Photos: Sergio Betancort
A mechanical shovel, two Civil Guard vehicles and almost a dozen operators have been deployed this Monday morning in the Las Cuevas de San Bartolomé area to begin the demolition of three homes that were reported more than ten years ago by the Agency for the Protection of the Urban and Natural Environment (Apmun) and which have a sentence ordering their demolition, for having been built without permits within the protected landscape of La Geria.
"There are a lot of constructions around there and nothing happens, but of course, it's people with money. Who do they attack? The poor, who have nothing and make a little house to live in," denounces the sister of the three affected. "It's a tremendous injustice. With so many illegal things, with illegal hotels that are for profit, and they tear down this that is to live," she laments.
Chanita, who did want to publicly criticize this situation, has not been able to come to accompany her brothers. "I'm sick, I'm bad. I don't want to be there," she explains as tears well up in her eyes. And although she recognizes that her brothers built those houses without permits, on plots that their "mother left them", she considers that "it is not fair" that action is only taken against them.
"He has nowhere to fall dead"
"There are a lot of constructions around there. A lot of houses that also don't have permits. Even a man made a big house further up, already on the mountain, which I say is a castle," she explains. In addition, she emphasizes that she would understand if they applied "a fine for having manufactured where they don't want it to be manufactured", but not "that they tear down the houses, which they have made with thousands of sacrifices". And more in the case of her younger brother who, according to Chanita, only has that house. "If they tear it down he has nowhere to live, he has nowhere to fall dead".
Chanita has also referred to the Special Plan of La Geria recently approved, which does try to provide coverage to other illegal works such as those of the Stratvs winery. "I don't understand much about these things, but what I see is that it is an injustice," she has criticized. In addition, she maintains that the area where her brothers built things does not belong to the protected landscape. "Now they claim that that is the La Geria area, but that is a lie, that belongs to San Bartolomé," she affirms.
Along with these three homes, there are other constructions reported in the area, but apparently the other affected parties appealed the sentences and have gained time. However, this family did not have the "adequate" legal "advice", according to the mayor, Loli Corujo, which has accelerated this outcome.
