme en Arizona. En este estado viven 21 tribus, y un cuarto de sus tierras totales son reservas indias”. Salvador Reza, uno de los líderes de la movilización contra la SB 1070, que comenzaría a aplicarse el 29 de julio, dijo al reportero: “A ellos la frontera los cruzó” (“La lección de los navajos”, primero de junio).
 

Las propias tribus y pueblos originarios de Arizona ya expresaron su inconformidad con la SB 1070. Navajo, yavapai, tohono o’odham, pascua-yaqui y otros declararon conjuntamente el 4 de junio que buscarán detenerla. John Lewis, del Consejo Interamericano Tribal de Arizona de los 21 pueblos dijo a Notimex: “Las tribus tienen jurisdicción dentro de sus tierras. La ley no funcionará en beneficio de la población indígena de Estados Unidos”.
 

Los Tohono O’odham son un pueblo binacional con comunidades en Sonora y Arizona cuyos miembros vienen y van. Reivindican su derecho ancestral para transitar su territorio sin acatar límites internacionales ni restricciones migratorias.
 

La nueva ley establece como delito el ser indocumentado y permitirá a los policías arizonianos (célebres por sus excesos en condados blancos como Maricopa) interrogar sobre su situación migratoria a cualquier “sospechoso”. 

¿Y acaso hay algo más sospechoso en este mundo que un indígena? La resolución del consejo tribal subrayó que la SB 1070 “violaría su soberanía” y daría lugar a detenciones desproporcionadas.

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Solidarity and Condolences from the Secwepemc Nation

Dear Tupac:

Good to hear from you.  Here is the research we talked about. http://www.legionmagazine.com/en/index.php/2006/03/the-invasion-of-el-salvador/

It was very disheartening to hear of the massacre of 30 thousand of our peoples in the 1932.  see: http://upsidedownworld.org/main/el-salvador-archives-74/2338-indigenous-peoples-in-el-salvador-commemorate-1932-massacre-  

The Legion Magazine article titled "The Invasion of El Salvador" confirms Canada's participation in militarily supporting the British economic interests which was the root cause of the reason behind the massacre.  Canada's involvement was in fact the military dynamics behind this tragic violation of the human rights of the Indigenous Peoples of El Salvador.  

Please pass on my condolences on behalf of myself from the Secwepemc Peoples here in Canada, to the people who are still suffering from this human rights violation participated by Canada.  Canada did this as a settler state government under Britain and was totally wrong.  No question about it.   

I am glad they are raising this matter to Prof. James Anya, United Nations, Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples. This situation clearly draws the link between Canada and other state government genocide toward indigenous peoples.  
Feliciano Ama
It is clear that Indigenous Peoples were massacred because we were caught in between the left wing – right wing struggle between capitalists and communists.  Indigenous Peoples are not left or right wingers, we are Indigenous Peoples, the owners of our territory. The struggle of Indigenous Peoples goes deeper than private or collective ownership of property but to the very sovereignty we enjoy regarding our territories and culture.  

We cannot fall subject to the categorizing our struggle as a fight between the left and the right.  That is purely a western government approach to justify their ongoing theft of our territories.  It does not address the fundamental issue that the Colonial Doctrines of Discovery is a racist property concept that gives white explores the power to claim our land right from under our feet.

This racist property concept is as out dated as the slave laws which used to say that white people could own black people as property. Using the Colonial Doctrines of Discovery as the basis for our land to vest in Colonial governments is wrong and has always been wrong.  

Atonal, Nahuat Pipil Nation
Self-determination and our struggle to eradicate the Colonial Doctrines of Discovery is a manifestation of our rights as human beings.  Our people who were massacred were part of our struggle we are presently in and we have made progress.  

Through the determination of those who you are engage with we now have the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, The Expert Mechanism on Indigenous Peoples and of course the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples.  

But the struggle carries on and I wish the Indigenous Peoples of El Salvador my warmest regards and respect.

In solidarity   
Arthur
_____________________________


Arthur Manuel
Indigenous Network on Economics and Trade (INET)
Secwepemc Nation
Neskonlith Indian Reserve
British Columbia, Canada

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Link:

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

The Case Against AZ SB1070 Section 2B

Press Conference
Tuesday August 21, 2012
Federal District Court
Phoenix, AZ
YouTube:
Challenging Section 2B of AZ SB1070


"It is inappropriate to legislate in the United States based on either national origin or race.  If it can be shown that this was a motivating consideration it is the equivalent of legislative poison and the law must be stopped."
 
Attorney Karen Tumlin, National Immigration Law Center
TONATIERRA vs. AZ SB1070

Statement to the press, Wednesday July 18, 2012 

"The intent of AZ SB1070 is malicious, criminally malicious. The most obscene aspect of this malicious intent is the blatant fact that AZ SB1070 was written as a deliberate act of war, a war of attrition against dark skinned Mexican families, barrios, communities, and organizations. A war of attrition cannot be regulated, it cannot be sanitized with Police Orders of procedure, it cannot be considered a legitimate act of law at all. 
It is an act of War in violation of the Peace established by the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (US-Mexico). Section (2b) must be enjoined by the US courts, not just to enforce equal protection, but to reassert the rule of law itself, with Universal Human Rights as the norm."
Tupak Huehuecoyotl, Yaotachcauh
Tlahtokan Nahuacalli
TONATIERRA

Los Comités de Defensa del Barrio
TONATIERRA

Saturday, August 18, 2012

El Comun de Izalco


El Comun de Izalco, Sonsonate

Tradición Indígena Ancestral
Pueblo Nahuat Pipil
¡PRESENTE !
YouTube:

El pueblo de Izalco, Sonsonate en lo que se conoce en estos días como El Salvador, Centro America fue establecido en el año 1054 por el Topiltzin Acatl Acxil Quetzalcoatl y sus calpolequeh de Tula, Mexico.



Como Toltecas, ellos venían de retorno en búsqueda de la tierra ancestral de ellos llamado Tlapallan, nombre que significa “la tierra colorada”.
Como Toltecas, ellos siempre caminaban con el Corazón del Espíritu como guía, ellos siempre andaban danzando, por que eran un Pueblo Encantado.








El Pueblo de Izalco, el territorio de Itzalco son marcadas culturalmente por el conocimiento del Ixtli, la obsidiana volcánica.  Esta material y su manejo como material prima en la creación de instrumentos de uso practico y ceremonial es el por que del nombre de Izalco, como por decir Lugar de la Casa Obsidiana. 


El vocal “Itza” es una referencia de un lineaje de dicipulos Toltecas que tenian la fama de ser “Encantadores de Agua”, o Itzales como tambien se reconoce en el nombre de Chichen Itza en el Yucatán de Mexico.




Cuando todo era tinieblas, cuando no había luna, la mujer y el hombre vivían en la oscuridad, solamente distinguíamos la dualidad de las cosas; entonces los peñascales estaban desiertos. Primero surgió una claridad y ésta era la luna, aprendimos a danzar con las energías de la luna, luego apareció otra claridad: ¨yo estoy aquí para calentarlos a todos¨  dijo el Padre Sol.  Luego, los Muchachos de la Lluvia, que nacieron del fruto de un árbol de morro y que son también los Señores de las Flores, fueron los que descubrieron el maíz que estaba en una gran montaña, nuestra Madre Tierra.
Ordenanza Municipal de Izalco
Así, los Muchachos de la Lluvia, produciendo un rayo con sus hachas de pedernal, lograron partir la montaña, recogieron las mazorcas y empezaron a cultivar el maíz aprendiendo a manejar el agua para obtener tres cosechas en el año.
Ordenanza Municipal de Izalco

El vocal Sonsonate es derivado del vocal nahuat ZENTZONTLI -ATL:
LA CUATROCIENTOS RESORTES DE AGUA.

TONATIERRA
WWW.TONATIERRA.ORG










Sunday, August 5, 2012

The American Dream and the Nightmare of Manifest Destiny

Melendres  v. Arpaio

Commentary
Sunday August 4, 2012
By Tupac Enrique Acosta
Daughter of Zeus
Last Thursday after US District Judge Murray Snow closed the trial portion the Melendres v. Arpaio case, attorney Stanley Young on behalf of the plaintiffs held a brief press conference outside of the Federal Court in Phoenix.  When questioned on the defense strategy to “disconnect” Mr. Arpaio from the operations of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s office, Attorney Young efficiently stated that it would not be correct to separate the reality of the testimony and evidence of the patterns of discriminatory police practices of the MCSO from the narrative of the policy maker at the top of the chain of command, Mr. Joseph Arpaio.

The Melendres v. Arpaio case is a civil prosecution against the Maricopa County Sheriff’s office seeking court injunction and federal monitoring of the MCSO to bring an end to the practice of racial profiling and discriminatory policing by the sheriff’s department headed by Mr. Arpaio.  When asked whether the prosecution had failed to present any evidence or information regarding the Melendres case, Attorney Young stated: “No,…”

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Four years ago I was called to attend a session of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, at a time when Mr. Arpaio was escalating his crime saturation sweeps across the valley, and after having made outrageous comments on the Lou Dobbs show contextualizing his activities with references to the KKK.   I recall that Mr. Arpaio was present in the hall as I spoke in denunciation then against the rising tide of discriminatory policing for which Mr. Arpaio has willingly come to serve as national “poster boy”.  In my testimony before the Board of Supervisors, I made connections with the fight of our fathers, grandfathers and uncles in the “Old World” against the war mongers of the Nazi Party of Germany and the need for the same courage and resolve now here in the “New World” of Arizona to fight the pogrom of persecution which has exploded across the country with AZ SB1070 as the fuse.
The design for pogrom, whether in Nazi Germany or “Secure Communities” America is identical, the differences being in frameworks of culture and economics, technologies of mass media, and of course the “ethnic profile” of the constituency targeted for genocide.  It begins with dehumanization, which must be accomplished simultaneously within the psyche of the perpetrator and in projection of stigma upon the social status of the victim.  The “eugenics” pogrom implemented in Nazi Germany was actually imported from the US by Hitler, along with the “Indian Reservation” military compound as a tactic of methodical extermination for unwanted populations, but now the systems are ever so much more advanced.  Now a “Fourth Reich” is not needed, we have the IMF and NAFTA.

Instead of  “eugenics”, thanks to the Tea Party ideologues like the Koch brothers we have “ECONOGENICS”, and the ethnic cleansing that is being normalized is directed not only against the physical presence of the Indigenous “earth skinned” Mexican populations but against our past, and our future as well as Nations and Pueblos of Indigenous Peoples of Mother Earth.  The complicity runs deep, it runs broad, it runs long, it runs in and out of the US Federal Court system, it runs on both sides of the border, it’s bilingual, its right and left and on both sides of the “comprehensive” immigration reform movement.  This framework of dominion and pogrom of econogenics runs precisely along the same lines of the fanatical “religio-political” ideology of empire that invaded this hemisphere in 1492 with the Doctrine of Discovery, then during the War on Mexico in 1846 rode into the O’odham Territories now known as Maricopa County on the war horse of the Doctrine of Manifest Destiny.
The Nazis had their industrialists and the Nazi Party, now its ALEC and the Tea Party.  But both constituencies are extrusions of the same pathology, a pathology of cultural and ethnic supremacy legitimized even still today in Judge Snow’s courtroom.  We are speaking of the pathology of “White” privilege, and the institutionalization of that pathology as the norm for social discourse and the baseline of social membership and status in North American society.  The norm becomes the policy, the policy becomes the pattern, and then the pattern institutionalizes the practices, resulting in the insertion into position of the concept of “WHITE PERSONS” as LEGAL DETERMINANT for the rights and privileges of all US Citizens and Nationals.  This is where the analysis of racial profiling in Melendres falls short of being comprehensive, in that this baseline concept of  “white people” (AKA The Master’s Narrative) while serving as the intellectual motivator for all of the profiling policies, patterns, and practices that are violations of the Equal Protection principles of the 14th Amendment, also results in violations of the fundamental Universal Human Rights for all Arizonans, beginning with the European-Americans themselves.  Why should this public constituency allow their innocent children to continue to be racially profiled into the “white person” concept and social construct, and is this not also a fundamental Human Rights violation?
Profiling Schema: From the Arizona Department of Education Website
By ignoring the cumulative impact of the intellectual rationalization, the cultural, historical, and legal practices, patterns, and policies that have resulted in the officializing of white supremacy across all of Arizona, the courts shield the issue of patterns of systemic profiling within the entire US justice system itself (not just law enforcement agencies like MCSO).  The only systems of analysis and quantification are those that have been rigged to produce the NAFTA printout, which in the specific case of the US immigration policies is the known as the “Federal Scheme” referenced in the 2012 SCOTUS decision on AZ SB1070.   This is the script of the Divine Right of States, bastard relic of the defunct Divine Right of Kings.  But the fish don’t know they’re wet.
Abya Yala
Context Arizona:
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo 1848 and the Gadsden Purchase 1853

During the Reconstruction Period after the US Civil War, the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution was made necessary because of the legal technique of affirmative action discriminating in favor of the constituencies of "white persons" of AMERICA as the ONLY legal category of eligibility until 1868 for US Citizenship and Nationality, two closely related but distinct political tiers of the US population.  The fundamental reason for this aberrant position of “racial profiling”, in this case to profile oneself as “melanin deprived” and then to proceed to constitute a political body of supremacy over the so called “people of color” - meaning of course everyone who was either “non-white” or “off white”, is rooted in the “Master’s Narrative” of the European American Doctrine of Christian Discovery of America. 

To this day, these memes of caste continue to be reinforced every time the phrase “white people” or “white” is used to describe the European American populations of the United States.

This goes for the Melendres case in Judge Snow’s court and the US Supreme Court as well.  That perpetuation of a caste based society would be completely antithetical to the precepts of the “American Experiment of Democracy”, yet remain embedded in the vernacular of public and private discourse regarding social relationships has roots in the Indo-European histories, but is codified in the US Civil Rights statutes as follows:

United States Code
TITLE 42, CHAPTER 21, SUBCHAPTER I, § 1981.
Equal rights under the law

(a) Statement of equal rights
All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other.

The term WHITE CITIZEN is contextualized further by the language of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution which states:

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.

Thus the connection is made institutionally and culturally via the jurisprudence of the Master's Narrative, between concepts of white citizen and WHITE PERSON, establishing legal personality within the US social construct as a function of relationship to the dominant “white” power structures of rights and obligations.  The anomaly being the Nican Tlacah Indigenous Peoples who supersede the US jurisdiction as sovereign confederations of nations holding treaty relationships with the US and other government states of the world.
La Familia by Joaquin Chiñas
In the Melendres case the issue of racial profiling is addressed, yet categorizations of patterns of discrimination presented as evidence during the case by experts for both sides have only referred to "Hispanic", "Latino", "Hispanic Surname" etc. in the statistical analysis of discriminatory patterns of police practices by the MCSO.  Here the significance to be noted is these categorizations are derived from US census definitions that subsume the indigenous identity of the members of Indigenous Nations and Pueblos of territories colonized by the Spanish Empire (the first global empire) under a set of nomenclatures of caste, centuries in the making, that are dominated politically by “White” elites of the Americas.  In this case, Hispano-American “white” elites. 
Categories of Racial Profiling and Caste Designation in the Spanish Empire of Mexico
And further, none of these categories are specified in articles 8 and 9 of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo 1848 with Mexico as the actual collective constituencies possessing international personality, including civil, political, and cultural rights and responsibilities in the territories ceded to the US, including Arizona.  Thus, no “corpus” - no “habeus”.
The cultural identity of Mexican communities and individuals north of the present US-Mexico border, whether either established or not established (i.e., with or without US Citizenship or Nationality) is denied as a specific category of legal identity for the purposes of categorizing analysis of racial profiling under the “Federal Scheme” of the SCOTUS decision on AZ SB1070 last month.  As Mexicans, as Nican Tlacah - we are never identified as a class of collective constituents possessing international personality and collective rights and protections under the International Instruments of Human Rights, with documented status of our millennial history in the territory since the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (US-Mexico 1848).

As Indigenous Mexican Peoples, Nican Tlacah - we have been racially profiled into invisibility legally.  If we are invisible in the courts, can we ever hope for justice on the streets? 

We don’t have to go back to 1492 or look only into the streets of Maricopa County to answer this question.  Look to the streets of Mexico City right now, where some of the largest public demonstrations of protest in all of human history are ongoing, and realize the scope of the Manifest Sovereignty that is being reborn by the Prerogatives of the Peoples in challenge to the Divine Right of States across the hemisphere.  The New World is here, it is here-now Nican Tlacah, and it is a world of renewal based on Universal Human Rights and global systems of jurisprudence with respect for Mother Earth and the Natural World.
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When I spoke at the Maricopa Count Board of Supervisors one of the Supervisors questioned me about the right of sovereign nations to have their borders respected.  I of course responded that mutual respect was fundamental to all legal rights and responsibilities, both individual and collective.  I quoted President George Washington who had the following opinion regarding the incursion of European American land grabbers into Indian Country:

He concurred when Knox insisted that “the independent tribes of Indians ought to be considered as foreign nations, not as subjects of any particular state.”  And that “Indians being the prior occupants possess the right of the Soil…..To dispossess them…..would be a gross violation of the Fundamental Laws of Nature and that of distributive Justice which is the glory of a Nation.”

Finally, Washington stated that:

“I believe scarcely anything short of a Chinese Wall,” he lamented, “will restrain Land jobbers and the encroachment of settlers upon the Indian Country.”

Washington was forced to approve a series of military operations into the Ohio Valley to put down uprisings by the Miami, Wyandot, and Shawnee, even though he believed that the chief culprits were white vigilante groups determined to provoke hostilities.
From: His Excellency – George Washington,  (p. 212-213)   Author: Joseph J. Ellis

After my presentation, I was told that Mr. Arpaio referred to my remarks as being close to “sedition”.  Perhaps he meant that my remarks sounded “American” in that the British colonists dressed up to LOOK LIKE members of the Indigenous Nations when they threw the TEA of the British East India Company into the harbor at Boston.  Definitely this was an act of SEDITION to protest against the Tyranny of Injustice perpetrated by the illegitimate authority of the British Crown in cahoots with the company whose banner serves as template for the US flag.   Well the British Crown is gone, but not the CORPSERVATIVES - and as far as we the Nations and Pueblos of Indigenous Peoples, we will not be masquerading as colonists.  We don’t have to.  This is after all, the Land of the Braves and on September 13, 2007 the United Nations General Assembly adopted the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.  Quoting Article 36:
1. Indigenous peoples, in particular those divided by international borders, have the right to maintain and develop contacts, relations and cooperation, including activities for spiritual, cultural, political, economic and social purposes, with their own members as well as other peoples across borders.
2. States, in consultation and cooperation with indigenous peoples, shall take effective measures to facilitate the exercise and ensure the implementation of this right.


Dream or Nightmare : Mystery or Frontier
It is said that the historical biography of the United States in America began with the writings of Alexis De Tocqueville, a European aristocrat who described in glowing terms of appreciation the American traits of democracy.  In contrast to the stratified social castes of the elites of European society, De Tocqueville presented the case that the universal appreciation of Human Rights, a fundamental principle of any democratic society, would achieve its best hope of political expression as the European immigration streams entered, conquered and "civilized" the new continent.

To read De Touqueville's writings today, the stench of racism pervades the presentation, yet it is masked with a political perfume - the cultural bias of the worldview mythically termed the "Western World".  From an Indigenous Peoples perspectives, the concept of democracy was a principle which was delivered to the relatives of the 13 colonies, simultaneously with the understanding that this principle was not solely individual by nature, but collective in precept, and achieved international expression historically with the Treaty of Understanding known as the "Two Row Wampum".
The case of Melendres v. Arpaio sounds the alarm for a long overdue wake-up call from the nightmare of Manifest Destiny, and the frontier philosophy which as the Master’s Narrative frames the popularity of Arpaio’s dehumanizing policies and practices. 

De Tocqueville himself was said to have predicted this scenario, stating that the immigration of European-Americans from East to West would inevitably at some point meet the migration of native peoples coming north.  And so the legal question is not framed but encircled by the diverse, complementary and conflicting value systems of custom, colonization, and indigenous histories of self-determination.  The challenge is to awaken the Human Spirit and leave behind the nightmares that arise from the fear of frontier, emerging into the NEW WORLD of Ancient Roots in the Four Directions of the Great Mystery of Life itself.  This is the realm of justice for all beings, which in today’s global context must be coherent with international Human Rights law, fulfilling the mutual obligations of our common humanity.  This is our narrative as Peoples, equal to all other peoples and with all other peoples. This is the narrative that must be reconnected with the courage and resolve of our ancestors by our actions and community practices regardless of the decision by Judge Snow. This is the Covenant Chain that we must bring to brightness in the Silver Light of the currency that is our Mandate of Spirit, and that of our common humanity not only as citizens, nationals and subjects of states – but as children of Mother Earth and good relatives to each other.

Links:
UNPFIP

NAHUACALLI
Embassy of Indigenous Peoples
TONATIERRA
Email: chantlaca@tonatierra.org