Well…Maybe He Doesn't Know?

That was Chayo's comment, us discussing Robi's continuing moves in the face of the Quijano's recent victory, with respect to the 30 year fight for their Rancho Palo Blanco. I hadn't considered Robi's ignorance of this matter and was forced to expose it to some serious thought....

Could it be that Robi...simply hadn't heard?

Could it be possible that he doesn't understand the ramification involving all that he's up to in the San Cosme area? And, knowing how reluctant the Reforma Agraria would be toward disseminating such information, understanding the almost complete disconnect that exists between the essentially striped-of-power ejido chief, Jorge Gutierrez, and the ejdio rank and file, and then the almost total lack of contact between the Quijanos and anyone involved with the ejido, this along with the non-believing nature of those just mentioned, I had to concede that that possibility did indeed exist.

This victory was still very recent news, us having received it from Ken, who was down here for five days in December, and passed the word to our in-the-woods cabin. For sure Ken was excited, him having worked with and assisted the Quijano cause now for a number of years.

"An ultimate victory in the highest court in Mexico City!" he exclaimed. For us and our fight against El Plano Definativo for edijo San Jose De La Noria, this was very up beat news, to be sure. But I remained somewhat skeptical. The appeals process, which we're caught up in with our Rancho Carrizalito fight, is seemingly endless here. Before I could put pen to paper on this matter, I had to talk with members of the Quijano family, me thinking there was good chance I'd find hidden wrinkle.

Boom! This type victory blows a huge whole right in the belly of that false Plano Definativo. Two fictitious properties, created by virtue of the loose Reforma Agraria pen, Rancho Punta Pasqual, supposedly belonging to the non-existent Sr. Arsincio Garcia, and the Agua Verde property, supposedly belonging to someone in the Rondero family, would get wiped right off the map!

That, my readers, is something (especially in the face of the Reforma Agraria's stance that "Definativo is Definativo and nobody but nobody can alter it!") incredible. For us, something spectacular, for sure

High on our list of priorities coming back into this area was a long set-down talk at Raul Quijano's casa, us camping overnight near by. Because Raul and family weren't home when we came slowly bumping by (the Agua Verde road hasn't been graded for some time now) I had to wait until my first trip to town, maybe a week later. By then Chayo had informed me that Antonio Quijano had the word for the whole large family. Antonio lives right across a water filled arroyo from Raul. To me one would have been just as good a source as the other.

My luck was that again Raul's casa was vacant. I hollered and whistled three progressively louder times...and was about to get back in my truck when a female voice hollers out from Antonio's casa about a hundred meters distant. Then I see her, and along side her another female, us all shouting back and forth for a minute er so.

"Was Antonio home!?"

"Si!"

From Raul's there could I easily walk to their place, somehow crossing that narrow body of crystal clear water (Ultima Agua, that's the name of this two casa rancho). They advised me that I could indeed get across, down arroyo just a little, if I just followed the well worn path.

Going down and then a ways along side this large pool, I spot Antonio in the shade of his casa and I holler him over to the opposing bank, not a great distance for us to hold conversation across.

I tell him of the news I'd received from Ken. "Si. Si," Ken had gotten it right. At the most high level of the Mexican legal system, they had definitively prevailed. The whole of Palo Blanco, all 1292 hectares of it and in accordance to their original plano, belongs unquestionably to the family Quijano.

"No more appeals by the ejido?"

"No. Nada mass." It was finished.

"Does it need to be resurveyed?" me suspecting that that would be par for the course.

He thought si but in truth he wasn't sure.

"Punta Pasqual and the Rondero claim?" I had to ask.

"No existan!" he shouts back. All of that was Palo Blanco.

That water was so clear and deep and so full of healthy aquatic vegetation, like a lush underwater meadow or forest. I asked if there were fish, like I knew there were not too far down stream at Rancho Viejo. No. No fish there, but turtles and patos. (Actually it was a small squadron of pied billed grebes, not ducks.)

I asked if the cattle ever tried to eat that lush vegetation below. The cows, no. But the horses and mules brave putting their heads under and come up with mouthfuls; he'd seen that. I told him of huge antlered animals in the north that mostly graze below the surface for their livings. "Si!" he hollered back. He'd heard of those. Congratulating him again on the family victory, I said my good-byes, promising to come back and talk more later.

Once in Constitucion and in conversation with Ernesto, our rancho partner, I put him to the task of tasking our Lapaz lawyers to check this thing out further. Also, I wanted him to check and see if Robi's activities weren't indeed subject to the Quijanos' "Imparo" placed against PROCEEDE and the ejido.

Bam! Another thing that a Quijano victory would certainly do is burst the PROCEEDE bubble that's attempting to engulf this whole area. A quick update on PROCEEDE: It's an arm of the Mexican government specifically charged with the responsibility of, once and for all time, cleaning up the horrendous property messes existing within the ejidos. That means settling disputes so that land ownership (primarily for gringos) won't longer have nightmarish consequences attached to it; something that surely has blocked investment, Baja with its particularly infamous record.

"How could PROCEEDE, I asked Ernesto, go ahead and issue anything like they did in the San Cosme area, them surely knowing of still unresolved conflicts. (The less than legit titles they handed out but that the Quijano's IMPARO stopped dead in their tracks.) We were sitting at siesta time meal round a small table in his girlfriend Gabriela's casa, her, her mother, her and Ernesto's two simply lovely young daughters, another friend of Ernesto's.

"Money, David." He didn't have to think long or hard to come up with his answer. "You know what the system's like here. For a price they'll do whatever anyone wants, give them the results they want. So what if it just creates a bigger mess later. Those people in charge are never in the same jobs very long. What do they care about the problems they leave behind! The chances of them suffering from it are almost zero." Ernesto is well aware that it was Robi who paid PROCEEDE to go to work on the ejido San Jose De La Noria problem. We discussed further what legal actions we could pile atop what the Quijanos had already done to further put the developmental brakes on in this area.

As I said at the start of this short story, maybe Robi isn't aware of what's going on around him. I'm setting here looking at a copy of the Quijano's original Palo Blanco papers (maybe I should post this). Their property line runs from the top of Punta San Cosme...straight to Rancho San Cosme right close there by Alejo's casa. That line essentially wipes out all the parcels to the west of the living lagoon that Robi hopes to destroy (just like I describes in my story "Parcels"). This line essentially cuts through all that he's messing up with his ego errections. And to the best of my knowledge, Robi, in his arrogance, has never discussed any of this with the Quijanos.

Well, I know he monitors this website, along with lots of other readers. He should have no reason to claim ignorance in this regard, after he digests this.

Email: david@dondavidonbaja.com