Mexico: Juárez police evict family at contested Lomas de Poleo lands
Submitted by WW4 Report on Sun, 09/26/2010 - 14:58
On Sept. 21, Ciudad Juárez municipal police destroyed a house that had been occupied for 40 years by Refugio Tagle Valdez and his family at Lomas de Poleo, a community on the outskirts of the border city. Tagle, who built the house four decades ago, said that neither he nor his attorney had been informed that the demolition was imminent. The lands at Lomas de Poleo are claimed by local businessman Pedro Zaragoza. Local residents assert that the lands were found to be national property by a 1975 ruling of the Agrarian Reform Secretariat. (La Jornada, Sept. 23)
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Commnique from Lomas del Poleo
A Sept. 21 statement from the community of Lomas del Poleo (as it is evidently rendered by the inhabitants) online at Enlace Zapatista states that the eviction was carried out by Chihuahua state police, and that the demolition was approved by an order signed by a local judge—but that the order was only issued the day after the demolition was carried out. It also states that no advance notice was given to the actual residents—only to a worker who was found sweeping outside the office of the community's attorney. The sweeper evidently didn't even work for the attorney.