Below is an update from Las Salinas de Nahulapa community member Geovanny Loaisiga.
(Translated to English)
Near the end of November 2010, La Flor de Mayo workers pulled up our fences again and stole the fence posts. They also went and filed a complaint with the court in Tola, claiming that the community encroached on their property. The community called the police and went and filed a complaint, but the police never came to investigate or anything. The posts are still there, you can see our 80 posts laying on La Flor de Mayo's land.
On November 17th we went to Rivas to file a complaint with the police. They told us that our case was already closed. We went to the Police Commissioner, but didn't get a response. We returned on November 18th and 20th but there was still no response. On January 14th, 2011 we went to Managua to the office of Aminta Granera, the head of the National Police. We submitted a letter asking her to investigate why the local police haven't responded to our complaint, and hadn't helped in any way.
We don't need police protection, which only lasts for 24 hours or maybe up to a month at the most, it doesn't give you position or rights. Simply, while the police are there they respect us but once the police leave they continue disrespecting our rights. What we need is that they come and investigate the complaint so that we can pass it along to the prosecutors office and accuse them of damages to the communal land.
From the beginning of this conflict the indigenous community has put up and had their fences ripped down seven times, twice in the last year.
Here is a review of events since the last blog entry:
(Also translated from Geovanny Loaisiga)
In January 2009, we got a meeting with the southern regional office of the Attorney General in Rivas. After that meeting we went to the Attorney General of the Republic Hernan Estrada's office in Managua. (We did this because Attorney General Estrada had said that he wasn't recognizing the rights of the Indigenous Community until INETER (Instituto Nicaraguense de Estudios Territoriales -Nicaraguan Institute of Territorial Studies) did an official demarcation of the land. So we got Estrada to petition INETER to do a demarcation of the land. INETER came and put up territorial markers to determine if the area of La Flor de Mayo/Philip Christopher was outside of the community or within the community. As it was a petition by two parts; we submitted our documentation and Mr. Christopher submitted his documentation by way of Guillermo Palacios and Gerald Membreno, the administrator of La Flor de Mayo S.A. The community agreed that it would accept whatever finding INETER come up with.
There was an inspection on the land, and once it was finished, they verified the five landmarks of the community (between the Popoyo landmark and the hill at the mouth of the Nahualapa River, which is a natural landmark) and found out that La Flor de Mayo's property and the land that the community has been defending is indeed within the indigenous community's territory and we have not been invading any other private property.
The community's total land was registered as 1,090 manzanas (1,886 acres) where the Valle de Salinas de Nahualapa is located. All the official boundaries and landmarks are within the community's original land title from 1877, the inspection of the land has now given recognition of these boundaries. Since 1877 up to today the boundaries and landmarks on the community's land have been the same, and have never expanded.
INETER then said that all the land titles, and the register records that showed possession of land within the community's map should be annulled. Now the Board of Directors of the community needs to proceed and approve these new findings to include them as part of the community register so the other land records will be annulled and make known in it's totality the extent of the community's territory.
On March 13, 2009 the southern regional office of the Attorney General released an official constancia explaining where the indigenous community's land lays. This document shows that the land that Flor de Mayo bought illegally is also within the indigenous community's land and they should actually have to sign an agreement with the Board of Directors of the community. This is because land within the community can not be sold and owned by people outside of the community, it can only be leased from the community with the permission of the board.
La Flor de Mayo currently has 47 manzanas (81 acres), and they have been trying to take over 43 manzanas (74 acres) more, which includes the property along the cost line of the indigenous land. Strangely, I don't know why some investors do this; they buy land and then expand and claim more land. What Flor de Mayo did was they bought land from a family that wasn't from the community and didn't live in the community and had obtained a title to that piece of land that wasn't valid. What that family had done was get a lease from another family who had illegally obtained one, this was for just 8 manzanas (14 acres), and they went to a judge in Rivas, and got a title for 47 manzanas of land. Then they were allowed to get a supplementary title, which was notarized and turned into a land deed showing that they were now owners of these 47 manzanas. All along the way they paid off officials to make this happen, and did all of this behind the back of the indigenous community and the community's Board of Directors, who didn't know this was happening. Their deed should never have existed, and the lawyer that gave the signature affirming their ownership of the 47 manzanas, should have investigated the supplementary title and found out that it had been rigged and wasn't valid.
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