San Ysidro, California, 19 October--A crowd of several hundred, mostly young members of MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano/a de Aztlan), gathered on the U.$.-Mexico border today to say "No!" to Operation Gatekeeper. Operation Gatekeeper is the U.$. Immigration and Naturalization Service's brutal military blockade along the border between California and Mexico. This program and others like it in other southwestern states have killed over 3,000 people since 1993. Most died of dehydration and exposure as they tried to avoid border agents by crossing into the United $tates through remote desert regions.
MIM and SLALA (Studies for the Liberation of Aztlan and Latin America) members attended the rally. They collected several score signatures on a petition to the INS to end Operation Gatekeeper and passed out MIM Notes. They also collected signatures on a petition asking the Dutch government to remove Philippine Prof. Jose Maria Sison from its list of "terrorists" and restore the social benefits guaranteed him as a political refugee.
Although the issue of democratic rights for political refugees was only tangentially related to the focus of the rally, most people readily signed the Sison petition. A few even finished our pitch for us. "Right, sure, if he gets deported as threatened, he could be tried by one of these military tribunals. I hate those things, man. Of course I'll sign."
A few however refused to sign. At least one admitted he would not sign because MIM was circulating the petition. The only way this could not be considered sectarianism would be if this persyn or his organization (if any) were also struggling on behalf of Prof. Sison. This particular individual did not show much interest in the content of the petition or Prof. Sison's case.