Current problems with communal lands in Santa Elena

By Decio Machado


For decades, land and water have been elements of strong conflict in the Santa Elena Peninsula, which is why agribusiness sectors face off against peasant sectors, which shows a logic of struggle clearly marked by their social position - class conflict. According to sources linked to the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Aquaculture and Fisheries (MAGAP), there are currently more than 150 thousand hectares[14] immersed in this type of conflict.

In this regard, it is worth clarifying two issues: first, the need for financing by local governments led and continues to lead to the widespread admission of illegal property registrations (made by corrupt registrars and notaries) in favor of companies and landowners in their corresponding cadastres in order to collect property or real estate taxes; to this must be added that legal conflicts regarding the ownership of communal lands have been frozen for years in the drawers and filing cabinets of the MAGAP by corrupt officials serving private interests, which in this way did not allow the application of article 21 of the Law on the Organization and Regime of Communes, which would have meant establishing the inadmissibility of private ownership of the lands in dispute since already.
many years (there are disputes dating back 20 years).

The entry into force of the current Constitution of Ecuador[15] This led to the reform of the Organic Code of the Judicial Function on March 9, 2009. As a result of this reform, the MAGAP lost its powers as a judge for the resolution of conflicts on communal lands, passing these powers to the Civil Courts.

Coincidentally, President Correa's government has been developing a strong investment in road and infrastructure matters: development of the Ruta del Spondylus and the Ruta del Sol, training focused on tourism development, expansion of existing road infrastructure, creation of new roads, generation of civil works, etc.

All local development has been accompanied by a high degree of permissiveness regarding more than questionable actions carried out by private capital: privatization of beaches, creation of real estate complexes with a high environmental impact, division and sale of land for foreigners - especially North Americans -, promotion of biofuel, private control of water from the irrigation system of the Daule-Santa Elena transfer or permissiveness in environmental matters.
with companies in the fishing and shrimping sectors, among other issues. This situation has stimulated, as the government intended, the interest of private investors in the area. But as a consequence of this, the old, never-resolved conflicts over the ownership of communal lands in the province have also been reactivated.

The transfer of powers from MAGAP to the judicial sphere regarding the resolution of conflicts on communal lands, resulted in practice in most of these disputes ending up in the office of the seventeenth Civil Judge of the province, Attorney.
Leonidas Litardo Plaza -with more than a decade in the exercise of this position-. The results of his judicial actions have not been unfavorable to the demands of the communes in the region, encouraging new private interests and new aggressions on
communal lands in the province.

Attempts to acquire these lands are constant and use various formulas: from invasion and legal conflict, to the direct purchase - in many cases fraudulent - of these ancestral lands.

The passivity of the public institutions involved in one way or another in these disputes, caused the Federation of Communes of Santa Elena (FEDECOMSE) to issue an official statement in March 2011, blaming the State for the damage caused to the communes affected by the “predatory maelstrom of private entrepreneurs.”

The inaction of the authorities and public institutions - local and national - regarding conflicts with communal lands in the province of Santa Elena, shows a practice that violates the mandates of the Constitution of Montecristi (2008), which in its article 57 indicates:

“Indigenous communities, towns and nationalities are recognized and guaranteed, in accordance with the Constitution and with international human rights pacts, conventions, declarations and other instruments, the
following collective rights:

(…) 4. To retain the imprescriptible ownership of their community lands, which shall be inalienable, unseizable and indivisible. These lands shall be exempt from the payment of fees and taxes.

5. Maintain possession of ancestral lands and territories and obtain their free allocation.

(…) 11. Not to be displaced from their ancestral lands (…)”.[16]

Violence and threats in Santa Elena today

The conflict related to the possession of communal lands in the province is notable and includes the communes of
The rivers of San Miguel de Allende, ...

As clear examples of the excesses in this matter, we will develop the cases of Montañita, Ayangue and Pechiche,
where the way private interests proceed, the judges involved and the permissiveness of public institutions are setting a serious precedent for popular demands in the province.

Montañita Commune

The existence of the Montañita Commune dates back to 1938, and in 1980 the MAGAP formalized the recognition of 1,414
hectares as their communal lands.

In March 2005, the National Institute for Agrarian Development (INDA), a public institution known for its high level of
internal corruption, recognizes the ownership of the communal lands of Montañita in favor of the Manglaralto SA Company (MASA). This situation generates appeals for review by the Commune, which is resolved in February 2010, when the INDA orders the immediate eviction of the Montañita community members from the property whose ownership it reaffirms in favor of MASA. The deeds
The ownership of MASA over the communal lands of Montañita is legalized by the lawyer Juan Cueva Rodríguez, who in May of this year was implicated in corruption operations where the purchase of passes to judge positions and, obviously, the purchase of titular courts were negotiated with officials of the Ministry of Justice.

Despite this, the various appeals submitted by the Municipality of Montañita to the MAGAP were systematically rejected, thus favouring the company MASA. This company is linked to the Andrade family, who in turn exercised the administration of SOLBANCO, a financial institution that was driven to bankruptcy during the management of its former administrator, Alfonso Andrade Peñaherrera.

All this occurs despite the fact that the Constitution of Montecristi in its article 60 clearly states:

“Communities that have collective ownership of land are recognized as an ancestral form of territorial organization”

And despite the fact that a memorandum dated May 18, from the National Institute of Cultural Heritage of the
Ecuador, an agency attached to the Ministry of Coordination of Cultural Heritage of Ecuador, indicates:

“The historical documentation of the region of the Antigua Provincia de Guayaquil highlights that among the forms of ethnic resistance to the colonial impact is the 'ladinization' of the 'goancavilca' peoples who were sheltered in Indigenous Reductions (Jipijapa, Colonche, Santa Elena, Chanduy, Changón or the Puna for example). This strategy consisted of adopting certain European cultural elements (monetization, clothing, language, livestock production, religiosity, town councils, participation in the market, etc.) but without this meaning losing their identity. It was a political option to
take advantage of opportunities, in the defense of their collective rights and privileges that as 'common indigenous people' they had recognized in Spanish laws. Using as a form of resistance the 'adaptation' to the colonial situation, the Huancavilca group[17], incorporated Spanish practices and elements to adapt culturally. These new cultural elements, different from the pre-Hispanic ones, favored maintaining the principle of collective territoriality, and kinship as a form of organization in lineages or extended families that endures to this day."

The research carried out on ethnicity in the Ecuadorian Coast described above has been confirmed by the studies carried out by the INPC during 2010 in different parts of the province of Santa Elena. From them it can be deduced that: “the Commune of Montañita is part of the ancestral communal peoples.” This situation grants them all the imprescriptible, inalienable, indivisible and unseizable rights of the communes.

ILO Convention 169 (1989) itself defines that “a people is considered indigenous because it is descended from populations that inhabited the country or a geographical region to which the country belongs at the time of the conquest, colonization or establishment of the current state borders and that, whatever their legal situation, they retain all or part of their own social, economic, cultural and political institutions.”

In short, the current conflicts of belonging or identity that indigenous peoples and nationalities may be suffering as a result of the phenomenon of globalization do not mean that the Montañita community members have lost the rights that are granted to them and are present in the 2008 Constitution.

Despite this, Judge Leonidas Litardo Plaza, the seventeenth Civil Judge of Santa Elena, issued a ruling on March 29 of this year where he again ruled against the Municipality of Montañita and in favor of the banking family.

In April of this year, the appeal of the Municipality of Montañita was admitted for processing, on which an appeal for cassation filed by the Andrades is pending.

Following the ruling in favor of the Commune, Judge Litardo will proceed to present to the Judicial Council of the Province of Santa Elena a statement in which he accuses the Commune of Montañita of “criminal conduct,” “carrying out outrages,” practicing “diabolical or occult rituals,” burning coffins, among other issues.

Coincidentally, Judge Litardo is a first cousin of Dr. Leonidas Plaza Verduga, who was the owner of the land today.
in litigation in the neighboring beach of Portete -Commune of Ayangue- and who is sadly remembered in the recent history of Ecuador for having been Attorney General of the State during the presidency of Abdalá Bucaram, a position he had to abandon after being accused of benefiting financially by interceding between those affected by the unfortunate cargo plane accident in Manta in 1996 that left several people dead.

Ayangue Commune

As in the previous case, the communal lands of Ayangue are very attractive to different companies and
real estate speculators given its privileged position in a beach area.

The recent eviction on Portete beach in Ayangue, events that occurred in the early hours of August 24, had already
There was a precedent in the attempted eviction carried out on June 30, where after three hours of continuous resistance by the Ayangue community members, the 150 police officers sent to act against the community left without achieving their objectives.

In response to this incident, the former governor of the province, Noralma Zambrano, declared that she had no knowledge of the violent police action, something that was later denied by her former mayor.

However, on May 24, between 300 and 350 police officers, according to the detained community members, appeared
in the early hours of the morning in the Commune of Ayangue, evicting seven of its members who were present in the public beach area.

The detained community members – fishermen and their wives – who were defending their lands were held for nearly twelve hours.
communal and ancestral. The action, considered excessive in all its aspects by the local population, was the result of a ruling issued by the Sole Chamber of the Provincial Court of Justice of Santa Elena, which on August 11, gave ownership of the lands in dispute to the Company ZEMECKIS SA, who had public deeds on said property dated March 29, 2010 and registered in the Property Registry on June 3 of the same year.

The operation was so shameful that the Mayor herself, who was summoned by the Criminal Court Judge, Ms. María Bacigalupo, refused to accompany the police operation. The Political Lieutenant of the Parish of Colonche did the same, and was also summoned to accompany this disproportionate police operation.

The police action resulted in the public beach of Portete being closed and guarded by the National Police in conjunction with private security under the charge of ZEMECKIS; and its use has been restricted for the entire population, in order to benefit private interests. It should be noted that the beach of Portete was used by artisanal fishermen for mullet fishing, one of the ways of survival of the local population.

Once again, the legal action benefited private interests, ignoring that the Communes Law of 1937 indicates with
It is clear that no notary can issue public deeds that relate to the collective property of the communes. This police action also shows a certain complicity on the part of the Ministry of the Interior.

Once again, the interests of the powerful appear above the interests of the people and the indigenous population in
This action. ZEMECKIS is a private company belonging to Guillermo Roseney Salcedo. This young businessman, with the appearance of a cheap soap opera heartthrob and a regular in the world of nightlife, is the husband of a granddaughter of former President León Febres Cordero, who went down in the country's history for leading the most repressive and human rights-violating regime in existence.
Ecuador since the return to democracy.

Roseney, famous for his nightly spending sprees in expensive nightclubs in the neighboring city of Salinas, bought the land from its previous owner -also in dispute with the Commune of Ayangue-, Attorney Leonidas Plaza Verdura, who as we previously indicated is a direct relative of the only Civil Judge -a condition that gives him enormous power- existing in the Canton of Santa Elena.

According to recordings in the possession of the community members, at an assembly of the Ayangue Commune, to which the
Roseney's mother, she acknowledged that her son and the current manager of the National Financial Corporation[18], Eng. Jorge Wated,
They are also cousins. Perhaps for this reason, the entire population of Ayangue thinks that Roseney's investment in the lands declared to be his property will be financed by a public bank, at the expense of popular interests. ZEMECKIS intends, according to sources in the municipality, to develop a tourist project in the area, where artificial lakes will even be created with salt water from the Pacific Ocean.

According to the inhabitants of the Commune, the former provincial governor, Noralma Zambrano, promised them a coordinated inter-institutional intervention for the development of the town, in exchange for the commune complying with the rulings in favor of ZEMECKIS.
and give up their intention to resist. According to the community members, so far no one has seen any public institution or local authority do anything to benefit the population.

Pechiche Commune

In 2009, the MAGAP recognized the Pechiche Commune as the owner of 200 of the 536 hectares of land that had been improperly sold by the Manantial de Chanduy Commune to the RILESA SA Company, a private company dedicated to the export of agricultural products –agribusiness-.

The communal lands of Pechiche are among the few –just 1%- that have access to the Daule-Santa Elena transfer canal,
public works carried out by previous governments that basically benefit large agricultural companies and local landowners. Following the favorable opinion of the MAGAP, the Pechiche community members formed an agrarian group and with their efforts gave life to these lands that were previously fallow.

Strategically, RILESA waited until the MAGAP's powers were transferred to the Civil Courts to proceed.
with an appeal against the decision of MAGAP, requesting its annulment. In Ecuador, everyone knows the lack of professionalism and the high levels of corruption that exist in the judicial system, a fact that has been denounced even by President Rafael Correa on many occasions.

During the course of the legal procedure, RILESA, managed by Jorge Trujillo Jiménez, sold this land to the Company FUTUROCELL SA, represented by Ana María Caputi Ollague. The latter filed a lawsuit against the Commune of Pechiche for land invasion, which was ratified after a pertinent inspection by the district director of the Subsecretariat of Lands of the MAGAP, Attorney Eduardo Carriel. The MAGAP, led by Carriel, confirmed the invasion and requested that the land be removed.
all infrastructure on the land and prohibit access by the Pechiche community. This resolution is in the hands of the General Superintendent of the Police for immediate compliance.

Once again, MAGAP's positioning benefits private interests over the popular interests of the
commoners.

Within this context, the Pechiche community members have been denouncing systematic pressure since 2005 on the part of
private interests to abandon their communal and ancestral lands. This reached its climax when on July 30, a backhoe accompanied by half a dozen all-terrain vehicles loaded with gunmen arrived at night on the disputed communal lands, destroying a large part of the plantations while firing into the air, causing the community members who were keeping watch on their lands to flee.

Conclusions: The communal potential in the province of Santa Elena and in the country as a whole has been wasted by repeated governments, which one after another, have directly or indirectly benefited the interests of the local oligarchy and large foreign transnationals.

The electoral victory of the current president Correa is the fruit of an accumulation of struggles that dates back to the Inti Raymi uprising (June 1990) and continues to this day. A large part of these struggles have been articulated around the claim for land by indigenous communities, peasants and other actors involved in popular struggles.

To understand that the sustainable development of a province like Santa Elena can be based on the investment of large international tourist holdings or unscrupulous businessmen who are capable of articulating corrupt mechanisms to achieve their business goals is to redevelop logics already conceived previously in the country and that have generated little benefit to the local population.

Building a future for the province of Santa Elena based on, among other things, environmentally friendly tourism, undoubtedly requires the local population to be the articulators of such a reality. The existence of communal lands in the Coastal Region allows the communes themselves to be organized in a cooperative and community manner as the actors that develop the tourism potential that exists in that area of the country.

On the other hand, the recovery of the Ecuadorian agricultural sector must be developed through the much-vaunted agrarian revolution, whose beneficiaries, in accordance with the National Plan for Good Living, cannot be other than the communities involved, developing these cooperative models for the rational exploitation of the land.

The abandonment of these political logics implies, in turn, the abandonment of the principles that were advocated at the time by the so-called
“citizen revolution”. These principles sponsored Mr. Rafael Correa to the Presidential Palace of Carondelet.

[14] Previously, the hectares of land considered communal in Santa Elena amounted to 300 thousand, however the privatization processes sponsored by the neoliberal governments prior to the current government of President Correa limited these territories to 150 thousand hectares.

[15] The Montecristi Constitution was drafted between November 30, 2007 and July 24, 2008, by the National Constituent Assembly in Montecristi (Manabí) and presented a day later (July 25) by said body. Its approval was submitted to a constitutional referendum on September 28, 2008, with the approval option winning by a wide margin. The 2008 Constitution came into force, replacing the previous Constitution of 1998; and has been in force since its publication in the Official Registry on October 20, 2008.

[16] http://issuu.com/restrella/docs/constitucion_del_ecuador

[17] The names Goancavilca, Guancavelica, Guancavilca, Huancavilca are registered and the Council for the Development of Nationalities and Peoples of Ecuador (CODENPE) recognizes them as Wankavilka.

[18] Public Banking.


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