A land invasion in Honduras
The first land recovery I participated in was a piece of land owned
by a big landowner named Nicolasa, who got rich by just buying wire
and then fencing the land and saying it was his. Now spring was
coming again and the campesinos still had no land to plant
and no way to feed their families. They decided that the only way to
get the land was to take it over themselves. When we snuck into the
field at 2 am there were about eighty of us, all men except for me. The
next day the women and children came. The women made tortillas
and we all went to work - clearing the land with our machetes and
planting corn and beans.
The next day, three cars full of security police arrived to kick us out. They
said we'd better leave immediately ar we'd be arrested. Then the landowner
opened the fences and sent in cattle to trample the corn and beans we
planted. We planted again and he sent in the cattle again. Four
times we planted the fields, and four times the cattle tore them up.
One day, one of the campesino leaders called Mario went out to water
the corn. He never amde it back. A shot rang out from the woods and went
straight through his head. We took Mario's body to the town and held a vigil.
Everyone in the community came to pray for him. Afterwards the campesinos
grabbed whatever they could find - machetes, sticks, stones and some
old hunting rifles. We charged into the landowner's house and threw out his
managers and servants.
Then we waited there for the army or the landowner to appear. We were
mad as hell. When the army arrived, we said we wouldn't open fire unless
they did first. They realised they couldn't get us out without a big
scandal, sp they eventually left us alone.
Elvia Alvorado, Don't Be Afraid Gringo, San Francisco, 1987 (quoted
by Duncan Green in his excellent book Faces of Latin America, Nottingham
1997.
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