http://www.supportwendy.com/
Nzinga/Wendy Maxwell Deported This Morning
Mon. March 14, '05
At 9am this morning, Wendy Maxwell Edwards was
escorted on board a
flight
to Costa Rica, the country she fled nearly a decade
ago.
Authorities refused to disclose flight details,
keeping Wendy, her
counsel
and friends in the dark until the last moment.
Although several close
friends
were able to visit with Wendy last night at Vanier
Centre for Women,
her
lawyer and friends were unable to see her off this
morning from
Toronto's
Pearson Airport. However, Wendy was able to place a
brief call out from
the
airplane to her lawyer. A vigil took place at Pearson
Airport, at which
friends
and supporters read Wendy's poetry and spoke out,
leafleting passengers
and
standing together in this difficult time.
The situation upon arrival in Costa Rica will be
monitored closely by
counsel
and supporters here in Canada.
Immigration Canada has stated that ONE MONTH OR SO is
all that is
needed
to examine Wendy's Application for Landing on
Humanitarian and
Compassionate
Grounds. This Application continues to be processed
despite
deportation.
Thus, it is critical to stay tuned for details around
the fight to
bring
Wendy Maxwell back to Canada.
As Wendy herself said in a parting testimony given
from prison, "You
guys
just concentrate on getting me back. Wherever my heart
is, is where I
call
home. Please guys, bring me back home, I will not be
able to do this
alone."
A brilliant and passionate artist and community
organizer, Wendy has
expressed
her deepest love and respect to friends, supporters,
and community
members
who rallied to stop her deportation. Her fight is that
of thousands of
non-status
people living in Canada. Her deportation, as is true
of the daily
deportations
of non-status women, children and men from Canada, is
an
state-authorized
act we cannot forget nor accept.
The struggle to bring Wendy Maxwell Edwards back to
Canada, and the
struggle
for status for all, will continue. Please stay in
touch for further
updates
and information.
*****
Statement from Warrior Queen Nzinga:
7 years 8 months 3 days. Remember that. 7-8-3. Grace
period received.
Ancestors
hear my plea and gave me this opportunity to stay
alive. 7-8-3. And, oh
what
a life I was given full of strife and struggle.
Achievements and
defeats.
Love, joy, and pain. 7-8-3. I loved it all. I arrived
here a broken,
wounded,
lost and confused soul running from a hostile world,
in which I was
born,
you embraced me, healed me, gave me a home, for this I
love you so. My
heart
weeps cause 7-8-3 was just not enough for me to do.
There is still so
much
more. For this reason, to my friends I implore, keep
pushing and
fighting
to achieve my return. After 7 years, 8 months, 3 days,
back to where
they
think I belong. Me not knowing if I'm safe or if I
must watch my back
but
I know I'm smart, so for my safety I will figure out a
plot. You guys
just
concentrate on getting me back. Wherever my heart is,
is where I call
home.
Please guys, bring me back home, I will not be able to
do this alone.
Their fascist inequity is keeping me from giving my
proper goodbyes,
this
does not come as a surprise. They must think I'm Bin
Laden in a
disguise.
These cocksuckers are so afraid of me, cause now they
know who I am,
now
they know I'm a warrior, now they know I'm a queen.
When my legal
counsel
told me they wouldn't let him see me off, I flipped.
How much they
think
they can do to me and get away with it????? They felt
they are above
the
law!!!!! My rights are being trampled every goddamn
day. They withhold
information
from my counsel, just because the people of Canada
want me to stay. I
have
gotten to say goodbye to only three of my best
friends. Due to all the
restrictions
that they impose I will only get to see two more and
after three,
before
I only get to see them through a glass wall.
I believe I have a dislocated shoulder, from which I
am constantly in
pain.
Also a sore wrist from the cuffs I received after the
march. I told the
nurse
but nothing was done about it. No, they are more
worried about the
commotion
I am causing, than of me doing a lawsuit.
Now they have placed me in solitary confinement, they
say it is for my
safety,
to tell you the truth, I think it is for their safety.
This all spells
H-U-M-A-N-
R-I-G-H-T-S- V-I-O-L-A-T-I-O-N. The jail authorities
tell me this has
nothing
to do with them, Immigration puts me here. They just
treat me like the
rest.
Immigration told me, they have nothing to do with the
jail. So no one
takes
responsibility for the situation, there is no
accountability.
Well, Mr. Volpe, I Wendy Maxwell make you
accountable!! Along with
Correctional
Services Canada, and the entire police. If anything
happens to me, here
in
Canada or in Costa Rica, my lawyers are prepared to
sue your asses and
even
if I die, my children will be rich and taken care of
for the rest of
their
lives. But enough about me, I am only one of the many.
Today I want you
to
remember the other non-status women sitting in here.
In the same or
even
worse circumstances than mine. Nisha Patel (India),
Geeta Patel
(India),
Olecsandra Roshko (Ukraine), Udine Haneille (Jamaica),
Yi Hao (China),
Jasmine
(Trinidad), Maria Theresa Arana Damota (Spain),
Martilde Gonzalez
(Argentina),
and many more who I have met and whose names I don't
remember or don't
know.
For this reason, once I return, I will dedicate my
energy to improve
the
conditions of non-status women in Canada, and I urge
every organization
that
mentioned their support to me, and my case, to endorse
the ?Don't Ask
Don't
Tell? campaign. This policy is urgent in Canada. If a
policy like this
was
now in place, as it is in many cities across the USA,
I would not be in
this
position today.
And last, to all my friends, when I get back, you are
getting, each
one,
one of my famous bear hugs. I love you all.
Wendy Maxwell
AKA Warrior Queen Nzinga
Transcribed Sunday March 13th, 2005
>From Vanier Centre for Women
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