Tohono O'odham leaders: Moral question of water and responsibility

PUBLISHED ON OCTOBER 16, 2008:
Guest Commentary, Tucson Weekly

Tohono O'odham leaders need to tackle the moral question of water and responsibility

By MARK A. RIVERA and KENT WALKER

Photos Mike Wilson at Baboquivari water station by Brenda Norrell/Censored News

Of all the morally troubling aspects of the ongoing border crisis, the most disturbing has to be the growing migrant death toll, including on the Tohono O'odham reservation. Equally troubling is the tribal government's refusal to support humanitarian water stations on its land. The nation has long resisted taking a collective stand against water stations, but recent actions prove it also wants to squash individual action among the O'odham. Over the last seven years, tribal leadership -- with some justification -- has chosen to blame the federal government for its border-related woes and has sought to receive financial compensation, thereby distracting everyone from the fact that it still refuses to put out water stations or support those who would do it themselves. And as social-justice advocates make clear, the Tohono O'odham do have a choice. They are simply making the wrong one. In early September, Veronica Harvey, the tribe's Baboquivari District chair, ordered tribal law enforcement to remove three water stations maintained by Mike Wilson, an O'odham social-justice activist. The confiscation of Wilson's water stations should have provoked harsh condemnation from Chairman Ned Norris Jr. Norris could have made the case that migrant deaths affect all O'odham. Instead, Norris supported Harvey's authority to take such actions on the grounds that the "tribal Constitution authorizes each district to govern themselves on issues of local concern." The burning question is: Why?
Read article: http://www.tucsonweekly.com/gbase/Opinion/Content?oid=oid:117082

Photo: Mike Wilson, Tohono O'odham, holds cattle water left behind my migrants in Baboquivari District at one of his water stations. More than 80 migrants died on Tohono O'odham land in the first six months of 2008. Photo Brenda Norrell