Weekly Update - 18th August 2007
Having received the long-awaited ‘Authorisation to Sell’ we hastily worked towards finalizing the Purchase Deed of the property. All of this came together smoothly and on the 10th August 2007 Casa Tortuga Nicaragua S.A. became the proud owner of 8.8mzs – well almost... While we now have a signed purchase deed in our possession and have paid the Cooperative all outstanding monies for the sale (i.e. US$33k) we are still yet to register the land in our name. The registration process is now well underway and we envisage its completion within 1 to 2 months, if not sooner.
In good ol’ Nicaraguan form our land purchase celebrations have been cut short by the development of new challenges.
Casa Tortuga’s purchase of land from the Alfonso Valle Castillo Cooperative seems to have awoken a 15-year old conflict within the community. In short, many years ago when the Cooperative was first created it comprised more members than it currently does. Over the years and in ways unbeknownst to us, the Cooperative removed some members up untill the currrent point where it is officially recognised by the government as comprising 13 members.
Now, some of these ex-members (and a number of new comers with no history in the Cooperative) are recognising there could be something to be gained from this Cooperative and are calling for either their re-admittance into the Cooperative or at least a fair share of what they consider to be partly theirs. As such, approximately 20 people are now squatting some of the remaining 101mzs that the Cooperative still owns. Moreover, due to the fact that they know the Cooperative has sold to Casa Tortuga, they are blocking our vehicle access so that we cannot currently proceed with construction.
We have met with the squatters and they have repeatedly told us they do not harbor any ill feelings or intentions towards us and our project. Rather they have stated that through asserting pressure on us, they hope we will in turn assert pressure on the Cooperative to resolve the issue. The squatters have asked for our patience and understanding over the short-run while this situation gets resolved. They have promised that our 8.8mzs will not be touched or squatted and up until now this promise has been observed.
As you can imagine, this is a tricky (and not to mention, frustrating) situation for us given we have no right to force the Cooperative to do anything they do not wish to do. We can however, recommend they open up communications with the squatters - which is what we have done. Still, the Cooperative, who has undertaken all the necessary legal procedures needed in order to sell land to us knows that they have the full backing of the government and its laws and as such are choosing to take a hard line ‘no negotation’ approach in relation to the matter. Primarily, the Cooperative is pursuing legal action including support from the police.
Whether or not the squatters have any real legal claim to the Cooperative’s land is of no relevance to Casa Tortuga. As a business and community project we have officially taken the stance that this is not our fight and as such we have no formal opinion on the subject. What we do have an opinion on, however, is our right to have access to our land and to that end we are busy rallying support among local community leaders for a peaceful and permanent removal of the road blocade.
Thankfully we are still able to continue some form of work on the land, specifically planting, building site excavagations and road construction (to the top platform) but we are prohibited from transporting construction materials to the building site. We have no idea how long it will take before our access is reestablished but we hold hopes it will be a matter of weeks rather than a matter of months. We will contine to build support for our case without offending either side because, above all, we recongise that the maintenance of good relations within the community is paramount for our project's long-term success. Moreover, we will continue to avoid aggressive solutions including the instigation of legal action for at least the next few weeks. If after this, no solution appears to be forthcoming, we will revise our approach and speak to the Police.
In good ol’ Nicaraguan form our land purchase celebrations have been cut short by the development of new challenges.
Casa Tortuga’s purchase of land from the Alfonso Valle Castillo Cooperative seems to have awoken a 15-year old conflict within the community. In short, many years ago when the Cooperative was first created it comprised more members than it currently does. Over the years and in ways unbeknownst to us, the Cooperative removed some members up untill the currrent point where it is officially recognised by the government as comprising 13 members.
Now, some of these ex-members (and a number of new comers with no history in the Cooperative) are recognising there could be something to be gained from this Cooperative and are calling for either their re-admittance into the Cooperative or at least a fair share of what they consider to be partly theirs. As such, approximately 20 people are now squatting some of the remaining 101mzs that the Cooperative still owns. Moreover, due to the fact that they know the Cooperative has sold to Casa Tortuga, they are blocking our vehicle access so that we cannot currently proceed with construction.
We have met with the squatters and they have repeatedly told us they do not harbor any ill feelings or intentions towards us and our project. Rather they have stated that through asserting pressure on us, they hope we will in turn assert pressure on the Cooperative to resolve the issue. The squatters have asked for our patience and understanding over the short-run while this situation gets resolved. They have promised that our 8.8mzs will not be touched or squatted and up until now this promise has been observed.
As you can imagine, this is a tricky (and not to mention, frustrating) situation for us given we have no right to force the Cooperative to do anything they do not wish to do. We can however, recommend they open up communications with the squatters - which is what we have done. Still, the Cooperative, who has undertaken all the necessary legal procedures needed in order to sell land to us knows that they have the full backing of the government and its laws and as such are choosing to take a hard line ‘no negotation’ approach in relation to the matter. Primarily, the Cooperative is pursuing legal action including support from the police.
Whether or not the squatters have any real legal claim to the Cooperative’s land is of no relevance to Casa Tortuga. As a business and community project we have officially taken the stance that this is not our fight and as such we have no formal opinion on the subject. What we do have an opinion on, however, is our right to have access to our land and to that end we are busy rallying support among local community leaders for a peaceful and permanent removal of the road blocade.
Thankfully we are still able to continue some form of work on the land, specifically planting, building site excavagations and road construction (to the top platform) but we are prohibited from transporting construction materials to the building site. We have no idea how long it will take before our access is reestablished but we hold hopes it will be a matter of weeks rather than a matter of months. We will contine to build support for our case without offending either side because, above all, we recongise that the maintenance of good relations within the community is paramount for our project's long-term success. Moreover, we will continue to avoid aggressive solutions including the instigation of legal action for at least the next few weeks. If after this, no solution appears to be forthcoming, we will revise our approach and speak to the Police.
posted by Totoco Management at 12:05 PM
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