Sheinbaum restores land and dignity to the Rarámuris

From the Editorial

La Jornada Newspaper
Saturday, December 21, 2024, p. 3

In this remote community nestled in the deepest part of the Tarahumara Mountains, with the baton of command that the Rarámuri community had given her moments before, President Claudia Sheinbaum looked happy and satisfied. He came to meet this native people to compensate them for part of what had been taken from them: more than 2 thousand hectares of land that were taken from them. It is a historic act of social justice that restores their dignity, he told them.

To do this, she put aside the vicissitudes of national politics and, accompanied by the governor of PAN extraction, María Eugenia Campos, made public the decrees that restored part of the territories that had been taken from the Rarámuris for centuries.

“Today we are doing justice. Justice is a very profound word, it is the essence of the Fourth Transformation, social justice, above all. Let the native peoples never be abandoned again, let it not be thought that progress goes above the native peoples.

That the native peoples should never be stripped of their land again, but on the contrary, that what has historically been taken from them be compensated and that its value be recognized as the essence, as the deep Mexico, above all, with dignity .

It was the beginning of the fulfillment of the Justice Plan for the Rarámuri people that began to be conceived under the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The community celebrated the signing of the decrees of compensation and titling of 1,485 hectares to the community of Huasachiche and 693 hectares to the community of San Elías Repechique, protected by the figure of traditional communal propertywhich was incorporated into the recent constitutional reform for the benefit of indigenous peoples.

Among the Rarámuri community there was joy for this act of social justice; They prepared a ceremony to receive Sheinbaum and confer the treatment of ruler in his land and with his rituals. They expressed gratitude to him with their music, with their customs. However, there are so many shortcomings that they took advantage of this unusual visit by the President to this region, where the rulers never appear, to review the critical conditions in which they live.

Your presence at this moment is one of joy and hope for our communities, we hope that with your authority in the Presidency of the Republic the problems that afflict our people will be thoroughly addressed.expressed Manuel Parra, secretary of the National Guard of the Mogotavo Community.

Immediately, he gave a crude description of the reality of the communities: he spoke about the death rate of children due to malnutrition, which is very high; He asked for help so that the towns have minimum conditions to produce the food they need. He referred to the insufficiency of health services in these lands: that more be built in remote places and, above all, that they have doctors and nurses who speak our language and know the customs and that there is the transfer of seriously ill people.

He explained the distressing drought that has been overwhelming the communities for at least two years and the resulting lack of water; He asked for improvements to the Rarámuri children’s schools to include classes in their language because no one can learn if they do not understand and that the educational content refers to their towns.

And he signed: Despite this dispossession, the communities are still present, some existing within ejidos, agrarian communities or private properties; in lands in which we have lived for generations and of which we do not own the titles, but we do own the full domain of possession for hundreds of years, like the community of Mogotavo that, due to legal tricks, we were dispossessed of 1,500 hectares and of which we request that, through dialogue and agreements, they be returned to us..

At the time, Campos spoke of the confluence of objectives between the federal and state governments to improve the conditions of the Sierra Tarahumara, based on a humanist policy in which they converge. He argued that the debt owed to the native peoples is far from being political, as it is moral and humanitarian.

In response to the Rarámuris demands, Sheinbaum said that the Justice Plan for this town does not end in this land compensation, and anticipated that there will be a strong presence in the region, not only with all the social programs but also with joint actions with the government of Chihuahua.

The Fourth Transformation means social justice and restores dignity to the indigenous peoples and the people of Mexico that were taken away from them for many years.Sheinbaum said.