Wixárikas trust in being received by AMLO to agree on a restitution plan

Nestor Jimenez

Newspaper La Jornada
Monday, May 30, 2022, p. 8

After spending the weekend in camp in front of the National Palace, participants of the Wixárika Caravan for Dignity and Awareness expressed their confidence that this Monday a rapprochement with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador will take place to expose their demands for land restitution , invaded by ranchers from that region of Jalisco adjoining Nayarit.

Carlos González, a lawyer for the community, explained that after a meeting with the agrarian attorney, Luis Hernández Palacios, and the commissioner for Dialogue with Indigenous Peoples of the Ministry of the Interior, Josefina Bravo Rangel, the authorities offered a route to address their petition.

Hernández Palacios announced that he will be the one to handle the case personally at the instruction of President López Obrador, and will initiate dialogue with the ranchers, who could be offered compensation so that, friendly wayagree to the restitution of the 11 thousand hectares.

We built some solution routes, legal and operational proposals to advance in the restitution of the lands. The agrarian attorney, personally, is going to attend to the problem by direct instruction of the President, prioritizing conciliation and agreement with the concessionaires of the land that the community demands in restitution, and they tell us that there is a bag of sufficient resources to be able to compensate dealers for accepting refundGonzalez explained.

In addition, he stressed that, despite the proposal, the community has not signed any agreement yet because they will wait for the meeting with the head of the federal Executive, with whom they trust the document that supports the legal strategy will be signed.

After traveling on foot more than 900 kilometers from San Sebastián Teponahuaxtlán, the town from which they left on April 25, they arrived in the country’s capital last week with the intention of meeting with the president. They agreed that if they are not received, tomorrow they will summon thousands of inhabitants of this community to reinforce the camp in the first square of the city.