Armed seizure of Santa Rita property, Guarayos: machinery and masked individuals invade land prepared for planting
Armed and masked men entered the Santa Rita property in Guarayos with tractors and seeders. The owner reports that judicial eviction orders remain unexecuted.
Armed men and machinery seize Santa Rita property in Guarayos despite eviction orders
Melisa Barba, owner of the Santa Rita property in Guarayos province, reported a new seizure that occurred on 25 June at 15:30. According to El Deber, a group of individuals entered the property with tractors and seeders to cultivate land that was already prepared for the winter harvest campaign.
"They came in with a tractor, with a seeder. Then, on other plots there were people with hoes, planting watermelons, melons, smaller crops. Later, in another part of the property there were people planting soya," Barba recounted. She added that around the machinery, masked, armed individuals on motorcycles were operating, preventing access to the owners.
The property owner identified the alleged squatters as members of groups from two different municipalities. "A group comes from San Julián, which is the same group that entered the Las Londras property, and another group comes, which is from San Pedro," Barba stated.
Despite having judicial eviction orders, these have not been executed. The police commander, according to Barba, stated that he could not carry them out, citing first changes of command and then road blockades as justification. The owner questioned this chain of institutional omissions and affirmed that there is shared responsibility among different state entities.
Barba announced that she will submit letters to president Rodrigo Paz, to ministers, to the police commander and to the Public Ministry to demand direct intervention. "I am going to take a letter to president Rodrigo Paz and others to the ministers, so that they can help me and do something about this," she said.
This is not the first violent episode on the property. Barba asserted that previously there were kidnappings and attacks against workers and family members, including her husband and her father-in-law. The squatters also reportedly used firearms and detained staff members on the property.
Insecurity has already affected the property's operations: of 60 workers, only 33 remain on duty. The owner warned that the groups are seeking to consolidate territorial control in the area through successive occupation of neighbouring properties.
Source: El Deber