LIPAN APACHE EL CALABOZ LEADERS TO U.S. SOCIAL FORUM

STATEMENT OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF THE TEXAS-MEXICO BORDER,
LOWER RIO GRANDE RIVER, EL CALABOZ RANCHERÍA,
TO THE U.S. SOCIAL FORUM (2010) REPRESENTATIVES

Greetings!

The Lipan Apache Women Defense (LAW-Defense), an Indigenous Peoples Organization (IPO), established in 2007, and a Texas-Mexico border human rights working group, co-founded by Eloisa Garcia Tamez and Margo Tamez, is located in the heartland of Nde' shimaa hada'didla ('lands of the lightning people clans), in El Calaboz Rancheria. We exercise the right to pursue all the venues available and to create new ones for the application of customary laws of Indigenous peoples, human rights and international law, and the United Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).
LAW-Defense welcomes and invites partnerships to work productively for Indigenous Peoples‟ pursuit of “self-determination, land and natural resources, cultural rights and sacred sites protection, subsistence, Treaty rights, health and social services, non-discrimination, environmental protection, education, language, and many others which Indigenous Peoples identified as essential to their dignity, survival and well-being.”1
At this time, LAW-Defense calls upon our sisters and brothers participating in the 2010 U.S. Social Forum to join us in the sustained interrogation of the human rights violations committed by the United States of America along the Texas-Mexico border in its construction of an 18 foot tall steel, concrete reinforced wall across Indigenous Peoples lands.
LAW-Defense calls upon the U.S. Social Forum participants to support the self-determination processes of the diverse Indigenous communities who are directly impacted and irreparably harmed by the U.S. border wall construction which unfolded, between 2006-2009 in community-held lands.

Full statement here.