NDÉ ISDZÁNÉ ŁANOHWILE’~~Lipan Apache Women Defense ~~El Calaboz Rancheria, Rio Grande/Rio Bravo: 10/09/11

Sunday, October 9, 2011

A Key Destination of Tar Sands Oil?... Texas-Mexico Border. Do Tell.

After watching the full testimonies held at the U.S. State Department on the issue of whether the U.S. should permit TransCanada Corporation to construct and operate a pipeline for transporting lethal oil from the Alberta Tar Sands, situated in the Traditional Territory of the Dene, I am even more alarmed about deep knowledge gaps and breakages, and the colonial blinders which are still preventing the majority spokespersons on these issues to examine the interlocking relationship of the Tar Sands in Dene country to Militarization in Nde' country (border wall, police terror state, detention centers, mega-rail, mega-bridge, and mega-highway projects connecting Lower Rio Grande Valley to northeastern Mexico 'ports'). There still seems to be an significant vaguery among the peoples (on both sides of the issue) about what could happen to the oil, the lands, peoples, water, air, and life... after refinery in Port Arthur, Texas, and where it would travel from its 'distribution' points along the Texas-Mexico border.

I'm more worried today than yesterday, witnessing the compelling testimonies and aghast at the lack of inquisitiveness on the part of the movement to follow the documentation trail left by Koch Industries (see September 24, 2011 post, scroll down). It is stunning how well the Texas connections to the oil-chemical-transportation League of Corporate Empires benefits from the colonial and racist implications of geographical-historical ignorance in the U.S. about indigenous struggles in South Texas and the Lower Rio Grande.

Again, please refer to the September 24, 2011 post on this site (scroll down), providing important details regarding Koch Industries' statement explicitly saying that the refined fuels will be going to Mexico, and from there other sites across the hemisphere. To my knowledge, this is the only site in the hemisphere that is making this crucial connection. Unfortunately, this is beginning to feel like the same isolation room that we experienced around the border wall.

I wonder if the 'progressive' camps of either movement--the anti-Keystone XL Pipeline or the Occupy Wall Street movement--perceive that their government and related corporations constructed the border wall, and now the MEGA-COLOSSAL HEAVY RAIL FREIGHT BRIDGE in concert with a much larger transhemispheric 'Security Prosperity Partnership, which entails transporting something considered a 'priority matter of national security' OVER the border wall which stands in the traditional territory of Lipan Apaches?

How will this happen on the ground?

Through 2 important mega-projects currently underway across the Texas-Mexico border:

1. A large rail transport system, which, low and behold, will traverse above the border wall in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, Cameron County.

2. The Trans-Texas Corridor (connecting Albert, Canada to South Texas, to Mexico).

For a more in-depth view from El Calaboz, read the September 24, 2011 post.

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)