NDÉ ISDZÁNÉ ŁANOHWILE’~~Lipan Apache Women Defense ~~El Calaboz Rancheria, Rio Grande/Rio Bravo: TESTIFY PROJECT: U.S. ABUSES AND VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Sunday, October 31, 2010

TESTIFY PROJECT: U.S. ABUSES AND VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Testify Project
"It is time for people in the United States to make their voices heard at the United Nations. The Testify Project collects stories of injustice from throughout the United States through one-minute video and one-page written testimony. The top videos and stories will be screened for United Nations delegates in Geneva, Switzerland during the United States’ Universal Periodic Review.

CORE QUESTION: How are human rights violated in your community? OPTIONAL QUESTION: What should the US Government do to protect these rights?

Videos and written testimony should tell us about human rights violations in your community. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) specifies many rights everyone has simply by being human, such as the right to life, liberty and security of person (Article 3), freedom from arbitrary arrest (Article 9), freedom of thought and religion (Article 18), right to form and join unions (Article 23) and right to an adequate standard of living (Article 25). You can read a full version of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Pages/Language.aspx?LangID=eng, or a simplified version at www.adcq.qld.gov.au/pubs/UDHR_easyrefguide.rtf.

GET INVOLVED AND ORGANIZE! For more instructions about how to write, submit written statements, and/or how to make a youtube video and upload it to the Testify Project, click!

ORIGINARIOS, INDIGENOUS, FIRST NATION, PUEBLOS INDIGENAS, COMUNIDADES TRADICIONALES, BANDAS LIPANES, BANDAS TLAXCALTECAS ANCIANOS, INMIGRANTES INDIGENAS Y CAMPESINOS, PEOPLES OF LOWER RIO GRANDE VALLEY IMPACTED BY THE BORDER WALL, CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE HORRIFIC EFFECTS OF FLOODING, LOSS OF LIVELIHOOD, RACIST, SEXIST, CLASSIST DISCRIMINATION BY GOVERNMENT AND LOCAL AUTHORITY, AND ON-GOING IMPACTS OF THE MILITARIZATION OF THE COMMUNITY: Lipan Apache Women Defense calls upon you.

PLEASE--if you desire to walk side by side and in ALLIANCE with Indigenous Peoples working on human rights and Indigenous Rights based upon the local community protocols of governance, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as key frameworks for strengthened and empowered communities, the dismantling of the Border Wall, the return of Indigenous lands, and return of Indigenous local authority and vision for sustainable communities: CONTACT US! sumalhepa.nde.defense@gmail.com

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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.

Indigenous Cultural, Social, Economic, and Political Decision-making.

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)