Petra Medrano found it difficult to stay composed as she talked about the difficulties of surviving at Lomas de Poleo over the last few years. “We feel powerless,” said the 15-year resident, speaking through her tears about life at the Juárez community, which is under siege from armed guards and surrounded by a barbed wire fence. The guards are alleged to work for Mexico’s powerful Zaragoza family, which organizers of the forum Monday night at UTEP say wants to take over the community as part of a bi-national development project.
Father Bill Morton, a Catholic missionary who worked at the Lomas de Poleo community for over three years, said he witnessed the harassment first hand. “They are the ones fighting this legally,” he said, referring to the 250 or so residents who make up the 55 families of the community. Morton claims that when the Zaragozas knew they were going to lose in court, they started using strong arm tactics such as removing electricity to the homes and sending in crews to forcibly destroy them.
Morton referred to a Mexican code that says a citizen who occupies property for five years without complaint from the title owner can claim ownership of the property if he or she can prove they live there. “They’ve been to court four times but somehow nothing happens – No decision has been given,” he said.
Morton no longer works in the area; he said that he was asked to leave the country since he didn’t have the proper work authorization. “I was told that if I reapplied there would be repercussions,” he added.
In a story in Frontera Norte Sur (and published here on Newspaper Tree) Zaragoza representative Catarino del Rio Camacho said that as private property owners the Zaragoza family has a right to prevent outsiders from entering the legally contested lands. “The people who live here have free access but those who come to create conflict can’t enter because we don’t see any reason for them to be here," he was quoted as saying.
Father Oscar Enriquez, director of the Paso Del Norte Human Rights Center in Juárez, said at the forum that the claim that the Zaragozas have on the land is false. According to Enriquez, research shows that those lands are federal lands which under Mexican law cannot be sold. “All these people want to do is work their own property, their own land. They have a dream of living there in peace,” he said refering to the settlers.
Medrano talked about how the residents who settled there in the 1970s built homes and cleared roads only to have them fenced in or destroyed. “I know the Zaragozas are going to focus on me, but I’m not scared, this needs to be said. We’ve been attacked with shovels and machetes,” said Medrano, who said she could remember happy times at the community for 12 of the 15 years that she’s lived there.
“Why do they want to kick us out of there?” asked Medrano.
The question was echoed by activists and some residents of El Paso's Segundo Barrio, who claim that the city has excluded them from the planning process for the Downtown Plan.
At the UTEP forum, organizers linked the Lomas de Poleo struggle to the El Paso Downtown Plan, claiming that proponents of the plan here bear moral responsibility for the struggle in Juárez, because of the ties between developers in Santa Theresa and San Jeronimo, and the presence of some of the same players in the El Paso Downtown Plan.
Using slideshows and short documentaries, the forum -- which was attended by about 200 people -- attempted to depict both the living conditions and the ongoing struggle that residents of both areas face.
“I never thought the destruction of the barrio would affect me so much. I’m here to represent my neighborhood and my church,” said Lupe Ochoa, a resident of the Segundo Barrio in Downtown El Paso, who said she believes she faces a similar struggle as residents of Lomas de Poleo in preventing destruction of her neighborhood.
In one of the documentaries that focuses on the barrio, area residents say they’ve also been disrespected when the city makes statements to the effect that the barrio is full of rats and roaches. The residents say they fear that the city may circumvent the process of eminent domain and just condemn the area, forcing people to move.
The passion behind the movement was evident Monday night. A performer at the forum expressed this with the words “If you support the plan, you have blood on your hands.”
“It’s the same plan on both sides of the border. We need to form bi-national coalitions against el despojo – against the theft of our homes and barrios – being carried out in the name of regional development,” said Cristina Coronado, a member of La Otra Campana in Juárez in a press release.
District 2 Councilwoman Susie Byrd disagreed with the group linking the two struggles.
"I think they (the Paso Del Sur Group) are being intellectually dishonest. The armed militias are really depriving people of their human rights, and that's not comparable to anything in Segundo Barrio," she said when contacted after the forum.
"Lomas del Poleo is really disturbing and distressing. We need to be concerned about it as people of the (El Paso/Juárez) area and make sure they're not harmed. Mayor Ferriz and the Mexican government should take a role in protecting those families." she added.
She also went on to say that while the group had good things to say, "Their tactics of misinformation and vitriol have made them so that they're not a part of the conversation anymore."
The forum was co-sponsored by the UTEP History Department, Amnesty International, CAUSA, Paso Del Sur, Circulo Zihuatekpahtzin, the Committee for the Second forum at Lomas de Poleo, and the Paso Del Norte Civil Rights Project. The next Forum at Lomas del Poleo “Rompamos el Cerco” will be held Dec. 1, at 10 a.m. at the entrance to Lomas del Poleo.
Poleo Speaking, one of the documentaries aired at the forum will be shown again at 7 p.m. Nov. 28 at UTEP. For more information click here.
