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San Isidro Los Laureles Community reclaims lands that “our grandfathers, grandmothers and parents worked as serfs”
Members of the community of San Isidro Los Laureles, municipality of Venustiano Carranza, decided to reclaim “about 165 hectares from various properties: “Tres Picos” (property of Octovín Albores, owner of 30 hectares), “Las Delicias” (property of Francisco Javier Ruíz, owner of 60 hectares), and “El Refugio’ estate (property of Rodrigo Ruíz, owner of 75 hectares)” on December 20th. The members of the community declared that, “our grandfathers, grandmothers and parents who were serfs worked these lands. Since 1940 they have worked on minimum wage and have never received loans or bonuses. We reclaim these lands for our families because we no longer have anywhere to live or work for the livelihood of the families as indigenous people.”
They also mentioned that in 1994 they had already used these lands after a failed attempt to reclaim them in which they were evicted “with convoy, the marine and helicopter,” and explained that “today the need has arisen for the families that have nowhere to live of work, nor livelihood for the family, where they can have beans to eat.”
In a communiqué issued after December 29th, ten days after reclaiming the lands, they reported they could be evicted between January 2nd and 5th from the lands that “legitimately belong to us, by those who say they are the owners, Francisco Ruíz, Rodrigo Ruíz, Octovin Albores, along with Jesus Orantes Ruíz, and other smallholders, from the three properties we have reclaimed.” Furthermore “we fear that the same eviction could occur with excessive violence as happened in 1994 when we decided to reclaim the same properties when the state intervened unleashing repression, violently evicting our people.”
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