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The Story of el Sapien

 El Sapien looked like this before it became a quarry.

Jose was told by a former employee of his father, that his father, Rafael, had put a large plot of land in his brother Felipe's name before he died - one of many such plots of land - and Jose was given general directions on how to get there.

He went past a large 50 hectare empty scrub patch near an avocado orchard and he was met by an old man who recognised him as the son of Don Rafa and who told him the land was called "El Sapien" and it did indeed belong to Don Raphael Elvira Cerda.

Jose brought the news home, but no one was pleased. His mum thought it wasn't worth the candle. All the litigation, all the paperwork. but the family needed the money so they decided to act. El Sapien had been left to grow into a wild patch on the borders of town. Local people used it as a shortcut and the land was crossed with tracks and paths. The first step was to be seen there. So for the next few months the family showed themselves again after ten years. I visited it too. You could have filmed a Clint Eastwood movie there and you would have if you'd stayed to watch.

The family didn't have enough money to put a fence around it so the only option was to sell it. A large avocado farmer was interested and so a deal was struck. The transaction would take place in a few weeks.Well, why the subterfuge? The problem was professional land squatters. Since the revolution, and especially since the time of Tata, Lazaro Cardenas, one of the ways the Mexican regime (with more desaparecidos than Argentina and more murdered students in '68 in Tlatelolco than Tianamen) bought the loyalty of the peasants was to redistribute land.

It was often said that all the redistributed land the government said they had handed out would add up to ten times the surface area of Mexico. Mexico was one of the only countries in the world where I witnessed a billionaire turn into a victim. The billionaire in question in Quintana Ro. The way it works is like this. You went to the leaders of a poor colony and you said to them. "I've got a good deal for you mi estimado". Look. Take over this prime land with your descalzonados and save this hotel sized nice juicy chunk right by the beach for me. You take good pieces for yourself and, because I am the state Governor, I'll authorise the landgrab and announce it as a blow struck for the well-being of the people. Listen, if anyone tries to expose what we are doing I'll threaten them or call in my mates from the cartels to knock them off."

In fact the billionaire in question complained despite all threats, recorded them and ultimately the state Governor went missing, probably dead because of some drug related activity.

So the squatters were the problem for the family. They had been alerted and had bribed a maid to spy for them, nobody said anything relevant in front of her. Still, the land was sold to the avocado farmer. But then the family found out where and when the land invasion was due to start and warned the farmer who took his men on horseback to patrol. They lit bonfires all along the edge of "El Sapien". Sure enough the invasion started. The squatters came out of the darkness from all sides. The avocado farmer and his men started firing rifles into the air above their heads and the squatters retreated back into the night.

The farmer turned the land into a quarry and made a fair amount of money out of it. The family paid off a few debts.

By Phil Hall (reposted from 2005)

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