Friday, April 18, 2008

The Final Step (DHS is land on the borderline)

Brownsville Herald

http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/benavidez_85955___article.html/land_reyes.html

The Final Step

April 16, 2008 - 11:36PM

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has embarked on its final step before beginning construction of a border fence along the U.S.-Mexico border-purchasing land on which the structure will soon stand.

On Wednesday, officials from the Army Corps of Engineers offered Eduardo Benavidez $4,100 for a sliver of his 3.5 acres in El Calaboz, about 10 miles west of Brownsville. Because his land lies along the path of the border fence, officials told him, he'll have no choice but to sell.

Benavidez isn't ready to sell his land along the Rio Grande, even if it is to the federal government. "I'm not signing anything," he responded when DHS made their offer.

After the officials left, Benavidez, 86, called his brother. "These guys think they can do anything," he said.

DHS plans to construct 700 miles of fencing by the end of 2008. But first, the federal government must purchase land from several hundred South Texas landowners-including Benavidez, who was born on his property in 1922 and still earns a living cutting sheet metal there.

"We do have people beginning negotiations with landowners in the Valley," said Lloyd Easterling, an assistant chief for security operations for U.S. Border Patrol. "These are very initial negotiations."

Not all landowners have adopted Benavidez's refusal to sell. On Wednesday, his neighbor and cousin, Juanita Benavidez, agreed to part with .33 acres of her land for $12,500.

"It's a fair price," she said, "but I didn't want to sell it."

Benavidez said she felt pressured to sign documents from the Army Corps of Engineers.

"They were very forceful...and I don't want them to think I'm a communist or something like that," said Benevidez, who was given two weeks to consider the offer.

Benavidez, who speaks only Spanish, said she was given a copy of the government's offer in English. No written translation was provided. The officials did explain in Spanish the amount of money that was being offered to her.

Also, a list of relevant terms, including "acquisition," "easement," and "eminent domain" was also provided by the Army Corps of Engineers, but only in English.

The Cameron County Appraisal District estimates the value of Juanita Benavidez's 4.6 acres at $25,000. But like many of her neighbors, she doesn't care much for monetary evaluations.

"I've lived here for 37 years," she said. "I raised a family here."

The 18-foot tall fence will run through Benavidez's backyard, south of where the International Boundary and Water Commission's levee currently stands.

In rural Southmost, Jose Manuel Reyes and his three brothers are also considering the government's offer. The brothers live in adjacent houses along the Rio Grande.

Reyes was offered $2,200 for a 140 by 15-foot swath of land, roughly one sixth of his property. The appraisal district values the entire property at $12,000.

"I'm not sure if this price takes devaluation into account," Reyes said. "How much will my property be worth when an 18-foot fence runs through the backyard?"

But Reyes is growing increasingly despondent. "It doesn't matter what what we do," he said. "They're going to put it up whether we like it or not."

Reyes acknowledges that he could hold out and let a federal judge mediate negotiations over the land's value, but he isn't eager to engage in a legal battle.

"After all that, I wonder if I would even gain anything," he said. "What if they take away our original offer?" he asked. "At least now we'll get something."

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DECOLONIZATION & INDIGENEITY

LAW-Defense is re-structuring our web presence based upon on-going dialogues with Nde' peoples of Konitsaii Gokiyaa. Key Themes are:

Indigenous Peoples' Knowledge
Nde' world views
Indigenous human rights
Elders
Gender violence
Indigenous Women
Indigenous Youth
Indigenous Workers
History, historical correction and recovery Self-determination in social, economic, spiritual and political realms,
Decision-making on all matters related to Nde' peoples, Nde' governance, customary lands, and territories.

LAW Defense actively engages U.N. CERD, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the Inter-American Commission/ OAS system, and the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous issues, among others.

Decolonization.

Indigeneity.

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Indigenous Empowerment.

Nde' Truth Commission on Genocidal Violence (new!).

Racism, Gender violence and Settler Colonialism.

The Doctrine of Discovery and Domination (new!)

Indigenous Oral and Written Narrative.

Indigenous Media and Documentation.

Self-Determination & Self-Governance.

Indigenous security, health, and equilibrium.

ABOUT US~~LIPAN APACHE WOMEN DEFENSE

Lipan Apache Women Defense (El Calaboz Rancheria) organized in the summer of 2007 to address centuries and recent decades of land-based struggles, recognition, territories, self-determination, and indigenous peoples' world views.

Lipan Apache Women Defense (LAW-Defense) is an Indigenous Peoples' Organization. It supports local capacity building, documentation, research, and investigations related to Indigenous peoples' rights affirmed in the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, ratified in 2007, and adopted by the United States on December 16, 2010.

LAW-Defense documents and advocates for the rights of the indigenous originarios, Nde', and Nakaiiye-Nde lineal clan members of Lipan Apache peoples who are the Real People: original rancheria communities along the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo.

Our projects embrace Indigenous Peoples' rights, as taught, transmitted, and upheld by the Elders and Knowledge Keepers.

Context:
Lipan Apache women of El Calaboz Rancheria took up the cultural, social, legal, political, and economic protection against armed and forced dispossession of Indigenous Peoples' lands by the U.S. D.H.S. et al.

We organized community support, empowerment and decision-making processes to protect integral and inherent Indigenous relationships to lands, sacred sites, burial grounds, and biodiversity in the face of a series of armed and forced takings of local peoples' lands, as a direct consequence of the implementation of the U.S. Secure Fence Act of 2006.

The Secure Fence Act of 2006, Sec. 102, provided the Secretary (Department of Homeland Security) the unilateral power to waive 36 Federal laws and this laid the pavement for destruction of languages, kin-ship practices, ceremonies, traditional medicinal knowledges, burial grounds, sacred sites, subsistence herding and farming, and cultural restoration projects already in implementation by local leaders. See, "Constitution Free Zone."

Indigenous peoples from the El Calaboz Rancheria lineal clans stood firm against the U.S. possession of traditional lands. Securing our lands, resources, livelihoods, ecologically-based economies, and way of life are at the heart of the matter for Indigenous Peoples of the Lower Rio Grande, who continue to struggle against settler and state violence stemming from colonization by Spaniards in the early 1520s, and subsequent waves of settlement, development, and privatization by Euro-American colonizers.

The United States and Nde' Customary Perspectives
In U.S. law, there are significant legal fictions which assume the religious and racial superiority of Euro-American settler juridical systems above those of indigenous peoples inherent and inalienable rights to self-governance, lands and territories. The following models entail excessive aggression and armed violence, which were used to dispossess lands illegally through force and coercion against Lower Rio Grande River communities:
1. Eminent Domain,
2. the Declaration of Taking, and
3. Condemnation Proceedings.

Impacted Nde' and Nnee Peoples of the Texas-Mexico Border--Beyond the Doctrine of Discovery
Specifically impacted Indigenous people, the Lipan Apache, Jumano-Apache, and Mexican-American land grant peoples whose ancestors' presence in the hemisphere pre-date European conquest.

The Lipan Apache Women Defense organized legal, social, cultural and political resistance to U.S. militarized violence, abuse of state power, and abuse of the Rule of Law

This work raises critical questions and organizes forums for serious debate, participation and collective decision-making about Indigenous inherent Aboriginal Title, and the State's sovereignty.

To date, the U.S. border wall project has been unsuccessful in El Calaboz Rancheria, Lower Rio Grande Valley, South Texas because it has not achieved its goal: genocide and erasure of Indigenous peoples, presence, history, creativity, and resilient spirit.

By foregrounding community organization, documentation, research and education the Lipan Apache Women Defense has strengthened the Indigenous People's resolve to persist in Indigenous, U.S. and International law systems to restore democratic principles and rule.

PLEASE SUPPORT OUR EFFORT to PROTECT INDIGENOUS LAND RIGHTS ALONG THE BORDER AND BORDER WALL.
(FEBRUARY 2012)