April 27, 2012

FNS Feature

Last Stand in Lomas de Poleo

Descending down the long road that curves down from the heights of Lomas de
Poleo, a panoramic view of the borderland dazzles the eyes. Below the
now-paved Anapra highway sits the town of Sunland Park, New Mexico, with
its big border landfill, racetrack and casino, El Paso Electric plant and
scandal-ridden politics. In the background, barren but striking mountains
rise up in a hot April sky that begs for action from the rain gods.

If a new border crossing proposed for Anapra-Sunland Park ever
materializes, the dusty  landscape of Lomas de Poleo will likely transform
into a ritzy patchwork of new businesses, frenzied real estate transactions
and magnificent views from trendy subdivisions .

Jose Antonio Espino, 48, has lived in Lomas de Poleo for four decades. His
father was among the settlers who arrived around 1970. Erecting their homes
on the outskirts of an industrializing Ciudad Juarez, Lomas de Poleo’s
settlers recreated the world of the small but vanishing Mexican ranch. The
new inhabitants planted fruit trees, raised chickens and eggs and tended
small herds of cattle, sheep and other animals. Then in 2003, their world
changed forever.

That was the year when Pedro Zaragoza Fuentes, scion of a prominent Ciudad
Juarez business family, fenced off a section of Lomas de Poleo he claimed
was his own. A land battle ensued, eventually garnering international
attention.

First making a splash in the dairy industry, the Zaragozas have since
branched out to the sporting/entertainment industry and running 80 gasoline
stations in Ciudad Juarez. The Pedro Zaragoza Vizcarra Foundation
increasingly practices high-profile philantrophy, recently funding a
breakfast program for needy children while assisting “the most vulnerable
families,” including some currently residing in the section of Lomas de
Poleo outside the zone in dispute.

At one time, 250 families or more inhabited the disputed upper mesa of
Lomas de Poleo, but after years of sometimes violent conflict only eight
families remain on the land, according to residents.

“We haven’t surrendered. This is our land. It’s for our children, but we
can’t fight the government and we have to find a way to economically
support the people who fight for justice,” Espino told FNS. “The majority
of the people left because they were afraid.”

On a recent day, Espino and other residents sketched out a war of attrition
that was unleashed against the land resisters. They blamed Zaragoza and his
men for electricity cut-offs, bulldozed homes, fires, poisoned dogs and
other forms of intimidation designed to force them off the land.

In 2005, one resident, Luis Guerrero, was beaten to death by a group of
20-30 men. In another incident, two young children burned to death in a
blaze of mysterious origin. Most recently, the bodies of two young men not
from the locality were dumped on land presumably monitored by Zaragoza’s
security detail, according to one resident.

Former resident Alfredo Pinon Valenzuela witnessed the fire that claimed
the lives of the children but said he was unable to help them escape in
time. The 76-year-old man also recalled the day in 2008 when Mexican
soldiers arrived to his home and began searching for drugs and weapons.
Pinon said the soldiers took his cell phone and .22 caliber rifle, even
though Article 10 of the Mexican Constitution permits citizens to have
non-military grade guns in their home for personal defense.

The soldiers then turned the elderly man over to federal police officers,
who unceremoniously dumped him off without shoes in the desert outside of
Ciudad Juarez, according to Pinon.

As he was being threatened with execution, Pinon said he told the officers
to go right ahead and do it. “You have a lot of balls,” Pinon recalled an
officer saying. Indignant at his treatment, Pinon filed a human rights
complaint with the state agency responsible for investigating violations.
But on the very day and at the very time he was ratifying the complaint in
Ciudad Juarez, neighbors observed Zaragoza’s men arriving to Pinon’s Lomas
de Poleo home, where they began hauling off his furniture before
demolishing the residence, Pinon charged. He then outlined how he lost
everything- rabbits, chickens, pigs and sheep.

“It was a small farm with a few fruit trees,” Pinon lamented. “I struggled
a lot so it would grow because water is scarce.”

Pinon’s property had been appraised as worth about $22,000. The one-time
small rancher said he once dismissed a purchase offer by a Zaragoza lawyer
for $2,000 as a “joke.” Standing near his old home this month, Pinon summed
up bitter sentiments. “I have a lot of anger,” Pinon quipped,  admitting he
once considered shooting his persecutors but that as a Catholic he could
not bring himself to killing. “But sometimes there are moments…,” Pinon
trailed off.

By the middle of the last decade, the simmering conflict in Lomas de Poleo
had become an international issue. Father Bill Morton, a Catholic priest
who lived in Ciudad Juarez before he was ordered expelled from Mexico by
the National Migration Institute in 2006 over the Lomas de Poleo battle,
mobilized foreign solidarity with the land resisters.

Morton and his allies turned their attention to New Mexico Governor Bill
Richardson, who was promoting the development of the nearby San
Jeronimo-Santa Teresa border crossing in concert with the New
Mexico-Chihuahua Commission, a binational organization established by
Richardson and Patricio Martinez, the former Chihuahua governor who is now
running for the Mexican Senate in this year’s elections. Pedro Zaragoza was
one of the first members named to the commission.

Morton remembered a “call-in” day in 2005, when “thousands of people” in
the Columban Order network from across the globe jammed Richardson’s phone
lines in support of Lomas de Poleo’s resisters.

In early 2008, an international delegation made up of Amnesty
International, La Raza Centro Legal,  the International Civil Commission
for the Observation of Human Rights and other advocates arrived to
investigate and document residents’ complaints against Zaragoza and the
Mexican government they accused of supporting and protecting him.

Four years ago, the Lomas de Poleo issue likewise attracted the attention
of New Mexico Senator Jeff Bingaman and the Dona Ana County Commission,
which heard testimony from Lomas de Poleo residents as well a lawyer for
Pedro Zaragoza, who insisted to commissioners that the wealthy Mexican
businessman had the rightful title to the land, and that the nature of the
conflict was not as “serious” as was being reported.

The commissioners approved a resolution conditioning future border
development on respect for human rights and a just resolution of the Lomas
de Poleo land dispute.

Father Bill Morton assessed the resistance of the remaining residents as
“pretty amazing” considering the time and tribulations that have passed. He
credited outside support for staving off a worse situation. “We feel like
we’ve been able to diminish the violence,” Morton said. “The more light
that was publicly shone on it, the more behaved (Zaragoza and the
government) became.”

After 2008, other events overshadowed the drama in Lomas de Poleo. The
eruption of the so-called drug war in the heart of Ciudad Juarez now
dominated the headlines, and the conflict on the mesa faded to the
background. Litigation related to the dispute bogged down in the Mexican
legal system.

And little by little, development occurred on the mesa top.  Many former
settlers’  homes disappeared, and a new technical high school dedicated to
training personnel for the maquiladora industry opened up inside the land
fenced off by Zaragoza.  A nicely-paved road wound by the few remaining
houses and corrals  in upper Lomas de Poleo and headed to the new, giant
Foxconn factory just up the highway.

For years, the local children attended a small elementary school near their
homes. But last year, citing dwindling enrollment, Chihuahua state
educational authorities decided against renewing a teacher’s assignment to
the school. Parents and children staged a lengthy demonstration at state
educational offices for a new teacher, but to no avail.

Nowadays, sixth-grader Karen Angela Ramos and a handful of neighboring
children attend another, distant school that opened its doors as an act of
solidarity. The young girl said she enjoyed her new school, but still
experienced a loss. “I felt sad, because I had been there since
kindergarten,” Ramos said.

As economic pressures mount, Lomas de Poleo’s hold-outs have banded
together in a last-ditch effort to maintain a financial base for their
struggle or, in the worst case scenario, at least scrape up the resources
necessary to relocate if circumstances dictate.

Recently,  residents and a  small group of their supporters kicked off the
Lomas de Poleo Cooperative. The guests were treated to a meal of homemade,
oven-baked Italian pizza served up fresh. Coop member Lucila Carrillo said
the new business is initially searching for both local and U.S. markets to
distribute its pizzas and hot, bottled salsa. Other product lines, Carrillo
said, are on the drawing board.

“We’re forming a cooperative so we can get ahead and pay expenses, because
sometimes we don’t work since we have to be here taking care of a home or a
piece of property,” Carrillo said.

After years of confrontations, court battles and international campaigns,
some residents are determined to stick it out and fight Pedro Zaragoza’s
 claim. Juan Ramos said it was “unfair” that he had to lose his family’s
patrimony because of the power of a millionaire. “The situation is very
difficult,” Ramos said. “I don’t know how far (Zaragoza) will go against
us, but here we are.”

-Kent Paterson

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Center for Latin American
and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico

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