Annunciation House Newsletter - Winter 2005

A Land Dispute at the US/Mexico Border

There is a beautiful piece of land called Lomas de Poleo, situated on the mesa just about one mile from the U.S. border in the western part of Juarez, Mexico. Looking south and east one sees the imposing rise of the craggy Juarez mountains and looking north one is met by the Franklin Mountains and the imposing statue of Christ the King, facing east, favoring neither side of the border, but watching with sadness the goings on between the two purported Christian countries. If you drive down the hill, away from the mesa, heading north, in about three minutes you arrive at the fence which pretends to divide Anapra, Mexico from Sunland Park, New Mexico. As least as far back as 1958 there have been attempts to develop this area and put in an international crossing. Now, the latest proposal for the new port of entry here is said to be a “done deal”.

Back up on the mesa, I meet with Luis Urbina Duran, the first settler here. Eighty-six years old but vibrant and clear, he leans on his walker, and tells me how he first came upon this land and the inspiration he had to develop an agrarian community here. “In 1971 we came up here to live in peace and quiet. There wasn’t hardly a house or a store below in Anapra. We asked the federal government if we could settle here and they said it couldn’t be incorporated because there was no water, no electricity, no roads, schools or services. We said we didn’t care, that we just wanted to live here with some goats, pigs, maybe cows, too. Each settler would have a lot of 100 by 200 meters, or 2 hectares” (4.94 acres).

Urbina finally received permission from the federal government to go ahead with his plan. He had heard the Zaragoza family had some land in the same area and wanted to make sure his Granjas de Lomas de Poleo would not be encroaching on any of it. As Don Luis and others have related the story to me, they met several times with Pedro Zaragoza Vicarra (now deceased) and spoke with him by phone. Each time he clearly stated that none of the land in Lomas de Poleo belonged to him, that he couldn’t sell it to them or help them obtain any kind of title to it. Confident, then, that they were on national land, unclaimed and uncared for, they continued to invite others to settle.

Don Luis told me and others confirmed it, that he never tried to make a penny off the land. When a new family came, he simply showed them the map of Lomas and invited them to pick their two hectares. Their name was written in the appropriate lot and they could begin to build whatever kind of dwelling suited them. As the community developed they cut roads out of the desert sand and in 1985 built a little school to which the federal government assigned a teacher. Eventually the government provided construction materials and the community donated labor to build a larger primary school which is registered with the federal education system. The original one-room school became a kindergarten and community center. Mass was also celebrated there until the little pallet chapel was built in ’97.

These homesteaders knew that Mexican law, both state and federal, said that anyone who peacefully occupied property under certain conditions could become the legal owner. “Property is acquired in five years when it is held with the intention of ownership, in good faith, peacefully, continually and publicly” (Code of Federal Civil Law, Article 1152, i.) The Chihuahua Civil Code, Articles 1153 and 1154 basically repeat the same principle. As one considers the arguments put forward later by the Zaragoza family, one can see they are all moot. Whether the land was private, Zaragoza’s, federal, a corporation, doesn’t matter. Once the conditions of the Civil Law have been fulfilled the occupier, even without official title, is morally speaking, the owner. A point not to be forgotten in this discussion.

The families frequently sought and received letters from local, state and federal authorities to document their possession of the land. I have seen some of these documents from judges and other federal, state and local officials, clearly stating that such and such a person is in possession of such and such a lot in Lomas de Poleo. Many people also had their Lomas address on their “credencial elector” which every Mexican needs in order to vote. The address is proof that the person was living on said property as of the date on the ID. In spite of their conformity to the Mexican constitution and state laws—Don Luis and some other families have over thirty years on the land, still others well over twenty years of possession of their land, and so on—the government still has not given official titles to the residents. Why, remains a mystery.

In 1990, in order to protect their land and pressure the government to give them titles, some of the people decided to form an ‘Asociacion Civil’, a Mexican non-profit, with legal status, recognized by the government and the courts. Everyone did not agree, however, and so the people were divided into those who remained with Luis Urbina, the original pioneer, and those who became members of the A.C.

In 1992, Pedro Zaragoza Vizcarra, Sr., mentioned above, attempted to assert ownership of the 318 hectares of land in Lomas de Poleo. The judgement of the Third Civil Court, number 1442/92, rejected Zarragoza’s attempt and recognized the A.C. and residents were in possession of the land. In 2001, Zaragoza’s widow, Maria del Refugio Fuentes and her sons, Pedro and Jorge, tried to re-activate their father’s claim but the First Civil Court 1308/01 simply referred back to the ’92 decision and never ruled that the land should be given to the Zaragoza’s. What the courts finally said, was that the land was “in litigation” and that no one should build or knock down until the courts made a final judgement.

So, from 1971 until 2003 the settlement on the mesa in Lomas was never deemed illegal by the courts, no families were evicted, but on the contrary the community peacefully continued to grow until the number of families reached some three hundred and fifty. In 2002 the CFE (Federal Electric Commission) in collaboration with the Juarez municipal government installed the infrastructure for electricity on the mesa, hardly an action the government would take in the case of an “invasion” or illegal settlement! Each family, after signing their formal contract with the CFE and beginning their payments, had a nice white cement post with a meter installed in front of their home, and was able to enjoy the luxury and convenience of legal and safe electricity. I saw these contracts and computer print-outs from the CFE with the dates and payments the families had made.

Even though the people didn’t have their titles, it seemed to me the community was secure. So in the Spring of 2003 when anxiety was running high over rumors that the electric infrastructure was going to be removed I was not particularly disturbed. Jose Luis Rocha who is the “maestro” for the Columban housing project and has been living on the mesa for about fifteen years with his wife and five children, expressed his fears to me but I simply couldn’t believe that such a thing was even possible, let alone imminent. I was soon proven very wrong.

In the early Spring, the CFE sent their trucks to remove all the infrastructure they’d placed there only a year earlier. People heard of their impending arrival and blocked the road with burning tires and piles of stones to be thrown at the trucks should they get past the tires. The trucks left but the victory was short lived.

On Wednesday, May 14, 2003, the same trucks, now protected by a fleet of the Juarez City Police vehicles, returned to Lomas. Accompanied by fire trucks who extinguished the burning tires and scattered the resisters, with the police arresting some and just smacking others and pushing them out of the street, the CFE crews proceeded to remove all the same infrastructure it had put in the previous year. I was a sad witness to these trucks, each accompanied by a police truck and five or six cops, who spent two days literally rolling up all the electric cable and pulling the huge 40-foot tall cement posts out of the ground. All that remained were the little white cement posts with their now useless meters standing in front of the homes, a few straggly wires sticking out of the top where they’d been cut from the CEF’s lines.

The explanation given in the press was incredible; that the CFE had simply made a mistake by putting in the electricity and now that the Sixth District Court had ruled in Zaragoza’s favor, it was simply rectifying the situation by removing it. On the ground, however, the word was that, once again, the Zaragoza’s had influenced both the judge and the CFE to remove the electricity. The most obvious result of the maneuver was that the people Pedro Zaragoza had been trying to kick off the land in Lomas would now have to suffer the indignities of heat and cold without electricity. Regrigerators, fans, lights, TV all would now be at the mercy—if one could even afford it—of hundreds of meters of wire snaking across the ground and down the side of the mesa to the nearest electric pole.

On Tuesday, May 27, a little more than a week after the electricity had been removed, a vigilante group of some 200 men, paid 300 pesos per day, was placed on the mesa right by the water tank with easy capacity to control the only road that leads into Lomas. Pedro Zaragoza and the enterprise he controls “Grupo Zaragoza” one of three conglomerates the family owns were now going to use fear, intimidation, threats and actual acts of violence to further debilitate the settlers on the mesa and force them to leave. The vigilante group were observed to have in their possession pipes, bats, firearms and younger “cholos”, or gang members, were seen using drugs (sniffing spray paint from plastic soda bottles) a further incitement to fear what havoc such gangsters high on drugs might wreak in the Colonia. The trucks going in and out of the vigilante encampment were photographed and seen to belong to Grupo Zaragoza. That same day they began to cover the logo on the trucks with white paper.

A former member of the Asciacion Civil, David Camacho, was seen entering and exiting the vigilante encampment. In shamelessly false reporting, various media said he was the representative of the people in Lomas and that they had all agreed to be relocated by the generous Zaragoza family. He repeatedly placed documents in court using the name of the A.C. and causing confusion amongst the people and the courts. In fact he had become a paid employee of the Zaragoza’s and was their point man for causing confusion, conflict and destruction within the community.

In spite of the repeated contravening of the Zaragoza’s titles and claims to Lomas de Poleo, government officials and media frequently referred to the Zaragoza’s as the owners of the land in question thereby lending credibility to whatever they did. At the same time, the A.C. reiterated the court’s decision that the land was in litigation and charged that the Zaragoza’s were not only a powerful and wealthy family but that they asserted undue and illegal influence over government officials who were supposed to be committed to serving the common good and not wealthy individuals.

In an interview during this time, Zaragoza’s, lawyer, Mario Chacon Rojo, claimed that Pedro Zaragoza Vizcarra, father of Pedro Zaragoza Fuentes, purchased this land on September 23, 1963, from Lauro Ortega Perea. Zaragoza’s widow, Maria del Refugio Fuentes de Zaragoza and two sons, Pedro and Jorge, inherited the land parcel of 318 hectares (1 hectare equals 10,000 square meters or 2.47 acres) and claim to have deeds to that effect which they acquired December 29, 1998. Chacon Rojo emphasizes that the name Lomas de Poleo doesn’t exist legally or on any legal land title and that the land is part of Anapra. He claims the area was totally abandoned until a squatter’s invasion in 2000.

For almost three weeks the vigilantes remained on the mesa, an intimidating presence that circulated freely in the community at night, since there were now no street lights and few people had strong enough electricity to even have a light bulb outside their front door. A widow’s pig sty was set on fire, her pigs killed and herself terrified. Complaints were filed but the authorities did nothing. On Sunday, June 8, at the A.C. meeting, Paula Flores, whose daughter had been murdered and disappeared in ’98, had learned about civic action and suggested a march on City Hall. Monday, the residents and friends of Lomas de Poleo undertook a march to City Hall and a protest in front of the Mayor’s office. After some three hours, Mayor Alfredo Jesus Delgado, came down and met with the people. He promised to fulfill the three requests of the people: No longer recognize David Camacho Silva as leader of the A.C., to remove the vigilante group and to put back the electricity. Friday, the 13th, that same week, the city police came and forced the Zaragoza’a vigilantes to leave the mesa.

Things were quiet until the following Spring when on Wednesday, March 17, 2004 the vigilantes returned, this time with 18-wheelers loaded with cement and construction equipment, bulldozers, and truckloads of men. They had apparently purchased a plot of land in the Colonia and set up a base of operations there. On Saturday morning the people woke up to cement posts and barbed wire sealing the Colonia. On Sunday there was a riot and many of the posts were pulled out of the ground and the wire cut, but the vigilante group eventually gained control and put the posts back. Eventually they built a huge metal gate through which everyone had to go to get into the Colonia. On Sunday, May 2, there was one last attept to physically remove the fencing. It failed and since then the Zaragoza vigilantes have been in control of who and what enters the mesa area.

The A.C. has organized many protests during this time and filed many complaints through its lawyers with the state attorney general’s office but the authorities have remained silent. We organized an internet campaign where people could sign and send to us “titles” in which President Fox is asked to recognize the people’s right to their land. We presented over 2,000 to the Mexican National Human Rights commission who in turn recommended to President Fox that he intervene but he chose not to.

On September 15, the vigilantes knocked down the little pallet chapel of Jesus De Nazaret. This turned out to be a big mistake as we generated much publicity and even the bishop came and said a public mass declaring the destruction of the church a sacrilege. Rebuilding the chapel built up solidarity among the people and we saw increased participation in the community and at the Sunday mass. The chapel is located in the center of the Colonia next to the primary school and the kindergarten, creating an island of hope for the people.

The following month, Faustino Olivares, the head of the A.C. was on his way up to the mesa. His car was stopped by two men who asked him about getting land on the mesa. He rolled down the window to speak with them and they pulled the door open and beat him with baseball bats, breaking his left leg and arm and punching him in the face. Even though a witness came forward and went to the attorney general giving testimony that he had been offered 30,000 pesos by David Camacho to kill Faustino, still, Camacho was never even picked by the police. Impunity.

The Zaragoza’s claim to have obtained an “amparo” a kind of restraining order which allows them to prohibit the city and state police from entering into the gated area. The Municipal social services wanted to invite the residents to organize a neighborhood committee but, again, the guards would not allow the city trucks to enter. Through all this the City never took any action against Zaragoza. Since then many people have told me the Zaragoza’s control both the municipal and the state governments and there is just a slim hope that the federal government may as yet be uncompromised.

Several attempts have been made to negotiate with Zaragoza but the representatives of the people have been poorly treated and offered relocation on tiny plots of land in bad locations.

Through hook, crook, intimidation, lies, threats and simply making life more and more miserable, more than half the families have left. Even though the Constitution states clearly “No one can be molested in their person, family, home, papers or possessions except by virtue of a written order from the competent authority, that is based in and motivated by the law”, (Article 16) still Zaragoza has been able to get away with his illegal and immoral attempts to remove the people from their land.

What Zaragoza has been able to achieve up to this point is a demonstration of what in Latin America is called “impunidad” or impunity. Through money, power, fear and force the wealthy, drug traffickers, and other “intocables” go about their business without even the slightest fear of intervention from the authorities. All the respective authorities of city and state have been negligent, indifferent or outright participants in the illegal, immoral and corrupt actions of the Zaragoza family. Everything that Zaragoza, through his agents, has done up to this point is both illegal and immoral. Nothing that Zaragoza has achieved has been without corruption, bribery, violence and threats of violence, lies, and violation of human rights.

Since April Zaragoza has further increased the pressure on people to leave. Extending the fences all the way north and east right up to the US border and fencing in more hectares just below the mesa in what is called Lomas Planta Baja. In some cases they built their fences right through the middle of people’s homes.

Given the situation I decided to move into Dona Terre’s house, an elderly woman who had died a few months before and whose sister gave me permission to use the house. The house is close to the chapel and would be some sign of support and presence for the people.

Manuel Balderas, the Zaragoza employee in charge of the vigilante group on the mesa, has been going house to house, telling people they are eventually going to get evicted and will have nothing. Hence, it is better sign over their rights to the land to Zaragoza and accept to be relocated elsewhere, promising at times various benefits such as a piece of land, title, material to build a house, etc. He has also lied to people saying that so-and-so has already signed and that most people are signing, showing lists of names of people who are going to accept relocation—people to whom he hasn’t even spoken!

Romero said “Once you have a friend who is poor you will never be the same. None of the issues will appear the same”. This situation and the courageous and resilient people involved in it have impacted me deeply. Within a few days of moving into Dona Terre’s house, a new white Surburban stopped in front of the house. A man and a woman got out and walked over to me. The man introduced himself as Ruben Iglesias, sort of the CEO of Grupo Zaragoza, and a name well known to me, as he is supposedly the one that gave the order to knock down the chapel. Iglesias told me the Zaragozas were mortified at the things I’d been saying about them and wanted to sit down and explain things to me and show me documents to prove they were acting within their right. I gave my phone number but never heard from Iglesias or anyone in the Zaragoza organization.

As Lic. Balderas was going about trying to pressure people to sign away their property rights I was begging people to sign nothing unless they had Zaragoza’s offer in writing and until they had legal representation. At the weekly diocesan priest’s meeting the following Tuesday, Monsignor Mariano Mosqueda said he’d heard from Zaragoza’s lawyer, Ruben Iglesias, concerning my activity on the mesa and said that Iglesias told him the priest is going around stirring up the people.

Then they began knocking down all the uninhabited houses, not just pallet shacks, but large, sophisticated homes of brick, cinder block, etc. For days, bulldozers and backhoes went about demolishing homes, and then loading the debris onto a fleet of large dump trucks. This strategy was effective in instilling fear in people and forcing them to seriously analyse their chances of being able to stay in their homes on the mesa. “I came with nothing and I’ll leave with nothing” said several residents.

Further pressure is exerted by the perception that Zaragoza is unstoppable and will eventually seal the area so completely that it will be virtually impossible to live there. The gate, questions, more inspections, questioning, “day will come when only the people who live here will be allowed through the gate” said Sergio, the head of the guards. That is no busses, water truck, relatives or friends, as well as continued refusal to let people bring in any material to improve their homes, construction material, sand, cement, wood, etc. furniture, refrigerator, etc.

Through it all, 120 families still remain inside the fenced in area of Lomas de Poleo. After repeated attempts by Zaragozas lawyers to force them to sign their property rights over to him, the people remain convinced they have a constitutional right to the land on which they are living.