El Salvador: One Community's Struggle for Land

EL SALVADOR: ONE COMMUNITY’S STRUGGLE FOR LAND

El Salvador. A tiny elite and huge poverty. Violence against anyone suspected of organizing the poor and impunity for those crimes – since before the civil war of 1980-1992. An Archbishop, now looked on as a martyr and a candidate for sainthood because he demanded a "preferential option for the poor."
Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero took on the cause of the poor against the ruling oligarchy, the armed forces and the landowners so unequivocally as to be very like the Jesus whom he served. Because of this he was targeted for assassination, which was carried out as he was saying mass on the morning of March 24, 1980, unleashing a cruel war that killed 80,000 mostly poor civilians.
My delegation to El Salvador in March, 2010 visited a rural community that named itself after Romero, and heard a story that exemplifies the life of the poor in El Salvador today, the strength of their organized struggle for human rights, and the barriers to justice that they still face. We drove up to a cluster of tin shacks in Monsiegnor Romero Community and were ushered to chairs in the community’s open-air meeting space, sheltered from the sun by a roof of corrugated plastic. The elected president of the community, Ruth Serrano, started the telling of their history, and was followed by Raul, the head of "watch and discipline." Raul is a tall, lanky farmer/engineer who came to our meeting with reams of tattered folders and hand-drawn maps that were a meticulous record of everything the community had done over the last 5 years to obtain land and housing.
This is a squatter community, formed in 2005 when people from several different towns found out that they were not eligible to receive a USAID/government sponsored house that had been promised to poor people who had suffered displacement by the war. They had gone to meetings for 2 years only to be told that they had to own land in order to receive a house. They tried to buy land on credit, but noone would sell to them. By then, the excluded ones had gotten to know each other, and they decided to organize themselves and attempt to squat on some vacant land in the area. Their first attempt failed, ending in the arrest of 7 of the leaders. Their situation was dire, as they had given up their rental apartments and had no where to go. So two months later, they tried again. This time they approached the desired plot of land, not by road, but by bushwacking over rough terrain in the middle of the night.
Ruth described their group. There were babies, toddlers, old people along with the men and youth. It was difficult terrain and it even rained. When they got to their destination, there was no shelter, no food, nothing. Well, yes, there were ants. They erected a plastic tarp to shelter the youngest and oldest. Dawn found them there, and so did the authorities. Nearby landowners threw stones at them. But the group leaders had called a press conference, which may have saved them from immediate eviction. Three days later the National Social Fund for Housing promised to sell them this small corner of state land totaling about 10 acres, if they would get a guarantor to back them up. They scrambled. They found a guarantor! A miracle!
It was not to be so easy. The Fund for Housing raised the asking price and wouldn’t negotiate
Their bureaucratic nightmare was just beginning. Some families left, but ninety remained - and still remain. Next they went to the Human Rights Commission and to the National Legislature. The whole community went and stayed from 9:00 a.m. to midnight. They won approval to stay on the land while they continued to look for a solution.
In 2006 they found a new guarantor, Fundasol, only to find out that the government was about to sell the same land to some business for 800 times less than what had been quoted to them. They protested. The government responded by saying it wouldn’t sell the land to anyone. At this point, the community lost hope. "Why are you playing with our poverty?" they pleaded.
At that point, in February of ‘08, they were discovered by the NGO that was facilitating our delegation, CIS (Centro de Intercambio y Solidaridad - Center of Exchange and Solidarity). CIS was able to put things in perspective for them and also donated the tin and wood to replace the tattered plastic that had comprised their homes for three years.. Hope and determination returned.
We asked how the community supports itself. The men work as laborers, in farming, construction and in bricklaying. The women do domestic work in cities or sell food items at roadside stands. As they put it, "There is no dignified work." Raul, who abandoned university studies in Mexico to join this struggle, has devoted so much time to it that he has not been able to look for work for three and a half years. He has received death threats for his efforts. Water comes from a little river behind the acreage and from one faucet which is on loan to them. So far they have been denied permits for water and electricity.
Three days before our visit, the community received word that they would be granted the right to build. They think this is timed with the commemoration of the assassination of their namesake, Romero, and they would like to believe it, but they do not yet have paperwork in their hands. They know not to believe in promises, but, as Archbishop Romero said in January, 1980, "The cry of liberation of this people is a clamor that rises to God, and that now nothing nor anyone can stop."
Just as we were about to leave this small, determined, faith-filled squatter community, Candelaria stood up. She had been sitting in the front facing us because she is vice-president of the community. She looked to be about 50. She wanted to tell her story, and in doing so, she told the story of millions of poor Salvadorans. In 1975 she was among the landless peasants working in agriculture. Laborers were fed one or two meals a day consisting of one large corn tortilla with a spoonful of beans in the middle. . The beans often had dead rats and cockroaches. One day she saw the polluted beans and could not tolerate it anymore. She gathered a few co-workers and they went to the landowner to complain. The landowner’s response was, "Who are these people (who dare to complain)?" The next day bombs were dropped on their village.
Candelaria could not finish her story because we had to leave, but I knew I had just heard an oral history that matched the facts I had been learning. The year 1977 was a watershed year in terms of growing unrest in the countryside, while lay people and priests suspected of organizing the unrest were being disappeared or killed. When Archbishop Romero was assassinated on March 24, 1980 for advocating the cause of the poor, there was no turning back from civil war. I don’t know how Candelaria survived, but I now understand why she is a leader in the community named for Romero.
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Sherrill Hogen
April, 2010