NDÉ ISDZÁNÉ ŁANOHWILE’~~Lipan Apache Women Defense ~~El Calaboz Rancheria, Rio Grande/Rio Bravo: May 2012

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Indigenous leaders and faculty of the Human Rights Clinic, School of Law, University of Texas at Austin and Indigenous Studies at the University of British Columbia Okanagan will give public statements and discuss the international and Indigenous law analysis of the Texas-Mexico Border Wall

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(en Ingles y Espanol)

Media Advisory

May 29, 2012

Indigenous leaders and faculty of the Human Rights Clinic, School of Law, University of Texas at Austin and Indigenous Studies at the University of British Columbia Okanagan will give public statements and discuss the international and Indigenous law analysis of the Texas-Mexico Border Wall under the Early Warning and Urgent Action Procedures of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (80^th Session).

Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada— UBC Okanagan Indigenous Studies professor, Dr. Margo Tamez will host an international telephonic press conference and will be joined by Indigenous leaders from the Texas-Mexico border region and Professor Ariel Dulitzky, Director of the Human Rights Clinic, School of Law, University of Texas at Austin on Wednesday, May 30, 2012 at 10:00 PST. The group will discuss the 9-month long collaborative study of the Texas-Mexico border wall from the international human rights and Indigenous rights principles and the submission of the legal brief to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (80^th Session). On May 10, 2012, Tamez and Dulitzky submitted their 134-page legal analysis of the Texas-Mexico border wall to the UN CERD, calling for international intervention due to the border wall’s severe discriminatory impacts upon Native Americans, Native Mexican Americans, Indigenous Peoples and poor Latinos.

What: Indigenous leaders and law and Indigenous Studies faculty to speak about UN CERD submission on Texas-Mexico Border Wall

When: May 30, 2012, 10:00 a.m.-11:45 a.m. PST

Where: Telephonic

Dial in #: 1-877-807-8664, x 78664

Participant Code: 0155788

· Only 26 phone lines will be provided on a first-come, first-serve basis.

· Members of the press are strongly advised to dial in promptly at 10:00 PST. for the 15-minute, pre-press conference instructions and introductions.

· The press-conference service will conclude promptly at 12:00 noon PST.

Why: To inform and educate the public about the human rights, international law and Indigenous legal principles relative to the Texas-Mexico border wall. To invite open discussion about the severe harms suffered by Indigenous and poor Latino peoples as a direct consequence of the United States’ border wall policy and its negative human, cultural, ecological, and economic impacts. To illuminate the myriad ways that harms are dominantly shouldered by Indigenous and poor Latino peoples without redress, remedy or restitution and contradicts the principles of the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and international law.

For more information contact (in English) Dr. Margo Tamez at 250-807-9837 or margo.tamez@ubc.ca or

(en Español) Ms. Laura Rivas at lrivas@nnirr.org 510-465-1984, Ext 304, or 510-282-2500.

PARA DIFUSIÓN INMEDIATA

ALERTA DE PRENSA

29 de Mayo de 2012

Líderes Indígenas y profesores de Derechos humanos y estudios indígenas harán declaraciones púbicas y discutirán el análisis desde el derecho internacional y de los derechos de los pueblos indígenas del muro entre Texas y México que recientemente presentaron al Comité para la Eliminación de la Discriminación Racial de las Naciones Unidas.

Kelowna, British Columbia, Canadá— La profesora, Dra. Margo Tamez UBC Okanagan Indigenous Studies realizará una conferencia de prensa telefónica internacional con la participación de líderes indígenas de la región fronteriza entre Texas y México y el Profesor Ariel Dulitzky, Director de la Clínica de Derechos Humanos Human Rights de la University of Texas at Austin el Miércoles 30 de Mayo de 2010 a las 10:00 PST. El grupo discutirá el estudio que por 9 meses realizaron de manera colaborativa sobre el muro entre Texas y México desde la perspectiva de los Derechos humanos y los Derechos indígenas. El 10 de Mayo de 2012, Tamez y Dulitzky presentaron sus 134-páginas de análisis legal sobre el muro y su severo impacto discriminatorio sobre los pueblos indígenas, pueblos indígenas Americanos-Mexicanos y sobre Latinos pobres al Comité para la Eliminación de la Discriminación Racial de las Naciones Unidas (UN CERD).

Qué: Líderes Indígenas y profesores de Derecho y de Estudios Indígenas discutirán sobre la presentación al Comité para la Eliminación de la Discriminación Racial de las Naciones Unidas sobre el muro entre Texas-México

Cuándo: 30 de Mayo de 2012, 10:00 a.m.-11:45 a.m. PST

Dónde: Telefónica

Marcar #: 1-877-807-8664, x 78664

Código de Participante: 0155788

· Solo 26 líneas telefónicas estarán disponibles de acuerdo al orden de llamada.

· Miembros de la prensa: se recomienda especialmente marcar a las 10:00 PST. En punto para 15-minutos de instrucciones y presentaciones previas a la conferencia de prensa.

· Los servicios de la conferencia de prensa terminarán puntualmente a las 12:00 PST.

Por qué: Para informar y educar al público sobre los principios de Derechos humanos, Derecho internacional y Derechos indígenas relativos al muro entre Texas y México. Invitar a una discusión abierta sobre los severos daños que los indígenas y latinos pobres sufren como consecuencia directa de la negativa de Estados Unidos de considerar las consecuencias negativas del impacto humano, cultural, ecológico y económico del muro. Exponer las múltiples formas en que estos daños son sufridos principalmente por indígenas y latinos sin ningún tipo de reparación, remedio o restitución en violación de la Declaración de Naciones unidas sobre Derechos de los Pueblos Indígenas y del derecho internacional.

Para mayor información contactar (en ingles) a la Dra. Margo Tamez al 250-807-9837 o margo.tamez@ubc.ca or

(en Español) Ms. Laura Rivas at lrivas@nnirr.org 510-465-1984, Ext 304, o 510-282-2500.

Friday, May 25, 2012

INDIAN COUNTRY TODAY: 'Early Warning/Urgent Action' Sought Against US Human Rights Violations at Border Wall

By Gale Courey Toensing (May 24, 2012), INDIAN COUNTRY TODAY

A group representing human, indigenous and women’s rights accuses the United States of violating international human rights laws and private property rights in constructing the security wall along the Mexican border and has asked the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) for help to stop the violations.

Ariel Dulizky, director of the Human Rights Clinic, School of Law, University of Texas at Austin, Dr. Margo Tamez (Lipan Apache) on the faculty of the University of British Columbia Okanagan teaching Indigenous Studies, and the Lipan Apache Women Defense, an Indigenous Peoples organization, submitted a request May 10 asking CERD to intervene to stop the continuing “negative impact” of the border wall. “The construction of the wall occurred in a discriminatory manner, and continues to have discriminatory effects. The intervention of the CERD, utilizing its Early Warning and Urgent Action procedures, is necessary to stop the harm that the border wall is continuing to inflict on indigenous communities and poor Latinos,” Tamez and Dulitzky write.

Read more, Indian Country Today

Monday, May 21, 2012

LAW-Defense, UT School of Law Human Rights Clinic, and UBCO Professor Partner on U.N. CERD Submission | Expose Increased U.S. Human Rights Violations along Texas-Mexico Border Wall

(El Calaboz, TX) On May 10, 2012, in another historic move, the Human Rights Clinic, School of Law, at the University of Texas at Austin, in collaboration with Dr. Margo Tamez (Lipan Apache Band of Texas; Faculty of Indigenous Studies at the University of British Columbia Okanagan), and alongside the Lipan Apache Women Defense (LAW-Defense), submitted a request for consideration under Early Warning and Urgent Action Procedures of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

Addressed to Ms. Grabiella Habtom, Secretary of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in Geneva, Switzerland, the authors submitted a 134-page critical legal analysis of the United States’ human rights violations against Indigenous Peoples, Native Mexican Americans, and severely marginalized Latinos. In extensive detail, the brief exposes and underscores how the border wall and militarization have severely impacted all life along the Texas-Mexico border, and raises the critical perspectives of impacted peoples, several who provided affidavits, who call into question the legitimacy of the U.S. uses of controversial legislation, armed force, coercion, and eminent domain in the hostile dispossession of Indigenous peoples’ traditional lands, territories and resources.

The group plans to host an international telephonic press conference to discuss the key issues and purpose of the legal brief, the recommendations to the U.N.CERD, hoped-for outcomes, and the need to inform and educate the public and the international legal system about the U.S. government's human rights violations against Indigenous Peoples, Native Mexican Americans, and marginalized Latino peoples who live and work along the Texas-Mexico border.

See full text of the submission to U.N. CERD here:

U.N. CERD Texas-Mexico Border Wall Request-UT LAW HR CLINIC-LAWDEFENSE-MTAMEZ
Please stay tuned for details regarding the International Press Teleconference, forthcoming.

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)