NDÉ ISDZÁNÉ ŁANOHWILE’~~Lipan Apache Women Defense ~~El Calaboz Rancheria, Rio Grande/Rio Bravo: 07/04/12

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Nde' Professor to Present Research at United Nations in Geneva

UBC professor seeks to provide the United Nations 5th Session on the Effective Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples the perspectives of Texas border Indigenous peoples on U.S. border militarization and dispossession.

Margo Tamez has been invited by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to present research findings on the impacts of militarization on Indigenous peoples, their lands and territories on international borders.

An assistant professor of Indigenous Studies and Gender-Women's Studies in the Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences at UBC's Okanagan campus, Tamez will present during the 5th Session of the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP), held July 9 to 13 in Geneva, Switzerland. EMRIP provides the Human Rights Council with thematic advice, in the form of studies and research, on the rights of Indigenous peoples.

"Being selected to participate is an enormous honour," says Tamez. "It comes with a significant responsibility to uphold the principles of Indigenous elders, women, families, youth and workers in regions of North America which have been brutally marginalized in U.S. domestic policy decisions related to border security."

In May, Tamez and research collaborator Ariel Dulitzky, clinical professor of law and director of the Human Rights Clinic at the University of Texas, submitted a study to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) related to human rights violations impacting Indigenous peoples on the Texas-Mexico border in connection with the U.S. border wall.

Tamez plans to inform the EMRIP of this ground-breaking study, which highlights the severity of the detrimental social, economic, and political impacts of border militarization and Indigenous land dispossession directly tied to the construction of the Texas-Mexico border wall across the lands of the Kickapoo, Tigua, and Lipan Apache Indigenous communities.

The 5th Session of EMRIP will bring together representatives from states, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Peoples’ organizations, civil society, inter-governmental organizations and academia. High on the agenda is the global importance of the implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples at the country level within nation-states and a knowledge exchange about the challenges Indigenous peoples face in achieving this internationally recognized goal.

"I am thrilled to have the chance to work in collaboration with some of the world’s top experts and innovators in Indigenous rights and social movements," says Tamez. "I look forward to learning more about high-level UN internal mechanisms, as well as gaining deeper understandings of Indigenous women’s roles as researchers, community advocates and international diplomats."

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)