Members of Jalisco’s Huichol indigenous community say they are prepared to camp outside federal offices in Guadalajara for as long as it takes to get 10,000 hectares of land returned to their rightful possession.
Around 400 Huicholes marched in Guadalajara Wednesday to protest government dithering over a land dispute they say was partially resolved in the courts more than three years ago.
The Huichols say the Agrarian Development Ministry (Sedatu) has failed to follow through on rulings handed down by Mexico’s Agrarian Tribunal regarding land “grabbed by mestizo farmers” in San Sebastián Teponahuaxtlán, Jalisco. The Huichols say the 10,000 hectares in question is ancestral land and a symbol of their identity.
The dispute has been building up over many decades and has provoked periodic violence and even a few killings.
For years, the Huichols pleaded their right to the land with the Secretaría de la Reforma Agraria (SRA), the federal agency responsible for agrarian affairs. Their case was based on a presidential decree from July 15, 1953 that ceded their rights to the disputed hectares. An even earlier land title dates back to 1713, when Mexico was a Spanish colony and known as the Viceroyalty of New Spain.
The Huichols say 13 of 45 suits they have filed since 2007 were resolved in their favor in 2011 by the Tribunal Unitario Agrario 16, based in Guadalajara. The 3,500 hectares comprises just over one-third of the disputed land.
However, when Enrqiue Peña Nieto took office in 2012, he incorporated the SRA into a new government department, known as the Secretaría de Desarrollo Agrario, Territorial y Urbano, or Sedatu. The switch apparently created a massive bureaucratic backlog, causing delays with many land conflict cases.
The Huichols say Sedatu’s inability to “execute” the decision passed down by the Agrarian Tribunal is exacerbating tensions between Huichols and farmers in the region.
This week, the Huichols’ patience ran out – they put aside their traditional phelgmatism and vented their frustrations in public. Around 400 Huichols stopped traffic as they marched along Avendia Alcalde to the city center and then the the Palacio Federal Wednesday, vowing to remain in Guadalajara until they receive an answer.
After arriving at the federal building, they were told the Sedatu delegate in Jalisco, Jose Luis Cuellar Garza, was not in his office or available for consultation.