Click here for more photographs and to read letters delivered to the U.S. and Mexican consulates.
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Protests before Consulates in El Paso and Juárez against Displacement
Diario de Juárez, January 14, 2008
B. CARMONA / A. FLORES
RESIDENTS FROM JUÁREZ AND EL PASO held demonstrations yesterday at the consulates of both cities in protest of the destruction of hundreds of homes and buildings in El Paso’s Segundo Barrio to build a commercial zone.
While some of the members of the Committee in Defense of Lomas del Poleo held a demonstration outside the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juárez, some of the Lomas del Poleo residents joined the demonstration across the river in front of the Mexican consulate in El Paso.
The Committee’s spokesperson Juan Carlos Martínez, said the demonstration in El Paso is to denounce the barbed-wire fence put up by the Grupo Zaragoza that surround the Lomas del Poleo neighborhood.
“It’s a joint, simultaneous protest. We are supporting each other because this is a binational struggle against despojo—displacement and dispossession—by powerful developers, many who belong to the Verde Group,” said Martínez while behind him demonstrators carried signs bearing the letters “Segundo Barrio” and shouting “La tierra no se vende, se trabaja y se defiende!” (Our land is not for sale, it is ours to work and to defend!).
Martínez explained that developers from the Verde Group and the Paso Del Norte Group plan to demolish hundreds of homes and businesses in the Segundo Barrio to build shopping malls and big-box retail stores.
The Paso Del Norte Group (PDNG) is made up of more than 350 business leaders from El Paso, Ciudad Juárez and New Mexico.
“There are historic buildings in the oldest neighborhood in El Paso. It’s an area that played a very important role in the Mexican Revolution, for instance, that’s where Los de Abajo by Mariano Azuela was published and now they want to put up a Wal-Mart and other shopping malls there,” Martínez said. Since 2006 the PDNG has been trying to buy out some of these building with the threat of eminent domain.
The Juárez demonstrators handed out about 1,500 flyers and presented a letter to the U.S. Consul General explaining their opposition to the binational development plan.
In El Paso, María Guadalupe Ochoa, resident and one of the leaders of the Segundo Barrio movement, said people from both sides of the border support each other’s struggle because “just like they want our barrio here to disappear, they also want to destroy the homes of the Lomas del Poleo residents.”
El Paso District 8 representative Robert O’Rourke argued that it is not the intention of the redevelopment plan to displace residents but to promote the region’s economy.
He said only buildings along S. Mesa and S. Oregon in the Segundo Barrio will be affected by the plan. He excluded Chihuahuita.
“I think these people (the protesters) are confusing the public and aren’t giving them a clear idea of what is happening,” the representative said.
The Paso Del Norte Group project plans to redevelop the Segundo Barrio by building a big-box retail store and a shopping mall in this zone.
According to this group of developers, this project has been designed to bring jobs and promote economic development throughout the region.
The membership of the Paso Del Norte Group (PDNG) includes more than 350 business leaders from El Paso, Juárez and New Mexico
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