CRC Travels to Honduras

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

> CRC Travels to Honduras

> Story Four/Final

February 17, 2011 ? After moving into her small
home in the community of Ramon Amaya Amadorin in
1992, Dilia Canales had to deal with soldiers
from the Honduran army and police officers coming
to her home several times, demanding that she vacate the land.

They told her that she did not own the property
and had no right to be living there in the
community named after a famous Honduran
journalist and author. "The first few years were
very hard," she said. "We were told that someone else had title to the land ."

Her neighborhood is not an oasis of prime land.
The ground is uneven and rocky, homes are tiny,
businesses are few, criminals are active, and
scruffy looking dogs root around in garbage for
something to eat. Down a hill on the edge of the
neighborhood is a lumpy pile of dirt and debris
from a landslide. Nevertheless, Canales said, it was her home.

Tegucigalpa is surrounded by steep hills and
ridges, such as where this neighborhood is
located, and people from rural areas, over the
years, have moved to these spots, built homes,
and developed communities. They normally paid for
the land when they moved in, but it was often
unclear who really owned the property.

In Canales case, she had to deal mostly with
harassment and threats over ownership of her
property. But in similar cases across Honduras,
people had been killed for refusing to leave the
small piece of land on which they had often built
a small, tin-roofed home. They had dirt floors
and only one or two rooms in which to raise their families

Then, for many poor people in Honduras, a miracle
happened, said Canales, who is president of her
neighborhood association. With the backing of the
Association for a More Just Society and others,
including the World Bank and the Catholic Church,
the Honduran government adopted a land reform law
in 2004. The law was based on a similar one in Peru.

"It was a law to help us get title to our

property," said Canales as she spoke to visitors
in the community center decorated with a colorful
mural of Ramon Amaya Amadorin, an author whose
books and articles often called for changes in society to benefit the poor.

"AJS gave us advice on the benefits of getting a
title and helped us as we went about getting
them. With the titles, we have protection and can sleep in peace."

Probably 85 percent of the people living in her
community of tiny homes, winding roads, and views
of downtown Tegucigalpa now have titles. Under
the law, the government took over large plots of
land and then, after sorting through ownership,
sold the property to people living on the land.
People have had a chance to buy their property
for reasonable prices and to pay for it a little at a time.

The money for the property goes into an escrow
fund to be divided among those who can prove that
they had owned the land many years ago.

"With a title, the bank will give us loans now.
People are changing their houses from wood to block houses," said Canales.

AJS began lobbying for change in the law in 2003.
After the law passed, the organization decided
that it would work with the poorest people who
were in land disputes but didn?t have the
resources to hire an attorney. Under the new law,
the state took over properties, which helped to
stop multiple people fighting over one piece of
property, said Gilda Espinal, an attorney and
coordinator of the land rights project for AJS.

"Before the law, the whole registry process for
land was lacking. The whole area of titling was
very weak, especially if a situation went back 20 years or more," she said.

Making the transformation under the new law has
not been easy. Even after the law passed,
disputes continued and people have been killed in
the struggle to determine ownership of the properties.

"In the last five years, we have worked with all
the communities where the land was expropriated
by the state," said the attorney. "Every step of
the way, we have explained to important community
leaders what the law says and how it should be
used. We want the communities to understand their
rights and responsibilities. We also monitor to
make sure that the government is implementing the law as it should be."

Part of the reason the government was willing to
pass the law was particularly practical: It
involves owners paying taxes. "Until now there
was very little consciousness about paying taxes
at all," said Espinal. "In post-title training we talk about paying taxes."

Thousands of people in dozens of communities
across the country have obtained titles to their land.

One woman in Ramon Amaya Amadorin says that

having the title to her house helps to bolster
her self-esteem. It gives her more confidence in
herself and control over how she lives, who she
associates with, and how she does business.

?My husband was personally attacked by the person
who said he was the owner. Twice people came to
shoot at us. There was a long fight and all kinds
of things happened here," she said as she held her infant child in her arms.

"Personally, I?m very happy to now have this
title. We can fix up our home. Now I can leave
the land in the name of my kids."

> ?Chris Meehan, CRC Communications

> --
> Chris Meehan
> News & Media Manager
> Christian Reformed Church in North America
> 1-616-224-0849