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Navajo Indian trackers trail illegal immigrants on Europeâs wild frontier
Forests, mountains, streams and valleys - 325 miles of them: this is the Polish-Ukrainian border. "Itâs easy to cross illegally without being watched. And if someone crosses it, the EU is open to them," says Jerzy Ostrowski, a group leader for the Polish border police. Help, however, in rooting out potential illegal immigrants - or, indeed, would-be terrorists - has arrived in the incongruous form of Indian scouts. Last week, three American-Indian trackers from the Navajo and Tohono Oâodham tribes joined a 26-strong group of Polish customs officers around the small town of Huwniki, which lies about 250 miles southeast of Warsaw near the town of Przemysl. They were there to teach the Poles the ancient skills of their tribes: how to interpret messages from crushed leaves, broken branches and old footprints. Their help is needed since Poland and other Eastern European nations joined the EU, prompting a flood of illegal immigration from the Ukraine and other countries to the east. Bryan Nez, 55, a Navajo Indian whose usual beat is the porous desert border between America and Mexico, learnt his tracking skills at a young age. "We didnât have any vehicles, running water or gas for fire; our main job back then was to track our horses," he said. "In the evening weâd let them out of the corral, and in the morning weâd have to find them. So when I was nine years old my grandfather kicked me out of bed and said, âGo tracking.â Iâve been doing it ever since. "My grandfather taught me other stuff as well of course, such as the ageing of vegetation, the ageing of foot signs, or how to listen to the weather and use your hearing and your five senses, to be one with the environment." A weekâs training for the Polish officers starts with a day of theory. Before the guards head into the woods, Mr Nez shows them how to use a tracking stick to help in estimating the size of a personâs step. Along with the old technology comes new: Mr Nez is adept in the use of modern electronics such as GPS units. These skills are all part of his work as a "Shadow Wolf", a unit of trackers that has its headquarters in Sells, Arizona, and which usually works with American Customs Patrol Officers (CPOs) along the US-Mexico border tracking drug traffickers. The trackers are on loan from America to help the European Union to strengthen its new external borders against drug traffickers, arms smugglers and terrorists. As yet, there has been no sign of people smuggling components for weapons of mass destruction or radioactive material along the border near Huwniki. Usually, the people caught are ill-dressed, without the right equipment for their journey and are exhausted after a long trek through woods and hills. According to the stationâs Polish commander, Krzysztof Dyl, however, there were two cases of suspected terrorists last year. The men were better clothed than the usual detainees and had money on them. "Last year we caught two Pakistanis with scorpion tattoos that suggested they belonged to a fundamentalist Islamic group," said Dyl. "They were sent directly from Huwniki to Guantanamo Bay." In the past 12 months Polandâs border police caught more than 10,000 people illegally crossing into the country, mostly from the east. Along Mr Ostrowskiâs beat of just 8.5 miles of southeastern Carpathia, there have been 14 arrests so far this year, compared with 27 for the whole of 2003. The numbers crossing this "green border" usually increase in spring and summer, but now Mr Ostrowski expects numbers to rise even faster. Located in woodlands and hills, the border near Huwniki is especially hard to patrol. Not only is there no border fence, but the rough terrain is difficult to navigate. Mr Ostrowski said the course has helped his guards to notice things they hadnât before. "Of course itâs not that we canât find anything in our own woods," said Mr Ostrowski. "But with help we can look at the same things with different eyes. Sometimes quite a simple thing can be a very important sign. As the Indians say, a broken branch or even just part of a footprint can tell us where and how many people are going or what theyâre doing." According to Mr Ostrowski, one patrolling station usually covers 12 to 20 miles of border with between 20 and 40 guards, but numbers are increasing. Help from the American Indians has, he said, been "indispensable", even though some have poked fun at the course as a "cowboys and indians" fantasy. For the American Indians, however, this is not a game. Charmaine Harris, 35, another of the trackers and a Tohono Oâodham tribe member, said: "Everyone leaves a trail, no matter how hard they try to conceal it. Itâs just a matter of having confidence in yourself, having patience and knowing what youâre looking at and youâll see it." Posted by: tipper 2004-05-29 |
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