"Why I Speak Out" Testimonies from Lipan Apache Elder, Eloisa Garcia Tamez

By Melissa del Bosque, "All Walled Up", Texas Observer, January 20, 2010, at http://www.texasobserver.org/cover-story/all-walled-up/.

Restoring Lipan Apache Women's Laws, Lands, and Strength in El Calaboz Rancheria at the Texas-Mexico Border

Published in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 2010, vol. 35, no. 3, The University of Chicago.
Comparative Perspectives Symposium: Indigenous Feminisms

Abstract: Ndé gową goshjaa (Lipan Apache families or clan relations) produce a significant portion of indigenous alliances and resistances to imperialism, colonization, industrialization, and militarization in the Lower Rio Grande Valley in south Texas. The visibility of Ndé isdzáné (Lipan Apache women) in the Lower Rio Grande Valley changed radically after the passage of the Secure Fence Act in 2006. In this essay, I speak from my position as one of the cofounders of the Lipan Apache Women Defense and as the third‐born daughter of vocal and consistent leaders of the reemergent Ndé isdzáné in the traditional territories of the Ndé. My analysis is not meant to substitute for the important analysis of local matrilineal leaders, nor is it meant to be static. Rather, as an Ndé isdzáné scholar, I must allow the space to make and to know the people, politics, histories, events, and meanings as they continue to unfold. I believe that Ndé isdzáné, as a basis for Ndé activism (which includes supportive brothers) and as a category of analysis, furthers the work of feminism in U.S., North American, indigenous, and global indigenous human rights defense work. Investigating the histories of our indigenous foremothers—respecting and acknowledging community‐based rights, wishes, and aspirations—challenges Ndé women and our allies to reflect on the rights work of contemporary indigenous women in militarized and state‐occupied policing zones and their roles and challenges as political actors in extreme struggles against economic enslavement, dispossession, land theft, vital resource deprivation, environmental destruction, detention, rape, racialized sexism, indentured servitude, and casta.

Indigenous Elders Singled Out for New Round of Federal Condemnations on Texas-Mexico Border

January 5, 2010





Contacts:
Eloisa García Támez: Eloisa.Tamez1@gmail.com
Margo Tamez, sumalhepa.nde.defense@gmail.com


For Immediate Release

Lipan Apaches, Támez-Benavidez Stronghold on Texas-Mexico Border
Singled Out for New Round of Federal Condemnations

Feds Want More Land to Put 'Holes' in Border Wall for Commercial Users:
Native American & Traditional Peoples' Lands Targeted for Surveys


Recently, a communication from a spokesperson from the Office of Congressional Affairs, Customs and Border Protection to the Office of Congressman Solomon P. Ortiz stated, "We have not yet made a decision on whether to take any of Dr. Tamez’s land. If there is another way to allow other landowners access, we will try to accomplish it in that way; however, we haven’t yet identified another way.”

Eloisa Támez and her elderly relative, (Sr. Benavidez), have an active lawsuit against the United States and the Texas-Mexico Border Wall, which, last April 2009, sealed off the Indigenous and Traditional Peoples of El Calaboz from their lands, culture, and livelihoods on the south side of the wall. Tamez and Benavidez, who challenged the U.S. in a class action law suit, are currently awaiting notification of the new date of their 'compensation' jury trial, which has been postponed more than three times.

The extensively documented case, Eloisa G. Tamez, et al. Civil Action No.: 1:08-CV-0004 (United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas (Brownsville Division), has opened up new conceptual grounds about the contemporary challenges of states’ rights and human rights, and where these intersect with Indigenous peoples' rights to culture, environments, livelihoods, traditional ways of life and Peoplehood.

The lands in contestation have been held in continuity by Indigenous peoples prior to the Spanish colonization of northeast Mexico and Texas, and in 1749 were granted to the ancestors of Tamez and Benavidez. European legal traditions of granting lands collectively and individually to Native Americans has origins in 1526, when Hernán Cortéz granted encomiendas and hidalgos to Nahua and Tlaxcalteca peoples.

The tradition of granting lands to Indigenous peoples throughout Mexico’s northern states and the U.S. Southwest is a complex and entangled legal history between Native Americans on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border and the States, and often involving heated contestation when Native American rights to exist and to practice their laws, religions, and traditional organization are denied and threatened by the State em>especially when mega-development is an issue. In a previously published article, the Lipan Apache Women Defense has demonstrated that militarization, militarism, border walls, security technology, war contractors and dispossessing Indigenous peoples is big development for U.S.-based contractors. See 'Resources', below.

In the recent notification by the U.S. to Támez, it appears the U.S. government is considering the possibility of condemning more of her lands if she does not provide them entry to conduct more surveys. According to Cylke, the U.S. is seeking entry to “cure access” for land owners requesting commercial access to the levee and their lands on the south of the wall. Tamez, however, challenges this logic. “While it is true that access to the south side of the wall is important for many landowners, it is not rational that the government needs to possess more land on the levee—or beneath it—in order to open a hole in the wall. All they have to do is remove portions of what they constructed, not condemn more land to do so. The government is not being transparent. Condemn more lands to open the wall? Something is not right. I am refusing to allow them entry to my property for the 12 months they requested. If they want to open the wall, they should do so; the people need access to the titled lands on the south of the levee for their subsistence and livelihoods. However, the government should not require dispossessing individuals any further for that access to occur. The government and the contractors are targeting the Indigenous elders who have been most vocal in the exposure of the corruption which is at the foundation of the wall's construction. They are targeting us as a specific group. The government recently dismantled a large section of the wall down the road from El Calaboz at a locally well-known agricultural business. We feel at this time, given the history of this case and the history of non-transparency in all matters regarding the border wall construction, that we must stand firm.”

According to Margo Tamez, a Lipan Apache scholar at Washington State University, the U.S. may not have the final say if the Indigenous peoples are successful in gaining the ear of the Inter-American Commission/Organization of American States.

In October 2008, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of the Organization of the American States (OAS) held its 133rd regular period of sessions. In this period, the IACHR/OAS read briefs and listened to testimony of the University of Texas Law Working Group, comprised of faculty and law students of the University of Texas Law School, with Margo Tamez, an impacted community member. In their formal statement, the IACHR/OAS Jurists responded: "The Commission received troubling information about the impact that the construction of a wall in Texas, along the U.S.-Mexico border, has on the human rights of area residents, in particular its discriminatory effects. The information received indicates that its construction would disproportionally affect people who are poor, with a low level of education, and generally of Mexican descent, as well as indigenous communities on both sides of the border."
(Available at: http://www.utexas.edu/law/academics/centers/humanrights/borderwall/analysis/iac-Press-Release-re-Hearing.pdf).

Texas-Mexico IAS/OAS Testimony at: http://lipanapachecommunitydefense.blogspot.com/2008/10/texas-mexico-border-wall-hearing-at.html.

Indigenous peoples along the Texas-Mexico border—more than many other impacted groups—are burdened in multiple ways and disproportionately on all border wall construction projects because their communities have already been consistently targeted for State violence, militarization, repression and dispossession as a matter of the normative policies of the neo-liberal and settler State.

The ‘third world’ conditions of the Texas border communities are directly related to the structural violence which goes hand-in-hand with the the settler state and settler constitutionalism dominating the region’s violent race, gender, and class politics. The normalization of the Texas-Mexico border communities as 'sacrifice zones' is so deeply internalized within the consciousness of South Texas' white citizenry that the scale of the violence and injustice is invisible to them.

Many historians have anayzed Texas as a unique case in North American histories of genocide and ethnic cleansing, and the entrenched pockets of cultures of violence which sustain the creed of lawlessness. The idealogy of hatred which birthed the settler society and spawned South Texas' industrial corridors as the 'gateway' to Latin America is, as historian Gary Clayton Anderson stated, a culture where "Violence, especially against ethnic groups, had become economically institutionalized in Texas." In this cultural landscape, the promotion of lawlessness, turmoil, and opportunity collide, and 'South Texas', from Indigenous perspectives, was constructed as an excuse to develop, destroy and kill.

Tragically, today this consciousness has not evolved. Violence has become, as Anderson argues, "ingrained in Texas, especially in the southern counties." As in the past, today South Texas violence is laissez faire andfixed in an opportunistic manner--among governors, corporations, contractors, workers, congresspersons, commissioners, rangers, border patrols, and civil society.

Indigenous peoples along the Texas border were already under extreme deprivation before the border wall--at alarming scales and at comparitive levels with many Third World nations and militarized conflict zones around the world. Fernando Romero-Lar cross-analyzed this border with the world's top conflict zones: North Korea-South Korea; Israel and Palestine; Morocco and Spain; South Africa; and the Golden Triangle. Romero-Lar found that this border topped the list of all conflict-industrial global militarized borders to qualify as a 'hyper-border.' (See report: "Texas Borderlands: Frontier of the Future (2009)")

The fundamental rights of Indigenous peoples are distorted in the normative Texas Creation Myth which traditionally views Indigenous peoples as less than human, servants, laborers, and 'the multitudes of surplus workers.' This construction of Indigenous peoples as 'Other' is a popularized stereotype which contorts white heroic masculinity through rationalized acts of genocide, extermination and structural violence against South & West Texas' and northern Mexico's aboriginal inhabitants.

Indigenous peoples' precarious access to critical First Foods (necessary for the repair of their dietary health), safe and potable water, safe housing, healthcare, education, jobs, transportation, and an environment free of gender violence and militarization has been overshadowed by the general society's pre-occupation with 'security' thinly masking the development objectives of NAFTA, the Security and Prosperity Partnership, and ongoing projects of the lucrative corporate war occupation to militarize our environments. Indigenous elders, while they contend with degrading and destructive harrassment and surveillance upon them as they go about their personal lives, cannot help but speak out against the erosion of rule of law and human rights as a daily reality in South Texas.

The occupied aspects of their lives is anything but natural--militarized occupation in South Texas and northern Mexico, funded with U.S. tax dollars, Homeland Security, and the Department of Defense, is socially and physically constructed by a Euro-American settler society which emigrated to the Texas border in the mid 19th century. Massive waves of Euro-ethnic emigrants and Anglos from the U.S. south appropriated Texas constitutionalized slavery as a normalized economic system of an expansion-prone, modernizing society. At its essence and most fundamental level, Texas embodies the principles of Liberal democracy and settler constitutionalism--based on a stratified society where Indigenous peoples, such as Apaches, Tlaxcaltecas, Coahuiltecs, Tiguas, Kikapoos, and Comanches, are viewed as 'enemies,' and exploitable as human battery packs energizing the dreamscape of the middle-class consumer.

Along the U.S. side of the Texas-Mexico border, the flavor of white America is most palpable on a one-on-one and up-close basis, as the Indigenous peoples witness, report and document their most fundamental human rights being further eroded. When they are not being followed by gangs of CBP patrol cars, U.S. helicopters, and government functionaries trampling through their lands unannounced, they are confronted with the new migrant workers imported to the region to consume the manly job of building the border wall.



With the new waves of Angl-American emigrants from states such as Nebraska and those incomes going out of state to households in the Mid-West, it seems as though the border wall is truly an import-export job. When the border wall was being constructed in Cameron County, community members reported that the increase in large vehicle (i.e. trucks) traffic on Hwy 281/Military Highway bearing license plates with NEBRASKA engraved upon them was obvious and noticeable. Government contractors tend to be loyal to their home districts and states, and Euro-American migrant workers from Nebraska importing a conspicuously Mid-Western consciousness of 'Indians' and 'Mexicans, i.e. savages/illegals' could be felt in the road and table manners of the Nebraska migrant workers exercising both militaristic and tourist-like behaviors with local Indigenous women--both on roads and restaurants, according to local witnesses. It seemed as though the daily work to build the wall included a conscious opportunistic will to exercise old-fashioned American masculinity and sexism upon the Indigenous women labor force.



Local communities are exposed daily to these ruptures and multiple others in their daily lives, from the perniciously benign forces of white privilege and racism to the most obvious obstructions to human rights of the wall itself. They bear witness to the criminality, dangerous behaviors, greed and thievery of the mega-wealthy--which is ironic--considering that the U.S. citizenry just endured one of the most severe economic depressions in a century.

These fixtures of violence in the heart of darkness continues to define and to mark Texas as a pernicious state within an outlaw State; an identity with a propensity for achieving 'public goals' exercised 'democratically' through violence against Indigenous peoples. In the whitestream, this violence generally goes unaddressed by the state, federal governments and U.S. civil society (who'd rather stay 'safe' in the boundaries of debating the progressiveness of 'Avatar' rather than hone in on the current ethnocides in the U.S. 'Congo'--South Texas.

This violent and negligent will to empire, from the perspective of many Indigenous elders along the Texas-Mexico border, must then be taken up at different levels of legal oversite. They are resolved that they will not be intimidated by the violent propensities of the settler society for Indigenous land, water, minerals and bodies which are the markers of mega-projects.

Mega-projects--such as the border wall--impede the Indigenous elders from accessing their ancestral medicine plants, their biologically diverse properties titled to their ancestors through Crown land grants and treaties, and their sacred burial sites such as cemeteries which align both sides of the border wall. Indigenous peoples’ genealogical ties to historical places along the border wall construction, such as rancherias, communal meeting places, religious sites, missions, pueblos, presidios, wildlife areas, and traditional subsistence areas throughout the Texas-Mexico border region are eroding every day as a result of the lack of access to the lands on the south side of the wall which are owned by Indigenous peoples.

Eloisa Támez, a vocal opponent to the wall, seeks secure and unharmed access to her lands on the south side of the wall. Támez has documented numerous important species of flora and fauna on her lands necessary for continuity of culture, and she watches over the sites of habitation of her ancestors due to the destructive methods of government contractors who destroyed portions of her properties vegetation during the construction of the wall. The Lipan Apaches, like the Kickapoo, Tigua, and numerous tribes in Arizona, argue that the racist politics which are the foundation of the border wall must be calculated as “irreparable damage.” She does not believe that the government’s new request for “curing access” should entail dispossessing her elders and her community from Indigenous rights and the protection of their human rights. The federal lawsuit documented the ancestral, genealogical ties of Tamez and Benavidez, and an important South Texas Lipan Apache band in the region, which are signatories on key treaties, accords, hidalgos, merceds and land grants with Spain, Mexico, Texas and the United States.

Margo Tamez, a scholar at Washington State University, notes, “By refusing this community’s requests for secure access to their lands and cultural properties—which are necessary to sustain their traditional subsistence vis-à-vis agrarian, pastoral livelihoods, traditional gatherings and religious practices— the U.S. is failing to protect their human rights under International Law. Negative consequences may be associated with the failure to do so.”

Eloisa Tamez, a strong proponent of the health of poor and traditional peoples of her community, restates her firm resolve. “The health of our elders is severely threatened by this singling out of our small community—and our elders—in El Calaboz and the possibility of further dispossession.” Numerous experts debating and writing about this case agree that the border wall mega-project and continuous dispossessions against numerous traditional and poor communities disproportionately targets the most vulnerable. Texas’ border counties are the poorest in the nation. The wall currently stands on the #1 and #2 most impoverished counties in the entire U.S., according to the last five years census reports. Cameron, Hidalgo, Starr and Presidio counties are often analyzed and cross-compared to many developing nations--globally.

Margo Tamez, who is also the founder of an Indigenous Peoples Organization at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, concurs with the community members. “We feel that Indigenous peoples’ human rights are being violated—and this serious concern explicitly involves the United States and state government representatives along the entire U.S.-Mexico border—on both sides of the border. Lipan Apaches have demonstrated their serious grievances against the violation of their human rights along with other Apache nations (San Carlos Apache Tribe) at the United Nations in the past two years. The international law forums are increasingly critical sites for Indigenous peoples divided by this border to seek out alternative partners, allies, and legal avenues to pursue reparations and their human rights against States which are violators.”

At the local level, the singling out of Indigenous elders is causing further injury and irreparable harm against future existences of Lipan Apaches and Traditional Peoples in the El Calaboz Ranchería. Their lifeways are threatened, and thus, so are Lipan Apache grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Indigenous children’s rights are increasingly taking on important visibility at the United Nations, where the U.S. has been taken to task for numerous violations against Indigenous children who live and work within its political borders. Eloisa Támez, in her on-going challenge to dispossession, is taking a firm stand for the rights of Indigenous children. She states, “This is for the children—ours and everyone’s. The government is possibly seeking to take possessory rights to the Earth beneath the levee. My grandparents would not have allowed that, and they actively fought against this in their time. This is an on-going struggle for Indigenous peoples. Those land cannot be taken from the Indigenous peoples, according to traditional beliefs. The Earth is not for taking."


Resources:

Gary Clayton Anderson, The Conquest of Texas: Ethnic Cleansing in the Promised Land, 1820-1875, (Normal: University of Oklahoma Press, 2005).

The University of Texas at Austin, School of Law & The Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice, "The Texas-Mexico Border Wall," at http://www.utexas.edu/law/academics/centers/humanrights/borderwall/law/lawsuits-government.html.

Fernando Romero/Lar, Hyper-Border: The Contemporary U.S.-Mexico Border and Its Future, (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2008).

Margo Tamez, "The Texas-Mexico Border Wall Through the Eyes of Indigenous Communities in El Calaboz Rancheria," May 2008.
Excerpt:
The following is a list of corporate contractors involved in the building of the
Border wall in S. Texas.

Lockheed Martin
Texas Divisions of Raytheon (Network Centric Systems)
L-C Communications (Integrated Systems)
Northrup Grumman (Los Angeles, CA)
BAE Systems (Austin, TX)
SAIC of San Diego
Computer Sciences Corp of El Segundo, CA
America’s Border Security Group (Erriccson Inc, Plano, TX)
(NASDAQ: ERIKY)
Fluor Corporation (NYSEL:FLR)
SYColeman Corporation
MTC Technologies
CAMBER Corporation
AEP Networks, Inc.
Texas A & M University
University of Texas (Austin)
Boeing
Kellogg Brown & Root (Halliburton)
Secure Border Initiative Network
United Kingdom Home Office


Sources for the above:
PennWell. “Defense firms turn to border security.” Washington, 28, Dec. 2005.
“The government’s high-profile offensive to control the borders is spawning a growth market for the nations’s defense industry.” http://mae.pannet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?ARTICLE_ID=244491&p=32 Accessed 11/20/07.

AEP Networks, America’s Border Security Group. “Ericcson’s AMerioca Border Security Group (ABSG) Offers Proven Effective Solution for U.S. Border Security.” http://www.aepnetworks.com/news/press_archive/release_06012006.htm
Accessed 11/20/07.

Richey, Joseph. “Fencingthe Border: Boeing’s High-Tech Plan Falters.” July 9, 2007http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14552. Accessed 11/20/07.;

“Software Glitches Delay Virtual Border Fence.” Newsmax.com. Tuesday, Ocotober 30, 2007. http://www.newsmax.com/us/virtual_border_fence/2007/10/30/45069.html Accessed 11/20/07.;

Riley, Michael. “Fortress America--Building a Border: Part 2.” Denver Post. 03/06/07http://www.denverpost.com/fortressamerica/ci_5356695. Accessed 11/20/07.;

McLemore, David. “Border Residents fuming over fence plans.” June 26, 2007. http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/062707dntex...Accessed 11/20/07;

Downing, Margaret. “Killing Fences: Totally Misconstrued.” Houston Press, May 31 2007. http://www.houstonpress.com/2007-05-31/news/killing-fences-totally-misconstrued/ Accessed 11/20/07;

Richey, Joseph. “Border for Sale: Privitizing Immigration Control. July 5, 2006. http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=13845&printsafe=1 Accessed 11/20/07;

PRNewswire. Garland, TX. “Raytheon Awarded Contract with U.K. Home Office for e-Borders Project.” November 14, 2007,http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/prnewswire/NEW03314112007-1.htm Accessed 11/20/07.

"IN DEMOCRACY'S SHADOW: FENCES, RAIDS, AND THE PRODUCTION OF MIGRANT ILLEGALITY" by Daniel Ibsen Morales

Dr. Eloisa Garcia Tamez separated from ancestral lands by the mega-project border wall constructed by the United States against the firm protests of the Nde' of El Calaboz Rancheria and from related Nde' across the United States.



University of Wisconsin Law School, Legal Studies Research Paper Series, Paper No. 1068, January 2009, Daniel Ibsen Morales

Excerpt (pp 103-104):
"the government knows that the fence is ill-conceived. State-authored reports show, and experts agree, that the project is a classic white elephant; it is expensive, breachable, and its most dramatic effect is to shift migration pathways to dangerous areas where migrants are more likely to die en route to the United States."

Excerpt (p 129):
"The congruence, though, between Tamez‘s case in domestic court and in the international arena is not accidental; the origins of the international human rights regime are distinctly American.119 And, as in the domestic sphere, this story might be different if the Group was not conceding, as it must, the basic point that the right to property it asserts is very limited because ―the U.S. government has the right to subordinate the use of private property for reasons of public utility and social interest.‖120 As it stands, however, this international briefing (as well as the briefings in Tamez) attack and subjugate the administrative while reinscribing the primacy and unimpeachability of democratic authority, and leave out as uncognizable the deeper rights she has to the land (due to her Amerindian and Spanish heritage). Put plainly, the structure of the suits only reinforces the existing power relationships that lead to Tamez‘s problem in the first instance."

"THE UNITED STATES TAKES THE LAND, BUT THEY WILL NOT TAKE MY VOICE" --Eloisa Garcia Tamez

US seizes Tamez/Lipan Apache lands on the Texas-Mexico border for border wall
By Brenda NorrellEL CALABOZ, Texas --


With the hope of change evaporating during the Obama Administration, a federal judge ruled that Homeland Security can seize the Tamez family land. After a court battle, with an alert to the international community, the Tamez family said a federal judge condemned the Lipan Apache family land for the US/Mexico border wall.

"A federal judge in Brownsville, Texas issued an order today granting the federal government's request to condemn the ancestral land of the Tamez Family, who are Lipan Apaches," the Tamez family said April 16. "Although this land has been in the Tamez family prior to the Spanish colonization, and also designated to them through Spanish Crown law (1767, as of today, it is in the possession of the United States Department of Homeland Security.""The landowner, Eloisa Tamez, heard about Judge Hanen's order while participating in the Western Social Sciences Association Conference in Albuquerque, where she was participating in a Three part panel: 'Indigenous People's and the U.S.-Mexico Border: Militarization, Resistance, and Rights.' She is with a group of colleagues from several bi-national Indigenous Border communities and experts on militarization and the impact of the border wall," the Tamez family said in a statement.

The seizure of the Tamez family land raises new questions about the actual intent of the US government as it acquires private property from California to Texas for the border wall. The US covert scheme to acquire borderlands includes seizing private land and seizing the use of American Indian lands, such as Tohono O'odham land in Arizona, for the border wall corridor.
The land seizures were facilitated by the fear created by 9/11, then fueled by immigrant racism and xenophobia on television news and finally accelerated by the so-called drug war in northern Mexico. However, more questions are now being raised regarding the covert US government's role in the drug and weapons trafficking in the borderzone. The Zetas, the most notorious murderers, were trained as US Special Forces, while the US appetite for drugs provides the demand. The weapons also come from the US.

Meanwhile, in Texas, the Tamez family reports that this is an urgent situation which needs international attention and wide press coverage.

An interview with Eloisa Tamez, by Ansel Herz, is here.


Excerpt: "Mediahacker: I know that you met Barack Obama while he was campaigning. Have you seen any changes in terms of DHS policy since his taking office and do you hold out any hope that him and the new Homeland Security Secretary will change plans at all?
Tamez: I see no change. I’ve seen no comment on it. I don’t know what the plans are, because, well, they haven’t said much. So I’m still wondering what we’re going to see. And I still remember that he voted for the wall when he was a Senator. He voted for it ..."

Judge Hanen Orders Condemnation and Possession of Indigenous Lands; Tamez Family Continues Fight for Lands & Ancestral Sites

"I am captive in my own land," Eloisa Tamez tells audience of researchers, scholars and indigenous peoples at Western Social Sciences Association 51st Annual Conference, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, April 16, 2009.



Eloisa Tamez, at the Albuquerque Peace & Justice Center, hours after hearing the news that the U.S. (Obama Administration) will take possession of her lands, irregardless of numerous attempts by her, Margo Tamez, attorneys, and the Lipan Apache Women Defense support community to encourage peace settlements, peace negotiations, and dignity for human and indigenous peoples' rights.

Press Release: Eloisa Tamez’ Land condemned for Border Wall
April 16, 2009



Albuquerque, New Mexico--A federal judge in Brownsville, TX issued an order today granting the federal government's request to condemn the ancestral land of the Tamez Family, who are Lipan Apaches. Although this land has been in the Tamez family prior to the Spanish colonization, and also designated to them through Spanish Crown law (1767, as of today, it is in the possession of the United States Department of Homeland Security.

The landowner, Eloisa Tamez, heard about Judge Hanen’s order while participating in the Western Social Sciences Association Conference in Albuquerque, where she was participating in a Three part panel: "Indigenous People's and the U.S.-Mexico Border: Militarization, Resistance, and Rights." She is with a group of colleagues from several bi-national Indigenous Border communities and experts on militarization and the impact of the border wall.

The Tamez family reports that this is an urgent situation which needs international attention and wide press coverage.

Opportunities for press interviews will be held at the WSSA Conference location, at the Hyatt Regency in Albuquerque, New Mexico, 330 Tijeras NW, following the panel discussions below.

Panel II Friday April 17 8:00am-9:30am Sendero Room 1 “Militarization”
Panel III Friday April 17th 2:45pm-4:15pm Sendero Room 2 “Resistance”

Contacts:
Cynthia Bejarano 575-571-7359
April Cotte acotte@igc.org



BOLETIN DE PRENSA

16 de abril

Albuquerque, Nuevo Mexico, EEUU--Un juez federal de Estados Unidos envío ordenes para otorgarle libertad al gobierno federal en "condenar" las tierras ancestrales de la familia Tamez, ubicadas en el pueblo de El Calaboz a la orilla del Río Bravo, estado de Tejas. Aun sin embargo dicha tierra ha pertenecido a la Familia Tamez y los apache Lipan desde la época colonial pero a partir de hoy, se convierte en propiedad de Homeland Security en perpetuidad.

Eloisa Tamez e hija (Margo Tamez) son integrantes de una numerosa comunidad de indígenas binacionales e individuos o grupos expertos en asuntos migratorios y militarización quienes han sostenido una serie de medidas de resistencia y rechazo a las amenazas de Homeland Security desde agosto 2007. Aunado a ello se han organizado para elevar sus protestas a los tribunales federales, y al Presidente Obama quien mañana se reúne con el Presidente Felipe Calderón en la Ciudad de México.

El aviso oficial con fecha 18 de abril fue presentado por la Corte Distrital de Estados Unidos en Brownsville Texas. En términos legales le avisan a la Dr. Eloisa Tamez que el gobierno federal le decomisa el terreno de 0.25 acres para instalar, construir y operar caminos, cercos, barreras vehiculares, sistema de vigilancia y estructuras diseñadas en relación a la seguridad del muro entre Estados Unidos y México dentro del Estado de Tejas.

A partir del 25 de febrero de 2009, el gobierno federal sometió una moción para lograr posesión de dicha propiedad. La familia Tamez inmediatamente se negó a negociar pero por medio del documento de hoy, se busca ignorar dicha rebeldía.

Como resultado del programa federal por construir cercos o mayores barreras fronterizas a lo largo de la división territorial entre Estados Unidos y México, actualmente están en pie de lucha varias familias quienes se encuentran en la misma situación.

Lo extraordinario es que entre los grupos de familias y pueblos indígenas, también se encuentran empresas privadas quienes ya han resuelto la problemática de tener un muro vergonzoso en sus propiedades exclusivas y costosas. Como resultado de dichas negociaciones “privadas”, hoy se pueden apreciar una serie de “hoyos” o interrupciones oficiales en la secuencia del muro. Pero son amparados por el poder político de grupos multimillonarios como las familias Hunt y Moody, al igual que la Universidad de Texas en Brownsville y el campo de golf River Bend Resort.

Hasta la fecha la familia Tamez ha llevado sus quejas hasta los foros internacionales por medio de las Naciones Unidas, Foro Permanente de Asuntos Indígenas en su Séptima Sesión, Comisión Interamericana, OAS y Al-Jazeera, al igual que los medios europeos incluyendo numerosos diarios mexicanos como La Jornada, Reforma, El Universal, medios hispanos regionales y locales, etc.

Aun a pesar de ello se considera continuar insistiendo en la demanda de los grupos en rebeldía para obligar que el gobierno federal desista en condenar dichos terrenos. Entre los mas apremiantes continua la exigencia de que el gobierno inicie un dialogo conciliatorio lo cual han presentado por escrito pero hasta la fecha no han recibido respuesta alguna por el gobiernos federal.

Últimamente dichas familias presentaron una solicitud para negociar sobre la tenencia de la tierra argumentando que según los acuerdos virreinales –dicha oferta se les negó. Los afectados proponen llegar a un acuerdo pacifico pero ha fallado y aparentemente el gobierno prefiere la confrontación ancestral como el único medio para resolver los asuntos fronterizos.

LOS AFECTADOS SE ENCUENTRAN PARTICIPANDO EN LA CONFERENCIA ANUAL DE: WESTERN SOCIAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION ABRIL 15 – 18, 2009 EN ALBUQUERQUE, NUEVO MEXICO.


Como panelistas el grupo participara:
· Viernes 17 de 8:00 a 9:30 Cuarto Sendero I, sobre “Militarización” en la frontera.
· Viernes 17 de 2:45 a 4:15 Cuarto Sendero II, sobre “Resistencia” de los asuntos indígenas en la frontera.

A LAS 10:00 A.M. CONVOCAN A UNA CONFERENCIA DE PRENSA PARA LOS MEDIOS INTERESADOS EN MAYOR INFORMACION.

PARA ENTREVISTAS, FAVOR DE COMUNICARSE CON:

CYNTHIA BEJARANO (575) 571-7359
Por correo electrónico con Abril Cotte acotte@igc.org
Margo Tamez: 509-595-9666

NEW WEBSITE: UNIDOS CONTRA EL MURO /\/\/\/\ UNITED AGAINST THE WALL

Eloisa Garcia Tamez signs banner of the people's protests that will travel to Washington D.C. with citizen delegation this week.

UNIDOS CONTRA EL MURO~UNITED AGAINST THE WALL LAUNCHES NEW WEBSITE

Friday, March 13, 2009
Delegation to DC


CASA members continue united against the border wall, and during spring break, CASEROS will embark in a trip to Capitol Hill in Washington, DC to challenge the consciences of our elected officials, and policymakers. As members of CASA, we want to make sure that our elected officials hear our position against the border wall. There is a tremendous lack of political representation in our area, CASA members feel that our elected officials are not advocating for the interest of their constituents. They have heard the voices of the people who are opposing the border wall, but they have fail to listen to the concerns of the citizens.


--Elizabeth Garcia, CASA

INDIGENOUS POLITICS FROM NATIVE NEW ENGLAND AND BEYOND: INTERVIEW WITH MARGO TAMEZ

The interview is accessible here.

Show #5
Join host J. Kehaulani Kauanui for an interview with Margo Taméz (Lipan Apache and Jumano-Apache) co-founder of the Lipan Apache Women Defense/Strength - an Indigenous People’s Organization of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues that was formed to protect sacred sites, burial grounds, archaeological resources, ecological bio-diversity, and way of life of the indigenous people of the Lower Rio Grande, North America. Margo Taméz and her mother, Eloisa G. Taméz, founded the group in response to the US Department of Homeland Security’s attempt to force their surrender of hereditary lands in El Calaboz, Texas for the US/Mexico border wall. The US department of Homeland Security had voided over 35 federal laws, including environmental laws and laws protecting American Indian cultural and burial places. However, South Texas Apache women took the lead, in December 2007 in organizing the most persistent, and to date most successful, constitutional law case against the United States Army, US Customs Border Patrol and the US Department of Homeland Security. On October 22, 2008, Taméz delivered testimony in Washington, DC before the Organization of American States (OAS) Inter American Commission on Human Rights. The Commission examines and monitors compliance by member States of the OAS, including the US, with human rights obligations established in international law. Taméz will explain to us how this crisis came about and how she is working to protect the lands of her people from being divided in a way that result in relocation-a forced Indian removal that would constitute a 21st century genocide. Original air-date: 10-28-08.

YES, YOU CAN JOIN EFFORTS TO PRIORITIZE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES & PRINCIPLES! SIGN-ON OUR LETTER TO PRES.-ELECT OBAMA

EMAIL MARGO TAMEZ AT sumalhepa.nde.defense@gmail.com to join!

SIGNATORIES on LETTER TO PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA
INTERIOR DEPARTMENT TRANSITION TEAM
ROBERT ANDERSON--CO-CHAIR

Dr. Eloisa García Támez, Lipan Apache, Associate Professor, Department of Nursing, University of Texas Brownsville and Texas Southmost College; Co-Founder Lipan Apache Women Defense, El Calaboz Ranchería, TX
Margo Tamez, Lipan Apache, Jumano-Apache, Co-Founder Lipan Apache Women Defense, WA; PhD Candidate, American Studies, Washington State University, Pullman, WA
Carmelita (Tamez) Lamb and Family, Lipan Apache, Jumano-Apache, Bottineau, North Dakota
M. ReBeca (Tamez) Drury and Family, Lipan Apache, Jumano-Apache, San Antonio, TX
Daniel Castro Romero, Jr., Lipan Apache, Chairman, Lipan Apache Band of Texas, Inc., TX. Official Representative of 745 Members
Michael Paul Hill, Nnee’ (Chiricahua Apache), San Carlos Apache Tribe, Staff, Lipan Apache Women Defense, AZ
Enrique Madrid, Jumano-Apache, Council Member, Jumano-
Apache Tribe of Texas, ( El Polvo) Redford, TX
Adelina Carrasco Whitecrow, Jumano-Apache, Community Leader & Elder, (El Polvo) Redford, TX
Roberto Lujan, Jumano-Apache, Council Member, Jumano-Apache Tribe of Texas, Presidio-Redford, TX
John Wood, Cameron County Commission, Commissioner—Precinct 2, Brownsville, TX
Andrea Carmen, Yaqui, Executive Director, International Indian Treaty Council, AK
Tia Oros, Zuni, Executive Director, Seventh Generation Fund, Arcata, CA
Petuuche Gilbert, Indigenous World Association, United Nations NGO
Teresa Leal, Ópata-Mayo, Proyecto Comadres Ambos Nogales, Sonora, Mexico
Peter Schey, Founder and Director, Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, Los Angeles,CA
Jose Matus, Yaqui, Director, Alianza Indigena Sin Fronteras/Indigenous Alliance Without Borders, AZ
Lori Riddle, Akimel O’odham, Co-Founder, Gila River Alliance for a Clean Environment, Bapchule, Gila River Indian Community, AZ
E. Elizabeth Garcia, Director, Coalition of Amigos in Solidarity & Action (CASA), TX
Reverend Michael Seifert, Proyecto Digna, Inc., Brownsville, TX
Juanita Valdez-Cox, Executive Director, La Union del Pueblo Entero (LUPE), TX
Graciela Sanchez, Director, Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, San Antonio, TX
Gloria A. Ramirez, Editor, La Voz de Esperanza, San Antonio, TX
Bill Guerra Addington, Sierra Blanca Legal Defense, Sierra Blanca, TX
James C. Harrington, Director, Texas Civil Rights Project, TX
Ann W. Cass, Executive Director, Proyecto Azteca, San Juan, TX
Benigno Pena, South Texas Immigration Council Inc., Brownsville, Texas
Alejandro Siller-González, MACC, San Juan Diego Project, Immigrants and Migrant Farmworkers /Inmigrantes y Campesinos Migrantes, San Antonio, TX
Kriss Worthington,Council Member, Berkeley City Council, Berkeley, CA
Arnoldo Garcia, National Network for Immigrant & Refugee Rights, CA
Pedro Rios, Director – US/Mexico Border Program, American Friends Service Committee, San Diego CA
Bradley Angel, Co-Founder and Executive Director Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, San Francisco, CA
Mark Sanchez, President, San Francisco Board of Education, San Francisco, CA
April Cotte, Co-Founder, El Polvo Women’s Network, Redford, TX
Kamala Platt, The Meadowlark Center, KS
Noemi Lujan Perez, Raramuri, Chief Information Architect, Desert Runner, LLC, Washington, D.C.
Kirk L. Smith, MD, PhD, Frontera de Salud, Galveston, TX
Bill Chandler, MIRA! Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance
Paul "Pablo" A. Martinez, Apache, NM State Director, New Mexico LULAC Organization, Las Cruces, NM
Fabiola Torralba, Buena Gente y Nepantlera, Espereranza Peace and Justice Center, San Antonio, TX
Lupita De La Paz, El Comité Cultural Del Pueblo,Inc. Del Rio, Texas
Morning Star Gali, Citizen of the Pit River Nation, Community Liaison Coordinator, International Indian Treaty Council
TONATIERRA, Phoenix, AZ
Mary Ann Tenuto Sanchez, Chiapas Support Committee
United Native Americans, Inc., Turtle Island
Adrienne Evans, Co-Founder, No Wall - Big Bend Coalition


Angelique Eagle Woman (Wambdi A. WasteWin), Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota Oyate, James E. Rogers Fellow in American Indian Law, Associate Professor, University of Idaho College of Law, ID
Pablo Padilla Jr., Zuni, Attorney, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Jeff Wilson, Assistant Professor, Environmental Science, University of Texas-Brownsville, University of Texas Law Working Group (Texas-Mexico Border Wall), Brownsville, TX
Aurora Vasquez, Senior Attorney, Advancement Project, Washington, D.C.
Tom I. Romero, II J.D., Ph.D. Associate Professor, Hamline University School of Law
Diana Webster, Minnesota Ojibwe White Earth, Attorney at Law, Redondo Beach, CA
Monica Schurtman, Associate Professor and Clinic Supervisor, University of Idaho College of Law, Idaho
Jeffrey P. Shepherd, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of History, University of Texas at El Paso, TX
Cynthia L. Bejarano, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Criminal Justice, New Mexico State University, NM
Amy Kastely, Board Member, Esperanza Peace and Justice Center and Law Professor, St. Mary's University, San Antonio, TX
J. Kehaulani Kauanui, Kanaka Maoli/Native Hawaiian, Associate Professor American Studies and Anthropology, Wesleyan University, CT
Victoria Bomberry, Muscogee Nation, Assistant Professor, Department of Ethnic Studies, University of California, Riverside, CA
Dr. Gail Perez, Ethnic Studies, Professor University of San Diego, San Diego, CA
Emmy Perez, Assistant Professor, Department of English, University of Texas-Pan American, TX
Linda Zuniga-Heidenreich, Chair and Associate Professor, Women’s Studies Department, Washington State University, Pullman, WA
Martha Bárcenas, Pitzer College (Professor/Language and Culture Lab Director), Claremont, CA
Madeline Newman Rios, Ríos Translations, Claremont CA
Dorinda Moreno, Fuerza Mundial/Elders of 4 Colors 4 Directions, Santa Maria, CA
Jeanne Chadwick, Cherokee, Publisher/Editor My Two Beads Worth~Indigenous News
Ken Koym, Indigenous R & D Institute & A Maya Artifacts Museum Exchange Program, Austin, TX
Enrique Morones, Border Angels, San Diego CA
T.V. Reed, Buchanan Distinguished Professor American Studies and English, Washington State University, Pullman, WA
Joni Adamson, Associate Professor, Environmental Humanities, Arizona State University,Mesa, AZ
Vicente M. Diaz, Associate Professor and Director, Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies, Program in American Culture, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan



Erik Tamez-Hrabovsky & Children: Hawk Mendoza (14), Milpa de Otoño Mendoza (13), Maura Sun Tamez (9), Aria Mikassandra Reina Mundo Yellow-Basket-Weaver Tamez-Hrabovsky (5), Lipan Apache, Jumano-Apache ,Pullman, WA
Rosie Molano Blount, Chiricahua Apache, Del Rio, Texas and Pecos, Texas
Lucille Contreras and Children, Beto Chacon, JoseKuautli Contreras Maestas, LuzTlanezi Contreras Maestas, Jesus Tekuani Contreras Maestas, Lipan Apache Band of Texas—Azteca, Flatonia, TX
Emil LaRocque, Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, Tribal Scholarship Director, Turtle Mountain Community College/Chippewa Rancher, North Dakota
Yvonne 'Little Fawn' Oakes, Mohawk Nation
Richard Oakes Jr., Mohawk Nation
Leonard Oakes, Mohawk Nation Akwasasne, St. Regis, Canada
Pura Fe Crescioni, Tuscarora Nation of North Carolina
Looking Back Woman, Suzanne Dupree, Minneconjou Lakota, Cheyenne River Agency, Eagle Butte, SD
Bettina Escauriza, Oakland, CA
Abner Burnett, Attorney (Civil Rights), Rio Grande Valley, TX
Isabel Sanchez, San Antonio, TX
Lupita Santana, Pharr, TX
Phillip H. Duran, New Mexico
Jacqueline White, RN, PhD, Tucson, AZ
Erika Gisela Abad, Chicago, Illinois
Ryan Tauber, Educator, Brownsville Independent School District, and Member of Coalition of Amigos in Solidarity & Action (CASA), Brownsville, TX
Yajaira Fuentes-Tauber, Brownsville Independent School District, and Member of Coalition of Amigos in Solidarity & Action (CASA), Brownsville, TX
Judy Meuth, Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Women's Studies, Washington State University, Pullman, WA
Cesar Alejandro (Filmmaker), President, Alexandria Films, El Paso, TX
Iram and Molly Verduzco, Austin, TX
Joe and Jane Krause, Pax Christi, Brownsville, TX
Sandra Cisneros, Author, San Antonio, TX
Yolanda Moreno, A Resource In Serving Equality (ARISE), Rio Grande Valley, TX
Sanjuanita Martinez, Rio Grande Valley, TX
Esperanza Berrones, Pharr, TX
Maria Esparza, Rio Grande Valley, TX
Hortencia Medina, Rio Grande Valley, TX
Gary James, Ontario, Canada
Teresa Kurtzhall, Elk, Washington State
Braulio Carvajal Veloz, Esperanza Peace & Justice Center, San Antonio, TX
Lila Maes, The Marigold Project, San Francisco, CA
Juan N. Reza, California
Xoxi Nayapiltzin, Yolihua, Alpine, Tx
Francisco Solis Garcia, Jr., Lower Rio Grande Valley, TX

All We Need ... A Few Sparks...

Texas landowners win small victory on border fence
By CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN Associated Press Writer © 2008 The Associated Press
Dec. 18, 2008, 6:24PM

McALLEN, Texas — Dozens of South Texas landowners whose land is being condemned for the border fence scored a victory when a federal judge ordered that juries will decide the value of their property rather than an appointed land commission as the government had requested.
U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen set the stage for a series of trials to begin in March with his order signed Wednesday. While the trials will be restricted to determining how much the government pays landowners for the property, it gives Texas landowners their first opportunity to take an issue related to the border fence before a jury.
"I'm proud of him, he's doing his job," Eloisa Tamez, a landowner facing condemnation near Brownsville, said Thursday. "To have this kind of news before the holidays is like a Christmas gift for me."
The federal government has filed more than 300 condemnation lawsuits against South Texas landowners to make way for portions of the 670 miles of fencing it is building along the U.S.-Mexico border. So far about 500 miles is up, but it has been slow going in the Rio Grande Valley, where opposition is widespread.
Federal prosecutors had argued that the number of jury trials would swamp the courts, result in uneven payments and be extremely complex. A panel of land experts appointed by the court would be a more efficient option and more fair since it would be difficult to find enough unbiased jurors in an area where the fence has been a hot-button issue for months, the government said.
But Hanen, based in Brownsville, sided with landowners, 28 of whom are set for trial next year and all requested juries. The U.S. Attorney's Office did not immediately return a call for comment.
"This court is a firm believer in the jury system and the ability of everyday citizens to set aside their personal beliefs, biases and prejudcies to decide cases solely on the evidence presented within the context of a court's instructions," Hanen wrote in his order.
Hanen also cast doubt on the government's claim that about 80 cases will eventually need juries to determine land values. He suggested that even among the 28 cases scheduled for trial so far, similar parcels could be clustered in groups of three to be heard by the same jury. Most property owners settled with the government out of court.
The condemnations range from a quarter acre to more than 12 acres, but in many cases those are just slivers taken from tracts covering hundreds of acres north of the Rio Grande. Land commissions are generally believed to award lower compensation than juries, eminent domain attorneys say.
Each case will offer its own complexities, from calculating the impact on hunting leases to the value of the land left in the no-man's land between the fence and the river.
Kimberli Loessin, an attorney representing some of the landowners, wrote in an e-mail, "Landowners are pleased and believe that Judge Hanen did the right thing."

Get Ready, Get Set... Nde' Cultural Survival in the Lower Rio Grande

El Calaboz, Lower Rio Grande Valley, TX
December 18, 2009A year ago… the hostile enforcement policies of the US DHS/Secure Border Initiative against ancient border communities came to the foreground in landmark struggles on the Texas-Mexico border. The construction of the border wall through the middle of ancient, Rio Grande communities, forced Eloisa Garcia Tamez, (Lipan Apache), and community elders of El Calaboz Rancheria, as well as numerous poor Native land owners along the Rio Grande to stop the U.S. DHS from taking the community’s lands, ancient burials, archaeological resources, botanical and medicinal riparian zones, and their pastoral ways of life dependent upon cattle, grazing rights, water rights and Indigenous Peoples’ communal lifeways. The conflict raised constitutional, civil, and human rights in the face of intensified government force to pressure the community in numeros ways to surrender their lands.

Along the way… a robust independent media, and grass-roots network exposed deep corruption among local elites, scandal, and repressive government regimes managing the dispossession of the region’s poor Indigenous Peoples and persons along the Rio Grande's banks.

One year later…approximately eighty landowners continue to litigate their ancestral and communal land claims along the Texas-Mexico border. Success is measured in Chertoff's failures to wall in the resisting communities. Their firm resistances--based in living their daily lives and developing new strategies borrowed from older generations, from coalitions with like-minded grass roots Indigneous persons and groups; and working with allied media, law, grassroots, NGO's, nonprofits, faith-based communities, immigrant rights communities has enlarged the capacity of the prayer. Resistance and ceremony take on new meanings as the struggle continues.

Faith v. Greed...The new layer of corruption, beyond 'holes in the wall', is 'rigged jury system' and 'corrupt appraiser racket', whereby the U.S. and local industry leaders have attempted to shut out any possibility of a fair jury trial for litigants. 'Not on my shift', is fundamentally the message issued from Judge Hanen, in a ruling yesterday. Empaneled jurors will prevail, at least, as long as the resistance to oppressive government and industries continues.

Some of the land claims, such as Eloisa Garcia Tamez’, pre-date the United States as a sovereign nation, and are directly connected to Lipan Apache (Nde') peoples' struggles against forced colonization and dispossession by Spain, Texas, Mexico and the U.S. The Indigenous Peoples rights to exist as self-determining communities is gaining traction, in a region with a history of slavery, Jim Crow, hacendado culture, and harsh repression. In the face of increasing public criticism of the border wall, and claims of human rights violations before the Inter-American Commission/OAS, Indigenous Peoples are reframing and redefining the border wall conflict. We are organizing our networks around a framework of ‘Indigenous Peoples & Principles.’
(Part I)
Stay tuned...

Today, December 12, 2008 Is Our One Year Anniversary

On December 11, 2007, my mother Eloisa Garcia Tamez, called me to tell me that she had received a vision, an answer to her prayers for help from the Holy Mother to stop the construction of the border wall and the United States use of colonial instruments to steal Indigenous lands and to quash Indigenous resistance: Eminent Domain, Condemnation Proceedings, Declaration of Taking and Just War... She received instructions to go to the people, be unafraid, tell the truth, defend the people, and have faith. My mother followed the instructions...

[photo: Arnoldo Garcia]

Traditionally, the women of our culture pray to the Holy Mother. The Spanish Catholics converted the Apache of the Lower Rio Grande in the colonization process, and the Holy Mother of All Nde' (Apache People) who is Naiiess Isdzanaklesh, eventually became collapsed into the Guadalupe, the Virgin who gave birth to the Child of Water--Monster Slayer, or in the Catholic tradition, 'Jesus.'

In the U.S.-Mexico border region, Indigenous elders, grandmothers, mothers, daughters, and the men who support them, continue to live out the ancient rituals and Nde' beliefs 'under-the-cover' of state-approved religions. In the Lower Rio Grande, the religious practice of Catholicism is Indigenized.

A year ago, my mother called me to joyously announce that the Holy Mother came to her and told her that my mother must go to the local parish priest on December 12, at San Ignatius church, in the sister Rancheria of El Ranchito, down the road. The Holy Mother told my mother that she must pray, be strong, and that she must tell the people that they must unite and join in the fight against the injustice of the border wall. She commanded my mother to tell the parish elders and community that they must all join and go to the march in Brownsville, and to take the message of the people to the government, who were staging deception in corporate-contracted and controlled 'meetings.'

This all came to pass, and is documented now throughout our communities, and the internet, how an elder woman from El Calaboz confronted the U.S. DHS at the "community meeting", and exposed the scandalous corruption of the U.S., and its 'Chiefs'--war contractors.

In the process, an Indigenous restoration movement gained strength in our communities. For decades, Nde' in the Lower Rio Grande struggled for rights to our culture and way of life. This year, we witnessed the miracle of our ancient traditions emerge from the shadows and under-cover, to the open light. The Holy Woman/Mother Naiiees Isdzanaklesh (White Painted Woman) ceremony returned to our people in the open, and the ancient and the current converged in our resistance movement.

Please join us in taking a moment today to pause, reflect and to pray for the elders who are going to churches, sweat lodges, teepees, and to earth and water today, throughout the Americas. We stand firm on the rights of our Indigenous people to send the prayers and thoughts of peace and justice on the wings of Eagles, up to the Creator.

Join us in our celebration of a strong year helping in the efforts of many who are uniting our Indigneous people communities throughout the border, December 12, 2008, and celebrate the ongoing resistance and disruption of the Texas-Mexico border wall, from El Calaboz Rancheria!

Join and support Indigenous Women's Tribal Law, Lands and Life. We need all of your support.

PLEASE MAKE a financial contribution to the LIPAN APACHE WOMEN DEFENSE FOR 2009! USE THE PAY-PAL BUTTON. AHE'YE'E'
--Margo Tamez

THE BORDER WALL, A film by Wayne Ewing Premiering in Brownsville, Texas

Border Fence Documentary to be Shown This Week At Two Locations in the Lower Rio Grande Valley

Details

Date?: Thursday 12/4/8
Where?: Galleria 409 ( 409 E. 13th St. ) in Brownsville
Time?: 6 pm

Date?:Friday 12/5/8
Where?: South Texas College mid- Valley campus in Weslaco, (Auditorium, Bldg G190)
Tiime?: 6pm

Notes on Border Walls and Cultural Exchange: From conversations with Wendy Kenin - by Clare Kinberg, Editor, Bridges Journal, A Jewish Feminist Journal

Attached article:

 

Interesting perspective on the inter-cultural between Jewish and Native American, via borders, walls, militarism, forced removals, genocide. 

Also interesting comparative analysis of 'historical trauma', 'historical memory' and Michael Chertoff, Peter Schey, and indigenous women of the Mexico-U.S. border... 

Note:  error!  There are two federally recognized tribes in Texas.  The Kickapoo and Tiguas are recognized.  Texas, in a blanket policy, does not officially recognize the Aboriginal and First Peoples of Texas, which includes several Apache groups, who have specific historical, ancient presence in Texas and other Mexico-U.S.border states.  (There are 10 border states).

 

--Margo Tamez

Eloisa Garcia Tamez to Receive Civil Rights Award on Friday, October 3, 2008

TEXAS CIVIL RIGHTS PROJECT HONORS ELOISA G. TAMEZ

Texas Civil Rights Project to Honor Border Wall Activist Dr. Eloisa G. Taméz at 18th Annual Bill of...
Sep 26 (2 days ago)


TCRP to Honor Border Wall Activist
Dr. Eloisa G. Taméz
at 18th Annual Bill of Rights Dinner

This year the Texas Civil Rights Project proudly honors Dr. Eloisa G. Taméz with the Henry B. González Award.




Dr. Taméz is currently a nursing director at the University of Texas at Brownsville. She lives in El Calaboz on three acres that are the remnant of a 12,000-acre land grant to her ancestors in 1747 by the King of Spain. Dr. Taméz is a co-founder of the Lipan Apache Women Defense/Strength to protect sacred sites, burial grounds, archaeological resources, ecological bio-diversity, and way of life of the indigenous people of the Lower Rio Grande, North America.
At the age of 15, Eloisa Garcia Taméz led the rancheria of El Calaboz in de-segregation of public schools in Cameron County.
In 2007 she was the first landowner to stand up against the Department of Homeland Security's plan to put an 18-foot steel and concrete wall through her backyard. The non-continuous wall, planned to be built along 700 miles of the Mexican border, bypasses the wealthy and politically connected.
Dr. Taméz's legal battle against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security/Michael Chertoff to stop the construction of the Mexico-U.S. border wall is documented in the constitutional rights case, U.S. Department Homeland Security, U.S. Army Corps Engineers and U.S. Customs Border Patrol v. Eloisa Garcia Taméz.
In a January 2008 profile of Dr. Taméz and her struggle with Homeland Security, CNN asked her how long she will fight. "As long as I have to," she said.
The TCRP 18th Annual Bill of Rights Dinner will be held on Friday, October 3rd, at the University of Texas Alumni Center. (reception at 6:30 pm; dinner at 7:30 pm).
Famed U.S. attorney and professor, Sarah Weddington, will serve as master of ceremonies. Actress and activist, Vinie Burrows, will receive the the Michael Tigar Center Human Rights Award. Political cartoonist, Ben Sargent will be presented with the Molly Ivins "Give em' Hell" Award.
The Pat Dobbs Civil Rights Student Leader Award will be presented to the winner of this year's high school student competition.

The Texas Civil Rights Project (TCRP) promotes racial, social, and economic justice through education and litigation. TCRP strives to foster equality, secure justice, ensure diversity, and strengthen communities. TCRP has offices in El Paso, San Juan (in the Rio Grande Valley), Austin, and Odessa.
The anniversary dinner honors the time, commitment, and dedication of the civil rights community, and celebrates the Bill of Rights to the United States and Texas Constitutions. This event helps TCRP to raise funds to support its work for poor and low-income Texans.
For sponsorship and further information, please contact Susan Harry at 512-542-9744 or susan@susanharry.com.


Support Civil Rights and the Arts in Texas:
Order your Tickets Today!
Your Tax-Deductible Gift Will Help to Keep
TCRP Active in the Most Needed Places

Texas Civil Rights Project

NICAN TLACA INTER-TRIBAL GATHERING--SOUTH TEXAS

SEPTEMBER 19, 20, 21
EL CALABOZ, CAMERON COUNTY, TEXAS
HOSTED BY ELOISA GARCIA TAMEZ (LIPAN APACHE), AT THE TAMEZ LAND IN EL CALABOZ RANCHERIA

A Gathering among people of this Land. We continue opposing the Border Wall by proclaiming our land. Join us in this exciting event co-sponsored by The Children of the Earth Foundation and Coalition of Amigos in Solidarity & Action, CASA.

This will be an event for the entire family, a unique opportunity to learn about mother earth, Indigenous cultures (Lipan Apache, Azteca-Chichimeca), outdoor survival skills, and much more!

For more info, please contact Ryan at 203-6801 or Elizabeth at 459-3205.

CLICK ON 'REGISTER' FOR REGISTRATION FORM AND MORE INFORMATION

HURRICANE DOLLY--HUMAN RIGHTS AND U.S. FRAUD, WASTE & ABUSE-- FEMA and DHS Cause Further Harm in Lower Rio Grande Against Indigenous Peoples

E-mail: DHSOIGHOTLINE@dhs.gov
Fax: (202) 254-4292
Department of Homeland Security
Washington, DC 20528
Attn: Office of Inspector General, Hotline
Office of the Inspector General
False Damage Claims: 1 (800) 323-8603

July 30, 2008

Dear Inspector General:

At this time I am submitting a testimony from my community members, the lineal descendent Lebaiye' T'nde' (Lipan Apache) people who are the aboriginal land title holders to territories of South Texas, the Rio Grande River and into northern Mexico. Currently, my family members reside in numerous counties of South Texas which have been horribly and negatively impacted by the ongoing flooding and infrastructural calamities in Cameron, Hidalgo, Starr and other affected counties.

Reports from my mother, Dr. Eloisa Garcia Tamez (Lipan Apache) and other community members, as well as reports from local news reports, compel me to file an official complaint regarding the human rights, civil rights, and indigenous rights abuses occuring at this very moment against colonias, rancherias, unincorporated and incorporated communities all along the Rio Grande.

Many of the communities are undergoing great losses and tragedy, including loss of homes, livelihoods, livestock, crops, and who are currently still without the most fundamental needs to sustain life, i.e. potable water, food, medical supplies and medical attention. Elders, children, the working class poor people of the Rio Grande river front communities are the hardest hit in this ongoing devastation.

My mother and others have reported eye witness accounts of seeing D.H.S. sitting by idly, merely offering electrical fans at the local gas station, as a remedy for folks who do not have electricity, nor food, water, and are wading in a filthy infested stew of both animal and human waste and decomposition.

There are reports that helicopters of the Border Patrol and Army National Guard merely patrol over the border--but do not render aid to those who are in the most isolated and most hard-hit areas. Local news reports that there are countless colonias and rancherias of the poorest of the working classes who have still to be dealt with at all. Their physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual needs are being neglected in this horrendous human disaster. They have yet to see a speck of government, military, NGO, faith-based, or or communitarian aid to alleviate this calamity.

My mother and others are strongly critiquing the LACK of FEMA's presence in rendering immediate and assertive aid to our poorest river front communities. Many of these communities are direct lineal descendents of the aboriginal people of this region--they are the land owners, who have legal title to live and to enjoy their freedoms on their own lands. They also have the civil rights and human rights of all other U.S. citizens in similarly declared disaster areas.

Finally, this testimony is a complaint against the Department of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, President George W. Bush, and the infrastructure which supports their offices due to the fact that local land owners in Hidalgo County reported yesterday that INSPITE of this calamitous disaster which has brought South Texas counties, cities, and the International Water Boundary Commission and Mexico to its knees---that DHS has begun to build the unpopular border wall once again.

This is a sign of a tyrannical, cold and vampire-like government which instead of utilizing public resources towards rendering aid to the local governments and people, it is exploiting the local systems, institutions and populations at their greatest moment of vulnerability and humanitarian need.

I see DHS/Michael Chertoff and President George W. Bush as the primary perpetrators of heinous crimes against humanity, human rights abuse, indigenous rights abuses against my Lipan Apache people, my ancestors, our sacred sites, our ecological and biological resources, our mineral resources, and our water resources with their aggression against us up to the present moment, in regards to their focus on the increased militarization and imprisonment of our people and lands in the border wall project.

Currently, at this dark hour, as my people, our lands, our sacred sites, and all the plant and animal relatives are suffering due to an aggressive, institutionally racist policy of laissez-faire towards Native Americans, Mexican-descent peoples, and border communities, I see DHS/Michael Chertoff and President George W. Bush as perpetrators who are currently committing crimes against humanity and genocide against the Lipan Apache people of South Texas, other indigenous communities in South Texas, and Mexican-descent persons and communities living along the Rio Grande on the U.S. and Mexico side of this calamity. It has not gone unnoticed by the local communities how intensely the nation-states moved to protect their corporate investments--hotels, resorts, oil platforms, airforce jets and planes, and other 'vital' assets of the United States and its companies. At the same time, we have noted how deficiently and minimally the nation-states have responded to the humanitarian needs of the majority of the aboriginal land owners and original title land owners (with Spanish Land Grant and Treaty land ownership claims) in the region.

This is my testimony, from my heart and from the oral testimonies shared with me by my family members undergoing psychological terror due to the fact that they have to witness this further erosion of democracy and justice in the United States under the iron-fist of an unpopular government which clearly demonstrates they rule against citizens and take up hostile policies to further our demise.

Let it be known among you that the Lipan Apache Women's Defense/Strength stands for the indigenous people and all oppressed groups on the Mexico-U.S. international border which violently dissects our natural traditional territories, a border which was aggressed against us without our free and prior informed consent--in the past and continued into the present moment.

Margo Tamez

Border Wall Skips Wealthy Bush Cronies

Eloisa Garcia Tamez & Peter Schey, Federal Court, February 7 2008, Brownsville, Texas

Indigenous women's sensibility of collective versus 'individual' is an ongoing educational campaign in the struggle of Lipan Apache women of El Calaboz, Lower Rio Grande, MX-US border region.

Dr. Eloisa Garcia Tamez firmly positions indigneous women's concepts of land, community, collectivity, ancestral relations to land as first people, and the obstacles that the United States government puts in the pathways of indigenous livelihoods, ecologies, cultural rights and human rights to live on their lands, in their aboriginal territories. She repeats her sustained message, in the clip linked below.

"This is not for personal gain. The sole reason ... is for my children, my
grandchildren and for the children and grandchildren and the future generations
of all Americans."

http://youtube.com/watch?v=SQ1OZMUWGwM