March 24, 2007
Caught in the Middle
By Juana de Jesús Pérez MéndezA hundred yards from the Panamerican Highway, just a few miles south of San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, Lucia Pérez Díaz lives with her husband and six children in a small house made of rough wooden boards lined with plastic to keep the mountain chill at bay.
In the neighborhood, officially part of the larger Maria Auxiliadora neighborhood, but called the Colonia del Artículo by those who live there, corn stalks rustle in the woodsmoke scented breeze, baby chicks peep, and men work at a small cinder block operation nearby. The Colonia is small. There are only 15 homes in the neighborhood.
Recently, the appearance of the neighborhood has changed. Today a high, bright green fence runs along the back perimeter of Díaz's lot, hiding her dirt patio, chicken coop, and humble home from the families that picnic and splash in paddleboats at the new Wetlands Park, El Parque de los Humedales next door. The park is part of a new government project which aims to conserve 86 acres of wetland while promoting tourism and environmental education.
The Wetlands Park centers around an elegant timber-framed conference center and café with expansive windows that look out across an artificial lake, home to an endangered native fish species called the Popoyote. Visitors may rent small boats to use on the pond and picnic at pavilions on the water's edge. Former Chiapas governor Pablo Salazar proudly cited the park as one of his administration's accomplishments upon leaving office in December.
But, the new park has thrust Díaz and her neighbors into uncertainty and conflict. The city government maintains that the families living here have invaded city-owned land and must leave their homes so that the parcel can be protected and further developed for public use. City officials say that Mario Jiménez, 64, the man who claims to own the land, lied to Díaz and her neighbors and sold them land that never belonged to him.
Though the families hold bills of sale for the land and pay taxes on it, officials maintain that their paperwork is invalid and that the land belongs to the government. "The families will have to vacate [the land] sooner or later," said the city's legal counsel, Javier Antonio Rodríguez. He said that the government has no obligation to help them find other homes or to ensure that Jiménez refunds their money.
But Jiménez claims that former Governor Manuel Velasco Suárez, who died in 2001, gave him the land in 1979 to thank him for his years of service as a ranch manager, and holds notarized documents signed by Suárez and his wife that name him as the owner of the property.
City officials question the legitimacy of Jiménez's documents, and Alejandro Bermúdez, head of Public Works, said that Jiménez and the families he sold land to are "invaders." Bermúdez said in December that his primary motive for creating the park was to protect the fragile wetland from people like Jiménez who squat on unused lots.
While officials are proud of the new park, they are unhappy that the ragged assembly of houses and cornfields beside it is still standing. "They are the fly in the pie," said Alberto Paredes of the State Public Works Department and one of the park's architects, standing on a dock beside the artificial lake.
For nearly a year, officials have been trying to remove the families from the land. In April 2006, Bermúdez, then the Director of Urban Development and Planning, wrote a letter to Jiménez that gave him twenty-four hours to vacate the land beside the park.
But Jiménez obtained a protection order from a state judge who, according to his lawyer Delmar Citalan, ruled that Bermúdez did not have the legal authority to issue an eviction notice.
Still, Bermúdez remains undeterred. He said the city has started legal proceedings against Jiménez and said in December that he expected to resolve the situation by March 2007. "We are going to throw him in jail," said Bermúdez.
The conflict in the Colonia del Artículo is part of a larger, widespread issue of unregulated land use in San Cristóbal. Since 1974, over 35 thousand people, originally from the neighboring indigenous community of San Juan Chamula have migrated to San Cristóbal for political, economic and social reasons, said Domingo Lopez Angel, President of the Representative Council of Indigenous people of the Highlands of Chiapas.
The Zapatista uprising in 1994 brought even more migrants to San Cristóbal, who echoed Emiliano Zapata's cry that "the land belongs to those who work it." Across the state, Zapatistas and members of the Organizacion Campesina Emiliano Zapata settled on unused land. Some of the properties belonged to large private landowners, while others are public land.
The organized movement resulted in the formation of several neighborhoods in San Cristóbal. Some neighborhoods, including Primero de Enero and Emiliano Zapata, have been granted ownership of the land they occupied. Others remain without rights to the land where they have settled. The State Housing Institute, responsible for settling land conflicts, did not respond to repeated inquiries for comment. "I want it to be clear that we are not invaders, we are recovering our land," said Lopez Angel.
Jímenez, too, is adamant that he is not an invader. He said that he was ignorant of property laws and did not list his property in the Public Register because he thought that the notarized document signed by Governor Velasco Suárez, the land's supposed donor, was enough to establish his ownership. "It was a bit of ignorance. I thought that these papers were enough, that I was going to be okay," said Jiménez, who said he began the legal proceedings to fully establish his ownership of the land in 2003.
It is known that Governor Suárez donated several pieces of the land near the neighborhood to public institutions during his governorship (1970-1976), though no records indicate that he also donated to individuals. Today the research institution the College of the Southern Border (ECOSUR by its Spanish initials), the technical school Conalep, and a high school stand on land donated by the former governor.
Regardless of whether or not the former governor did give Jiménez the land, he is still not listed as the owner of the land in the Public Register. Therefore he is not the legitimate owner and is not allowed to sell it until his paperwork is in order and he is listed in the register, said lawyer Diego Cadenas, human rights defender with the Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Human Rights Center in San Cristóbal.
Jiménez admits that he has sold two plots of land, to the families of Díaz and Maria Gómez Juárez, but said he did so because he needed money to pay for the legal fees involved in regularizing his land. To date, Jiménez estimates that he has spent over $50,000 MXP (about $5000 USD) trying to legalize his land.
It is difficult to say how much money Jiménez had earned through the potentially illegal sale of land, because it is unclear how many lots have been sold. Jiménez claims to have sold two lots, to Diaz and Juárez, and divided the rest of his land amongst his 11 children. Residents Díaz and Juárez, however, claim that he has sold over 20 plots, charging between $15,000 MXP to $100,000 MXP (about $1,500 to $10,000 USD) per lot. Meanwhile, Bermúdez of the Public Works Department said that Jiménez has sold seventy lots.
Jiménez said that the families are growing restless because they are worried about the future of their land and do not understand that the legal process can drag on for years. He dismissed their misgivings, saying, "They just don't want to wait. They want [their papers] from one day to the next," said Jiménez.
But the residents of the neighborhood say they are nervous because Jiménez instructed them to lie to officials if ever questioned about whether or not they own the land they live on. Díaz and Juárez both claim that Jiménez instructed them to lie to government officials, and say they did not buy the land, but are Jiménez's daughters whom he allows to live on the land. Jiménez denies the claim.
Díaz said that she has no reason to lie to anyone. "We are not invaders. We pay property taxes. We don't know what's going to happen, but we bought this land", said Díaz, showing a bill of sale stating that she and her husband bought the property from Jiménez in 1999.
"We go hungry so that we can make the payments on this land. Sometimes our children go without shoes so that we can make these payments," said Díaz who came with her family to San Cristóbal from San Felipe Ecatepec, a community about three kilometers outside the city, looking for work eight years ago. Díaz's husband, Vicente Jiménez, works as a mason's helper and Díaz washes clothing for a living.
That same year, 1999, the family bought their 224 square-meter lot for $15,000 MXP (about $1500 USD). Because the couple is illiterate, they asked Jiménez if outside witnesses could be present to sign the bill of sale. Jiménez told them that he didn't want anyone from the outside present, said Díaz, and claims Jiménez said their 15 and 17 year old sons would suffice.
Both Díaz and her neighbor, Maria Gómez Juárez say that Jiménez repeatedly told them he was the owner of the land. Júarez bought her lot from Jiménez in 1989 for $30,000 MXP (about $3000 USD.) She said she first began to worry about the fate of her home last year when the city began measuring the park's perimeter. "An engineer told me my house was going to become part of the park, and that I was going to have to speak to the government. [He said the government would] give me another plot of land or money," she said.
Faced with the prospect of losing her house, Juárez admits to have altered her original bill of sale, to reflect a total investment of $80,000 MXP (about $8000 USD), as opposed the $30,000 she paid Jimenez in 1989. The Public Works office said they have no record of these claims the engineer made and maintains that the government has no responsibility toward the families that would be displaced if Jiménez is found to have sold the land illegally.
Juárez said she visited the State Human Rights Commission in December, in hopes that they would help her resolve the situation. But a lawyer from the Commission, speaking on the condition of anonymity, later told the Press Institute that the case was likely a conflict between Jiménez and Díaz and the other landholders. Since the commission only intervenes in conflicts between citizens and the state or local government, they could only inform Juárez of available resources, but do nothing more.
Díaz said that if her family is evicted, she does not know where they will go. Even if Jiménez was ordered to return the money she paid, Díaz said land prices have risen steeply in the last several years, making it nearly impossible to buy another plot of land for what they originally paid. A report recently released by Habitat for Humanity revealed that land prices in San Cristóbal are the highest in the state.
Until Jiménez and the city resolve their differences, the futures of Díaz and her neighbors remain uncertain. "I ask myself how we are going to take my wood, my things, my chickens, my dogs? Where are we going to live?" she said.
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