Senator Supports Puerto Marqués Evictees
(Acapulco, JG 18 November) Senator Rosario Ibarra de Piedra, committee chair of the Human Rights Committee in the Mexican Senate, has publicly criticized the acts of violence committed by police elements last week when 350 families were forcibly evicted from their homes in Puerto Marqués. The community known as “Expansion of Puerto Marqués” had been built on private land. State judge Adolfo Van Meeter Roque signed the court order of eviction.
In a press conference, Senator Ibarra came close to accusing the judge of corruption, saying that “if he is found to be guilty, he could be sanctioned for the manner in which he conducted the hearing.” She added, “Guerrero is the state where more violations of law are committed, but nothing happens because nobody does anything about it.” This gave her a segue to the “Dirty War,” waged against indigenous peoples by the military in the second half of the last century, a topic she raises often: “The majority of the disappeared people during the dirty war were from Guerrero; the many women raped by soldiers are mainly indigenous people from this state; and when representatives from civic and social organizations demand services, [the government] represses and persecutes them. In the worst of cases, they are jailed from which they disappear altogether, like Rosendo Radilla Pacheco [notable victim of the dirty war].”
The Senator then cited the violent beatings of the residents of “Expansion of Puerto Marqués” by the police, noting that the land on which the town stood had been purchased on June 25, 1997 by Daniel Morales Serrano, the community’s leader. He had previously provided copies of the sale and purchase contract to senators and to the press. In June of 2006 he supplied a copy of the contract to “Residencias del Marqués SA,” the company claiming ownership of the property. Nevertheless, its legal representative, Ricardo Villapando Ochoa, an ex-director of the Acapulco Land Trust (Fideicomiso Acapulco), filed a criminal trespass complaint, which led to the court-ordered eviction. Senator Ibarra wants to investigate how the judge could have ordered an eviction when in possession of the sales contract.
