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Stop Human Rights Violation in Lomas del Poleo
An open letter to the Mexican General Consul in El Paso, Texas by the residents of Granjas Lomas del Poleo and their supporters on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border
January 14, 2007
BEGINNING IN MARCH of 2004, the residents of Granjas Lomas del Poleo have resisted a campaign of intimidation and harassment by one of the wealthiest families in northern Mexico: the Zaragoza Fuentes family. Supported by the municipal, state and federal governments, the Zaragoza Fuentes family has attempted to illegally strip us of 345 hectares of land where we have lived for over thirty years. In 1975, the Department of Agrarian Reform declared the lands we live in as property of the nation.
The 55 families, who continue resisting this attack, have suffered a series of crimes and an endless number of violations to our basic human rights at the hands of armed paramilitary groups hired by the Zaragozas. We have had to endure the murder of our friend Luis Guerrero, the murder of two children, Magdaleno and Maria del Carmen Casango, three and four years of age, who were inside their home when it was purposely set on fire by the Zaragoza guards.
Since then, the Housing Authority Department of Ciudad Juárez, headed by Carlos Morales Villalobos, in complicity with the Zaragoza Fuentes family, has not recognized the 1975 decision. They claim these lands are part of their property, and have ordered the closing of all the streets and the disconnection of electric service. They have surrounded the entire neighborhood with barbed wire, constructed a guard tower and installed a gate at the main entrance. Private guards headed by Catarino del Río Camacho, an employee of Pedro and Jorge Zaragoza Fuentes, have been hired to terrorize us, prevent us from leaving our neighborhood and stop visitors from entering to see us.
In addition these violations against the Mexican Constitution, the laws of our State and our basic human rights, have been to further the interests of developers carrying out a binational scheme that includes: San Jerónimo on the Mexican side, and Santa Teresa in the United States. This binational scheme plans the construction of assembly plants for the European and Asian industry as well as the American aerospace industry that will primarily benefit a few developers from Chihuahua City, Ciudad Juárez, El Paso and New Mexico. These land grab tycoons include: Eloy Vallina Lagüera, Pedro and Jorge Zaragoza Fuentes, Bill Sanders and Ross Perot as well as others who benefit from illegally acquiring expropriating land.
Lomas del Poleo, with its 345 acres is located in the northwest part of Ciudad Juárez, right in the middle of the area coveted by these empresarios who, in the name of a false primitive vision of “progress,” have defined us as disposable human beings. Our work and effort to raise our livestock of goats, rabbits, hens, peacocks, turkeys, cows and horses are not considered viable economic projects in their eyes. But thanks to these projects we have been able to survive the last 30 years and become perhaps one of the last groups of defenders of the environment on the border through our organic farming techniques. The closing of the streets in our neighborhood and the campaign of terror against the residents has caused the stagnation of our economic activity and, as a result, a decline in of our family income. We are aware that it is the aim of the Zaragoza Fuentes group—by cutting of our provisions and imprisoning us within our neighborhood—to starve us into submission.
For this reason, today, before the honest citizens of Mexico and the world, we demand that the governor of the State of Chihuahua, José Reyes Baeza and the Mayor of Ciudad Juárez, José Reyes Ferriz, the immediate reinstatement of our rights as a neighborhood and our rights as citizens’ because we will no longer live under these conditions. Furthermore, we demand legal recognition of our land and neighborhood in accordance with the law, as well as the fulfillment on the part of the Secretaría de la Reforma Agraria that in 1975 declared these lands as federal property, lands that have been part of our community for over thirty years.
If the state government and Mayor cannot stop these arbitrary acts and abuses to our fundamental rights as human beings, then we will find a way to do so. For now, we have the support and backing of the national and international civil society. The thousands of Mexicans who are engaging in their own struggle against displacement and dispossession are also on our side.
We are conscious that our resistance against the displacement of our residents and wrongful acquisition of our land is part of a bigger fight in this region. We are resolved to support the defense of el Segundo Barrio in our sister city El Paso, TX which is under the same threat of displacement. We know that it is the same binational developers working on both sides of the border to make their profit at the expense and exclusion of the working-class people of both countries.
STOP THE HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN LOMAS DEL POLEO!
NO DISPLACEMENT AND DISPOSSESSION IN LOMAS DEL POLEO AND THE SEGUNDO BARRIO!
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