Trump Border Wall Construction Blasting Sacred Sites – Native Ceremony & Protest Shames Trump Border Policy

Native Lands And Organ Pipe National Monument Being Savaged

Solemn Protest At US Border Patrol In Why, Arizona

About 25 Native Americans and 50 supporters held a protest and traditional Native American spiritual ceremony today in response to the destruction of sacred lands of the Tohono O’odham Nation, whose ancestral homelands and sacred burial sites are being blasted and desecrated to build Trump’s border wall.

We’ve been camping in the Sonoran desert on the edge of Tohono O’odham lands near Ajo, Arizona, about 40 miles from the Border and Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge.

So, I was proud to join the protest and stand in solidarity with the indigenous peoples whose lands were stolen to make way for the current militarized US – Mexican border region.

After lining about 1/2 mile of Route 85 just south of the US Border Patrol’s station in Why, Arizona with signs and receiving support from passing motorists, the protesters split into two groups who stood in concentric circles.

The inner ring was comprised of native peoples who participated in a ceremony led by their Medicine Man.

Supporters stood in solidarity and witnessed the ceremony in the outer ring.

I have never witnessed such a ceremony before, and it was very moving.

After the ceremony, the groups recombined and walked up the road to the US Border Patrol station.

Ryan of The Intercept has been doing outstanding reporting here for awhile now. Read his most recent report: (read the whole thing!)

CONTRACTORS WORKING FOR the Trump administration are blowing apart a mountain on protected lands in southern Arizona to make way for the president’s border wall. The blasting is happening on the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, a tract of Sonoran Desert wilderness long celebrated as one of the nation’s great ecological treasures, that holds profound spiritual significance to multiple Native American groups.

Scenes:

your author – at “the Crossroads”, “All Along The Watchtower”