La Gracia Village to Host Meeting to Discuss Steps to Resolve Land Issue

Walter Zepeda

Farmers in La Gracia say that they will be hosting a meeting this week in the village to discuss next steps to resolve a land dispute. They say that government surveyors did not return today.  In our story on Tuesday night, we reported about a land issue that started last week in the farming community near in the Cayo district. According to villagers, the surveyors informed them that they are going to be surveying one thousand five hundred acres of land which includes some farmers’ leasehold titles.  Those surveyors showed up in the village on Monday morning with heavily armed officers of the police department. Villagers claim it is political victimization following the village council elections. Chairman Walter Zepeda is calling for someone in government to intervene because he says that they have no other form of support to get this matter resolved.

Walter Zepeda, Chairman, La Gracia [Translated]

“I want to ask you all if you can help us with this situation we have right now. We don’t have any support. It’s just us, the villagers, who are fighting this right now to see if we can do something. So, we ask you all and the authorities to see if you all can help us to resolve this because we don’t want problems with anybody. We want to do this peacefully; for us to be free. We have the land there but not all of us have the papers for the land. So, we are appealing for them to assist us to get the papers.”