Preface. Last week’s Lochiel events of Sunday-Monday-Tuesday and the truck lockdown of Thursday were reported Oct. 7 by the PRT an on Oct. 8, with an Oct 10 update. This account picks up from there. Sources include both personal contacts and unvetted private chat groups, where users adopt (and play with) pseudonyms in online communication. In public encounters, many of the land defenders chose to wear masks. PRT’s reporting respects the sources’ desire for anonymity. Similarly, Border Patrol’s SWAT team, BORTAC, participated in some of the Lochiel altercations and were masked up and with no personal or agency ID visible.
A group decision to wind down the camp was announced on Saturday, Oct. 10. It came with the explanation that the community connection and collective spirit of resistance was “powerful and agile,” and would be using its power in other border hotspots. The Lochiel activists’ action and information network includes the Big Bend area of Texas, the Tohono O’odham Reservation lands, and the sacred springs at Quitobaquito, near Organ Pipe National Monument.
The camp closing was not staged for the press, and the collective reformulation process is not instant. The activists’ actions raised awareness in other locales, with cross-freeway bridges in places such as Chicago, Nashville and Portland, Ore., sporting solidarity banners.
The dispersing community is cleaning up camp as of this writing and has said it will be supporting their arrested “comrades” in upcoming court proceedings. The total number of arrests is believed to be about 40, but the Border Patrol and other agencies have not provided details. Some protesters have documented injuries, and they say they are being supported by an experienced legal team whose function includes “jail support.”
The seemingly undaunted protest-based community is also developing a series of positive action steps, including inspirational artwork and the propagation of about 30 small saplings from “grandmother tree” cuttings.
Wall construction. In making its way westward, last week’s construction shifted from the south wall to the north wall and moved rapidly past the encampment and the rest of Lochiel. There were many full nights of work, with as much as 400 feet of panel erection in a 24-hour period. Visuals from the area appear to show that crews neglected to place the PVC conduits to be used for fiber optics and other wiring, but how they deal with that is yet to be revealed.
The “leading edge” of wall panels is now substantially west of the De La Ossa family cemetery. The access road to the cemetery was seen by PRT to be still undrivable on Oct. 5.
The trunks of the four large cottonwoods knocked down for border road grading were dragged to a staging area west of Lochiel, awaiting chipping and removal. That staging area has a well and shallow reservoir as well, with no plans announced for the future of those facilities.
If the southern wall is built per plan and without realignment, it will pass very close to the trunk of the tree which accommodated the two short tree-sits on the Mexican side. Last week the second “sit” was ended on the third day by the removal of the sitter’s platform, using a high-lift platform manned by two Nogales Fire Department members and operated by Fisher Sand and Gravel. The sitter, having ascended above the platform’s reach for a while, came down of her own accord and was nonviolently taken into custody. The tree she’d been in, an extremely tall cottonwood, has had large branches pruned, but the trunk remains.
Area and road closures. Both the Coronado National Forest and Bureau of Land Management (for state property at the San Rafael preserve) last week issued orders for area closures of various distances north of the wall along the entire length of the project, varying from 60 feet to 1,000 yards at the steepest part of the Patagonia Mountains. That’s a ridge at about 6200 feet at the border, with construction also approaching from the west. If the construction is completed, there will be some kind of “golden spike” moment. The effect of these closures will be to keep possible future protest activity at a greater distance from the construction area.