Land Rights

Por fin es el fin...de semana, that is. With about 4 cups of coffee in my estomago and only dos more projects to write about, I think I am going to finish up by the end of the day today. A ver.

The project that I am going to discuss in this posting is "derechos de la propiedad" (land rights). Unfortunately, I am not the best person to explain the ins and afueras of this project due to the limited understanding that I have about how it (and the issue of land rights in general) works. And no, it isn't because I was hearing about the project in a different language. Property rights is something that I have a hard time understanding because of its very nature. It isn't people-centered; it is steeped in complex legal jargon; and it is inherently complex and unclear at times. Even so, I am going to give it my mejor.

The ASJ staff who work with the property rights project seek to fight for just implementation of the law by a. educating leaders and residents of poor communities undergoing the titling process about their rights and responsibilities, thus ensuring they will not be tricked, b. making regular visits to Property Institute officials and others involved in land titling to make sure they do their jobs properly, c. taking legal action to prevent abuses of the law, and d. publishing journalistic investigations related to property regularization and titling and attempts to bend the system. Like I said, some complex stuff!

Otra vez, we start with the conversation I had with Abe (said "ah-bay" by his biggest fanes). He began by explaining the need for the project. Essentially, in the United States the government (at all levels) has kept pretty extensive property records. Most of these records have been converted into a digital format to ensure that they are accessible to whoever wants to access them, and it is very rare that property disputes reach a level of conflict where an organization similar to ASJ has to step in. However, this is not the case in Honduras. Sufficient records have not been kept in the country of who officially owns which property; digitilization of property records is a pipe dream; and conflicts occur very frequently over who owns what. Moreover, unlike the United States, some of the country in the past few decades has remained seemingly "unclaimed," prompting "invaders" to begin new settlements without actually knowing who it belongs to. According to Abe, these invasions are the start of a community (i.e. Nueva Suyapa--the community that I stayed in during my visit). Years later, after the community has been given time to develop and attract additional "invaders," individuals with "documentos" (you will see later on why I put this word in quotes) come by and claim to be the true owners of the land, thus making them the landlords. Like you apartment-dwellers out there are probably used to, the landlord tells the tenants--those now living in "his" land--that they are going to pay him to live there...or else (dun dun dun). Now this might sound pretty legit to all of you at this point, but what happens when 4, 5, or even 6 people claim to own the land? Now Jorge is confused about who exactly he is going to pay in order to keep his house and land; is it Miguel, Rogelio, El Guapo, etc.? This is typically where conflict occurs and where ASJ's services are required. Following a very fixed and specific legal process, ASJ helps Jorge find out exactly who owns the land and secure a title for the land if it is found that none of the suspected landlords are indeed the lords of the land. ASJ is not the only player in this game, though. The government plays a part; the opposing lawyers take the field (that's a lot of lawyers if half a dozen (or mas!) individuals are laying claim to the land); and even Jorge's neighbors are invited to the hoedown since they have a vested interest in what is going on.

The other tidbit of information that Abe provided about the Land Rights project related to an important piece of legislation that was passed by the government as a result of ASJ's diligent work. Not too long after ASJ started working on property rights, the government passed an expansive land law that set forth guidelines for proving ownership of property. When I mentioned in the previous paragraph the specific process that is carried out to investigate ownership claims and secure titles for individuals living on a certain property, this is the law that created such a process. Think about how hard it would be to secure a title to your land without that document! As Gilda, ASJ's lead land rights lawyer, explained to me, it was and would continue to be nearly impossible!

On my last day at ASJ (last week Friday), I sat down with Gilda--the woman Abe claimed knew more about property rights than anyone in the country--to discuss her view of ASJ's work, and I accompanied Gilda and one of her colleagues on a site visit to one of the communities where ASJ is attempting to intervene in property disputes. It must be conveyed at the comienzo of this portion of the posting that Gilda was the closest thing to a Honduran Superwoman that I have ever met. That is, if Superwoman knew the law inside and out (two hours after the discussion/lecture started, she was done warming up)...

Gilda began with a history of the project, explaining that it had started in the neighborhood Flor de campo (Remember my Gideon Center posting? Same post. It seems that corruption is drawn to the aromatic scent of this flower...) when a wealthy land owner (who also happens to be a poet) claimed to own the land that many people had settled in. In addition to being a crummy landlord, he had been able to convince a judge to put an embargo on titles to the inhabitants so that he could exclusively sell them the land (all the while not having official claim to the land he was selling). The question eventually arose: was this man in charge of the land, or did the city originally own it? ASJ decided to find the answer to this question (curious gatos, these justice workers), and the investigation yielded the result that only a tiny part of the property was legally owned by the individual in question. Thus, the majority of the residents of Flor de campo could lay claim to the land by paying the municipality for it and securing a title. The most intriguing part of this story for me was that this same conclusion had apparently been reached 10 years prior to this investigation, but because of government bureaucracy and poor record-keeping, the information had not been shared with the interested parties. Gilda informed me in so many words that it would have been nice not to have to deal with the aforementioned landowner for as long as ASJ had to, but she also finished the comment with the line, "But we have to remember where we are working."

Moving forward in history, Gilda talked about the passage of the land law, which was based on a proposition that ASJ had submitted in the early 2000s. The ideas that ASJ proposed were simply tweaked and expanded to encompass a grand piece of legislation that ultimately allowed the organization to hit the ground running on hundreds of land rights cases. As Gilda put it, "the presence of the law has provided a basis for action [...] and has done more for ASJ than any judicial battle." Remember how I talked about ASJ's mission to change structures? Here is yet another example of that mission being achieved.

With the law in place, the land rights project has morphed into a more expansive operation. ASJ is now working in other parts of the country--San Pedro Sula, for example, but even with her legal superpowers, Gilda did not seem overly optimistic about the project's next pasos. Unlike Flor de campo--ASJ's pilot program, Gilda explained, these next projects are doozies. There isn't one apparent landowner this time; there are hundreds! Not only that, but because the government has been attempting to do its job, it has already meddled in the dispute and "inadvertently" made it worse. By skipping a few steps in the process dictated by law--ya know, the rules that the government makes and passes, the government has created even more confusion and thus more work for Gilda and her ASJ colleagues. Therefore, as our conversation wrapped up and Gilda prepared to change her office clothes for her superhero outfit (I am telling you, I saw an "S"), she stated that the main struggles for ASJ right now are making sure the law is applied correctly (a.k.a. each specific step in the process is followed as it should be) and that record keeping is done more accurately. In Gilda's perspective, "if the law is applied correctly, the impact of the Flor de campo project will be multiplied exponentially."

Gilda's presentation was followed by a taxi ride to a "tri-neighborhood" community (the three colonias met at Pulperia Tres Hermanos) where I met with the most powerful women in the area--the presidents of the neighborhood associations. We took a stroll through the streets of the neighborhood on our way to their improvised offices--a concrete structure with absolutely no furnishings save a few benches. En route to the edificio, the women pointed out various landmarks: the cancha de futbol (soccer field) that was apparently named after a neighboring community even though it was located in another--the same stadium that generated income from the tickets sold to the playoff games held there but whose profits bypassed the community to head straight into the pockets of higher authorities; the rio (river) that separated two of the neighborhoods and was overflowing with trash; and the casas built on the side of an embankment that did not pass building codes and thus were not being granted land titles. One particular mujer--the most impassioned and vocal of the bunch--spent our camino (walk) filling me in on all of the ways that her neighborhood had been overlooked, treated unfairly, and shown tremendous amounts of injustice. This is the same message I received during my "sit-down" with the neighborhood association presidents: the authorities are lying to and cheating the residents of the three communities, creating additional problems and contributing to the struggles that the people already face on a daily basis. Some of the quotes I gathered from the women are particularly poignant: "What are we going to do living in a country like this?", "Those who tell the truth are persecuted" "The government only cares for its own," and "Someone needs to be managing the people up top instead of mistreating the people on the bottom."

Even after such abuse and mistreatment, these fiery women are not prepared to give up, especially not after developing a relationship with Gilda and the other ASJ lawyers. They were overjoyed at the presence of ASJ in their lives, and they spoke volumes about the positive role that Gilda and her colleagues have played in their lives. From accompanying them to the bank to staying up until the wee hours of the morning to discuss logistics of certain cases (Gilda referenced one occasion when she and her colleagues did not eat or sleep for days on end so that the work could be completed on time) to consoling them during times of loss (a fellow neighborhood president was brutally murdered on the day that he was meeting with an appraiser from the government), ASJ staff members have provided unending support to their clients...and at no cost! Without ASJ, these women would have to consider putting off purchases of food or other necessities just to secure the funding necessary for a private lawyer; without ASJ, these women would have to tell their constituents that they might have to find another place to live; without ASJ, the hope, joy, and pride an individual receives after securing a land title would disappear from the faces of countless Hondurans.

The last thing we discussed in that bare concrete building whose contents were stolen weeks prior by boys who used the furnishings for firewood was whether I could convince my readers to form a lasting "amistad" (friendship) with the people of these three communities to ensure that they could continue receiving the counsel and support they needed from ASJ. I told the four women in the room that all I could do was tell my readers what I had learned. I hope I have done that today.