Hundreds, maybe thousands, of campesinos from diverse points in Jalisco are set to converge on Guadalajara on Monday at 9 a.m. to rally in support of residents of the small fishing community of Tenacatita – ruthlessly evicted from their homes and businesses by state police last week.
Confederacion Nacional Campesina (CNC) President Cruz Lopez Aguilar says his members will "take the state palace" in protest at the way thousands of acres of coastal land is being "stolen" from campesinos, with the collusion of politicians, bureaucrats and the judiciary, to make way for elitist tourism projects.
At least 150 Jalisco state police in full riot gear evicted some 800 people living and working in the beach community of Tenacatita and the neighboring village of Rebalsito in the early hours of August 4.
The eviction took place after a judge ruled in favor of Guadalajara businessman Jose Maria Andres Villalobos, the owner of Inmobiliaria Rodenas, who claims to own at least 42 hectares of disputed land.
The ousted residents' claim to the land dates back to the 1940s, when the Rebalsito ejido (local land commune) was set up in the wake of the Mexican Revolution, which dispossessed many wealthy Mexicans of their properties and land.
Unfortunately, the land distribution program was highly inefficient and replete with corruption, and it wasn't until the presidency of Vicente Fox (2000-2006) that Rebalsito's ejido lands were regularized under the Programa de Certificacion de Derechos Ejidales (PROCEDE). According to La Huerta municipal officials, 220 land titles were handed out and the deeds duly recorded in municipal registers. The majority of the zone's residents are up to date with their property taxes, municipal officials say. A few ejidatarios have taken advantage of changes made to the Mexican Constitution in the early 1990s and sold their parcels of land, some to foreigners.
Jorge Diaz Topete, the lawyer for Villlalobos, says his client is the true owner of the land, which he says was purchased from Paz Gortazar de Gonzalez Gallo, the widow of former Jalisco governor Jesus Gonzalez Gallo (1947-1953), in December 1991.
Diaz told Publico this week that the land – he says Villalobos actually owns around 80 hectares – was acquired legitimately, although he admitted the El Resbalcito ejido has always claimed legal title to it.
Locals have lived and worked in the Tenacatita beach area ever since the 1960s. The businesses are mainly small palapa restaurants that sell seafood dishes to tourists. There are also a few hotels. While alive, Gonzalez Gallo apparently made no effort to throw them off the land that he purportedly owned. Villalobos made the first of several attempts to have them evicted from the federal zone concession area (that he also claims to have) in 1993.
To mark the 131st anniversary of the birth of revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, PRI Jalisco state congressman Gabriel Ponce Miranda, the 72-year-old former leader of the Jalisco Agrarian Communities League, was stinging in his criticism for the government's treatment of the working class and cited events in Tenacatita to make his point.
"The campesinos feel that history is being turned on its head," Ponce said. "Today, in Jalisco and other parts of the country, the ejidos and unions are being crushed by a government that some might call fascist. They may not even be fascist, because at least the fascists of Mussolini protected the workers."
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
