Dear Professor Chavez:

Repeatedly and for a long time, while I was in Southern Baja this past winter and spring, I was offering to educate you, a member of Ejido San Jose De La Noria, about your Ejido’s “Plano Definitivo”; an offer that you seemingly ignored and/or refused. I felt this very strange, especially considering your profession, and its supposed quest, hunger for, the truth… Because I believe this education so important, so vital to you, I guess I’ll have to try to teach you from afar, and in a much different manner than I’d first intended.

As you know, there is much controversy swirling around this “Plano Definativo”, a plano that was supposedly designed to rectify and straighten out problems in regards to property disputes along the coastline in the magnificent Agua Verdi area. I’m sure that, after this lesson, you’ll agree that this Plano did the exact opposite of its stated purpose.

Let us start with a pre-history of that extremely flawed document. As you, I’m sure, understand…the Ejido Movement was and is a social program that for all intent and purpose has miserably failed. The plan was to give land to the landless, the poor and downtrodden, land that they could work and benefit from in a cooperative fashion. With the help of some start-up governmental assistance, these Ejido people could then become contributors to the collective well being of Mexico as a whole. Of course, the vast majority of land given over to the Ejido Process was not the best land in Mexico. Mostly, it was marginal to poor to uninhabitable. That fact combined with the basic flaw of all of the Utopian Social Thinking that arouse from the “Early 20th Century” Revolutionary period, that the human animal does not adjust well to fit these vast and sweeping programs, doomed this action from the very beginning.

The political policy of the time was to “make” this social program work…and then because it was not working, to make it look like it was. As things turned out, the Mexican Government had to dump a lot of money into the process to even give it a thin paint that from a distance…gave the appearance of at least marginal success. The political process turned this to its advantage, however, by dumping huge amounts of capital into this system at strategic times. A huge vote-getting machine was created that, as long the money flowed, guaranteed the political establishments’ appearance of legitimacy. Mexico was a relatively rich country. Such vote getting plans worked well for the established power structure, and for a long time were affordable. And, of course, we both know that this no longer works. . . and why.

Zeroing in on the Ejido Process, as it related to Southern Baja, and Ejido San Jose De La Noria in particular, then we see that the Ejido System did not arrive in that what was then, an extremely backwater, part of Mexico until the latter third of this century. Southern Baja was looked upon as a lightly peopled, almost useless stretch of hard-rock desert. Very few minds could envision anything of value along the nearly deserted, almost fresh-waterless stretches of coastline and vast expanse of rugged mountains; such as those which exists within the limits of Ejido San Jose De La Noria. That is why so few Ejido members were given so much of it. At the time of this Ejido’s inception, and even today, there are less than 100 of these members.

Giving these people virtually all of 53 miles of coastline, some of it the most spectacular in Southern Baja, and an incredible amount of fantastically mountainous area, the Reformagaria created “El Plano Original”. Although this Plano got almost everything right, in regards to correct placement of previously deeded property, it held one very big mistake. That one mistake was the taking-in-of “Rancho Palo Blanco”, a family named Quijanos’ holding for a very long time already a good title to this coastal rancho, 1294 hectars. (I will get back to this ‘Palo Blanco’ error a little later on in this lesson.)

The things that the Reformagaria got “right” with this “Plano Original” were the correct placement of Rancho “Santa Marta” towards the south end of the Ejido’s coastal holdings, Rancho “Ojo De Agua De San Isidro” that lays close to Agua Verdi (and in fact is Agua Verdis’ present day water supply), and Rancho “El Carrizalito”, which lays north of Agua Verdi (and which is today the source of much controversy and the reason I’m giving you this “free” lesson).

Those three Ranchos they placed correctly, providing that the Reformagaria engineers most likely were not incompetent, but certainly capable of making mistakes… like any of us. Not only did those engineers place those Ranchos in their correct locations, but the Reformagaria was so proud of its work and efforts that they made a huge wall map of all properties in all of Southern Baja that covered the top part of an entire wall in the Lapaz Reformagaria office. It was at least 14 feet long and 4 feet high, and clearly marked on this were these above named Ranchos, in their exact, historically correct locations. Because of my numerous visits to that office, I had ample opportunity to scrutinize this grand map, and because of my involvement with “El Carrizalito”, I was extremely pleased with what it showed me. I wish I had a picture of it! Perhaps someone knows the location of that map…now that the Reformagaria has moved and been reduced to much smaller quarters?

My involvement with “El Carrizalito”pre dates “El Plano Definativo” by several years. This Plano, remember, was drawn up, supposedly, to eliminate or rectify the problems created by Plano Original: namely to clear up that one problem, the one and only problem of the mistake made with “Rancho Palo Blanco”. Now let us look at what Plano Definativo accomplished instead.

First, we have to put the timing of this new Plano in proper perspective: The assumption can safely be made that Southern Baja coastline, after the successful start-up of the “Designed for Tourism” areas of Los Cabos, was no longer looked upon as virtually worthless…by the prevailing political establishment. Eyes had been opened! These eyes essentially controlled the situation and saw that giving so few Ejido members control over such a potentially valuable commodity had been a great mistake. All that magnificent coastline!

A 41K road had been built from the Baja Road, Rt. 1, the Transpennisular Highway, to the small village of Agua Verdi. A good road and one which when traveled, certainly shows off the spectacular beauty of the area. There are those that claim that this road was not built (it was a very costly road) strictly to benefit the 100 or so poor people who inhabited this tiny village back when it was constructed.

This road allowed me access into this magical area. Along it, I discovered some fantastic local people. These people introduced me to Rancho El Carrizalito, which I fell in love with, and for which one of those people held ancient title. With honest, reputable Mexican partners, I formed a Mexican Corporation and after many years of hard work, we were able to arrange, all in an “above the table” fashion, the fair purchase of that Rancho. Through my further involvement with the people of that area, I saw the great need potential and opportunity to create a spectacular project that would have spared the beauty of the area, along with providing a multiplicity of benefits for all of the local inhabitants. Thus, the “Ring of Fire” project was born. Because of me pursuing this objective, I had to get acquainted with the Reformagaria, at that time headed by Sr. Jose Luis Osorno Cholet. By meeting with this Sr. Cholet and impressing him of the magnitude of my plan, I was given a sneak preview of “Plano Definativo”, before it made its first public appearance. Because I understood very little of what I was looking at, because I understood almost nothing about the Reformagaria, the political system and Mexico in general, this Plano’s problems were not at all obvious to me. (I have been quite well educated since then.)

My strategy was quite simple. An Eco-reserve like I had envisioned had to have a vast amount of land for it to work the way I wanted it to, the way that I felt it could. According to “Plano Definativo”, most of what I thought I needed was Ejido lands. Within the area of this proposed project, however, instead of just the three Ranchos from Plano Original mentioned above, (Carrizalito, San Isidro, Santa Marta), now there were six different pieces of private property? Starting on the northern end of these Ejido lands was our Rancho El Carrizalito; which, we could not help but notice, had been cut down in size. This got explained away as having to do with new Mexican laws, which restricted the size of any coastal holdings.

Then, still north of Agua Verdi and at a place called Punta Aguja, there was a Rancho that had not existed on Plano Original called “Rancho Punta Pasqual”. When I first questioned about this, I was told that this was part of the compromise in regards to the old “Rancho Palo Blanco” problem. “It belonged to the Quijanos’”, I was initially informed. The owner listed on this Plano, a Sr. Arsenio Gracia, was explained away as one of the Quijano family members, a very distant relation.

Right at Agua Verdi (not Puerto Agua Verdi, but Agua Verdi, there is a hill that separates the two) was another large indicated private property simply called “Agua Verdi”. This one belonging, according to that Plano, to Sr. Alonzo Rondero, a man I knew to be living in that tiny village. In off the coastline but yet within my proposed project, laid a property that had been on Plano Original, Ojo De Aqua De San Isidro, Rancho San Isidro, this one belonging to a Maria Villalejo.

On the coastline south of Agua Verdi, lay a property that was simply marked “Innominado”. When questioned as to who owned it, I never did get a very satisfactory answer. “Someone from Lapaz”, was all the information offered. Yet, further south of that was another Rancho that had been indicated on Plano Original, and also on that Grand Map within the Reformagaria, “Santa Marta” with no owner specified. My solution to these indicated private properties was to simply buy them from their owners. My partners and I set off on this attempt: something that would lead us to a quite complete understanding of “Plano Definativo”; and the reasons WHY it had been constructed like it had.

Our first objective was to contact these other property owners to discuss the purchase of their holdings. With Rancho “Punta Pasquel”, we immediately ran into problems. We checked with the Quijano family who told us they knew nothing of such a rancho. Not in the history of the area had there ever been a rancho by that name. Yes, it lay there within territory that was part of their original “Palo Blanco”, but it was a complete mystery to them. And, “NO!” Sr. Arsenio Garcia was no distant relative.

We did a rather extensive search for its listed owner, this Sr. Arsenio Garcia, but no matter how or where we searched, we could not locate him. This went on for months. I want you to understand it was only after an extremely long conversation in a fancy restaurant in Lapaz with the Delagado of the Reformagaria, Sr. Cholet, that he finally responded to my constant, insistent, questioning: “No Existe! No Existe!” in highly exasperated fashion. We’d already guessed this for some time. He also told us at that time that the “Punta Pasquel” problem could be erased clean from Plano Definitivo for $30,000 U. S. Good! I thought we were getting somewhere….

At the same time, we were approaching Alonzo Rondero from Agua Verdi about the property there that was listed as his. “Yes, he wanted to sell”, he assured us. When we tried to negotiate a price, he could never give us one: manana, next week, next month! Finally, he told us that we’d have to talk to his cousin, one Carlos Rondero from Lapaz. As things turned out, this Carlos Rondero was the First Secretary of the one-armed Governor of Southern Baja, a very powerful man at that moment. (1^st Secretary is equivalent to Lt. Governor in the U.S.)

We arranged an appointment with this Carlos in Lapaz at his office in the Capital Building. It did not take us long to discover that Alonzo from Agua Verdi was simply a “straw man”. We offered him what was a very fair price for what he held papers for. He said he’d think it over and get back to us.… Information in regards to the owner of the property named solely “Innuminado” remained frustratingly hidden from us. Every time we followed leads given to us from within the Reformagaria, we came to dead ends. And this was with officials of Ejido San Jose De La Noria trying to help us, for they were totally in favor of cooperating with us on this project.

While concentrating on the fifth property, “Santa Marta”, it became obvious to us that this had been moved on “Plano Definitivo” considerably farther north than its original and historical location. This puzzled us greatly? While trying to figure the reason for this, we discovered that “Ojo De Aqua De San Isidro” had also been wrongly placed, this also by a considerable distance. And then! to our incredible surprise, we discovered that our “El Carrizalito”, something that we had not bothered to look closely at because we were the owners and we “knew” where it was, and because our focus had been riveted to those other properties, had also been moved far north of where it has always historically been! What was going on here?

With our lawyer, we rushed to the Reformagaria for a meeting with the new Delagado of that office, Eligio Soto Lopez. The past Delagado, Sr. Cholet, was somewhere in hiding and supposedly being sought after by the law for numerous property manipulations all over the state of Southern Baja. This had been headline news in all of the newspapers. This new Dalagado, seeming, at first, like an honest public official who was concerned with helping us, assured us that the problem could easily be rectified. It would take a little work on his part, a little time, and a small amount of money. And, in fact, it didn’t take long, and it only cost us $10,000 U.S. dollars. According to Sr. Soto Lopez, the problem was totally resolved. Most of this money, by theway, was slid quite professional into Eligio’s top desk drawer.

Along with Ejido San Jose De La Noria and the Quijano family, we then worked for a number of years trying to resolve theproblems built into Plano Definativo, both the Ejido and the Quijanos being in favor of the “Ring of Fire” plan. Of course, nothing ever got resolved and I think I know the answer why…

Let’s look at El “Plano Definativo” again. From three indicated pieces of private property on “Plano Original”, all of them correctly located, there suddenly appeared six! Of the six on El Definativo, “Punta Pasqual” had never been heard of before, not by the oldest people in the area, who claim its area was always part of Rancho “Palo Blanco”. It seems to have appeared just from thin air! This is a big piece of property, approximately 500 hectarios, and its located right in the middle of one of the choicest coastal areas. The “Agua Verdi” property belonging to Carlos Rondero, then the 1^st Secretary of Governor, whose administration retired in a swirl of scandal, supposedly sprang from the old “Palo Blanco” claim of the Quijanos’. This by virtue of a hand written, one page note between a long-dead aunt of the Ronderos’ and an equally long-dead Sr. Quijano, with no itnesses and no one to say if the handwriting is legitimate! Supposedly, it sprung from old “Palo Blanco”, which is not recognized as even existing? One might ask the legitimate question of how could a baby arise when there was no mother? (An interesting side note about Carlos Rondero’s property is that, if it is legitimate, it is the only property on Plano Definitivo that is located correctly.)

The property “Ojo De Aqua De San Isidro” is so far misplaced on “El Definativo” as to be a howling joke! Just ask the peoples of Agua Verdi and Puerto Agua Verdi where their water comes from, and then compare that to its placement on that Plano! Ask yourself why the Reformagaria would never give us an answer as to who the owner of the property “Innuminado” was? Why doesn’t it even have a name in a place like Mexico, where every point, arroyo, mountain, rancho, etc. has a name? Why were ranchos El Carrizalito and Santa Marta moved north of their obvious historic locations?<

Six properties! Three of them seemingly sprouted from thin air...three of them miserably misplaced. Is the Reformagaria really that loose and sloppy? Are Mexican engineers so incompetent? Or, was this an insidious overall plan orchestrated from the very top of the Southern Baja Political Establishment to outright steal the best parts of that Agua Verdi area?

This incredibly incorrect Plano also had to be accepted by a majority of the Ejido members as well, but it was easy to convince them of its correctness. First off, the majority of the Ejido members can’t read! Secondly, they do not know how to interpret even simple, well-marked maps. I know this from long experience of watching them try to do this. They simply never developed a “map like view” of their world.

It is my conclusion that the few who could read were brought into this scheme by the small group who constructed this plan, to steal vast parcels of the choicest parts in the Agua Verdi area. Certainly the present head of the Ejido, Francisco Sabin, a man long opposed to the “Ring of Fire” project, was amongst that group. He, along with Vincinte Amador, Francisco Amador and Alonzo Rondero were the key group that talked the rest of the Ejido into recognizing Plano Definativo as correct…talked them into voting to accept it!

If the “Ring of Fire” succeeded, the planners of El Definativo failed! The only way to hang on to their plan was to kill the “Ring of Fire”, which Francisco Sabin has worked long and hard at.

Enough for your first lesson. The story I’ve just told you is true. You, as a newspaper reporter, should be able to investigate the facts, and see if this story checks out.

Other lessons will come to you…many of them. . .

Stay Tuned.

DAVID SMITH