Land Rights in La Flor del Campo

Do not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits —Exodus 23:6

Flor del Campo: The Struggle for Land

The residents of the community of La Flor del Campo in Tegucigalpa have been fighting for title to their land for over twenty years. La Flor del Campo was formed in 1979 by a group of people driven from other areas of Honduras by poverty, war and drought. The land they occupied belonged to the Municipality, and under Honduran law, they should have been able to receive title for it following three years of occupation. However, soon after they claimed the land and were recognized as legitimate by the state, one of Tegucigalpa's wealthy and influential families began to claim that they owned the land. For the last twenty years they have manipulated the justice system and other authorities to ensure that no titles could be issued to the poor inhabitants of La Flor del Campo and eight other surrounding communities.

The Legal Investigation: Who Owns the Land?

The root of all the problems in Flor del Campo is the question of who owns the land. The city and the residents assert that the land belongs to the municipality, but Oscar Siri Zúñiga claims that he inherited the land from his grandfather. Years of conflicting court documents and ancient titles based on long-since-disappeared landmarks made finding the answer to the ownership question very difficult.

The legal team of the Association for a More Just Society (AJS)'s Honduran partner organization, ASJ, assisted by a volunteer from the International Justice Mission, spent several months working on a title search to trace ownership of the land back to the last century. ASJ was also able to find official city maps dating to 1900, which they were able to compare to satellite photographs to correlate the old boundaries with the city as it is today.

After more than a year of investigation, ASJ has compiled irrefutable evidence that the Zúñiga claim is false and that the land is indeed municipal land. The city's claim to the land can be traced back to a title granted in 1777 by the Spanish Crown and confirmed in government documents registered in 1899 and 1911. On the other hand, the Zúñigas did not register the land until 1930, many years after it was already registered to the city. Furthermore, a 1900 map of the city clearly includes the present neighborhoods of Flor del Campo, La Rosa, La Rodas, San Buenaventura, Altos de la San Francisco, La Pradera, Villa los Laureles, and Las Torres within the boundaries of municipal land. The title search also revealed that at most Siri Zúñiga has some claim (albeit questionable) to about 67 acres, though he currently professes to own more than double that amount.

Community Organizing

ASJ began to work on the land dispute case in Flor del Campo when leaders from the community approached us with the problem, and an integral part of our work has been to continue to work with these and other leaders to raise support within the community, and to maintain an atmosphere of mutual support and accountability. Part of this included assisting with the election of the neighborhood council by ensuring a democratic election and supporting a ballot of Christians committed to the community from several different local churches. Partnership with the neighborhood council has proved invaluable, as they have worked with us in decision-making, carried out different projects in the community, and most importantly continued to educate people about this confusing situation.

During this time, it became clear to the neighborhood council that they needed to organize a way to represent all the neighborhoods effected by the land dispute. The Flor neighborhood council joined forces with the neighborhood councils of the other seven neighborhoods to form an umbrella organization, CODEPASC. CODEPASC has taken the lead in pursuing the land dispute issue and coordinating with ASJ. One of their main accomplishments was to publish a statement in local newspapers demanding that the mayor take steps to resolve their land problem, a statement they paid for from their own funds. The mayor's office responded almost immediately by setting up a city commission to look into the problem, the first concrete action ever taken by the city despite all the years that the community had been asking.

During all this process of legal investigation and community organizing in the neighborhood, ASJ and the neighborhood council ran into the problem that there was no solid information about the residents or properties in the neighborhood. ASJ organized the first official census of the community with the help of the neighborhood council and the local churches. The census defined the plots of land and gathered demographic data on the residents, invaluable information for the legalization and registration of each piece of property.

Resolving the Problem

With the backing of an organized community and ample legal evidence, ASJ has turned its energies to pushing for a rapid and fair resolution to the land tenancy problem in Flor del Campo. We recently released an analysis of the problem and the evidence we have gathered in the January 2003 edition of our on-line magazine, Revistazo.com. We also distributed 5000 copies of the printed version of this magazine, one for every family from the communities affected. Now the public at large and the people directly affected have access to a clear description of the problem and the evidence supporting the residents' claims to the land. Click here to read the Revistazo edition in English.

ASJ also recognized that these problems in Flor del Campo and the surrounding neighborhoods are only the tip of the iceberg. Land dispute problems are widespread in Honduras, especially in urban areas. A recent study by USAID and ILD reveals that 12.9 billion dollars worth of property is unregistered in Honduras, rendering it "dead capital". The laws governing land registration are often confusing and contradictory, and there is no clear judicial process for processing land disputes. For example, according to the report, legalizing a land title can take up to 170 steps. To correct this problem and permit thousands of Hondurans to finally gain free and clear ownership of their land, ASJ is proposing legislation to create a Public Social Registry to process disputed land.

The Public Social Registry would operate only in urban areas with severe land tenancy problems. The Registry would provide residents with secure user rights to their land during the dispute and guarantee them full ownership rights once the dispute is resolved in court. Residents would have to prove their residency on the property and pay the city a publicly established sale price for the land. In cases where the dispute is resolved in favor of a legitimate third party, the city would compensate the owner and turn full ownership over to the resident. An executive summary of the proposed legislation is available.

Latest News

On June 29, 2004 the property law was passed by Congress! Twenty-three more families from Flor del Campo are now in the process of officially registering their land, through the help of ASJ. This is a very exciting and hopeful time for community members as the local council works to inform residents of this new opportunity that will give families land security.

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