The right to land is an issue that worries me and occupies me since the beginning of my activity in politics.
In my capacity as mayor of Lomas de Zamora or as governor of the province of Buenos Aires, we created at the municipal and provincial level the Secretary of Land and Housing, and at the same time the sanction of each and every one of the laws was promoted. that made the path possible so that people could begin to build their future in a place of their own and dignity. Everything was done without the need to expropriate a single piece of land.
Today, all my work is oriented towards a single goal: to ensure that both in Argentina and in the rest of Latin America what Manuel Belgrano pointed out in 1810 can become a reality: “It is necessary to put the means so that they can enter the order of society those who are now almost ashamed to present themselves to their fellow citizens because of their nudity and misery, and we must achieve this if they are given properties ”.
The right to housing has been recognized in our country since the reform of the National Constitution in 1957, in Art. 14 bis, when it establishes that “The State will grant the benefits of social security, which will be integral and inalienable. In particular, the law will establish access to decent housing ”, and in various international human rights instruments ratified by Argentina. Despite everything, today reality shows us that humble people still ignore their rights.
Faced with so much need, the “rogues” always appear, that is why the usurpation of land should be discouraged from the State. It is painful to see how desperate families take a piece of land, encouraged by some unscrupulous, and build tin rooms enduring the winter cold without any services and exposing themselves to violent unemployment.
Today this right to Adequate housing, like so many others, is a utopia especially in the impoverished countries of Latin America, but what is feasible is the right that every Argentine family can access a lot, on the land that they saw being born. So it is time for us to talk about the Right to the Land.
Thus arose the idea of writing Latin America a land for all, Argentine Chapter, to expose the obstacles that people have to achieve this right in all its dimensions, and at the same time demonstrate the possible solutions made possible from my vast experience in public policies, always trying to confront what Pope Francis defined as “the atrocious injustice of urban marginalization.”
The name of the book was not chosen by the orange blossom. Latin America a land for all responds to the words that John Paul II said during a Mass celebrated in 1980 in Recife, Brazil: “The earth is a gift from God, a gift that He made for all human beings” (…) He repeated and he insisted on this concern throughout his visits to Latin America ”.
Because it is a transcendental issue, I believe that this challenge will have to be strengthened by means of a law from the Honorable Congress of the Nation.
I am convinced that the handing over of a plot of land to settle the future of a family has to come out by consensus.
In one of the paragraphs of the letter that I sent to all the officials I say that “Argentina is a country of good people and bad policies, so it is time for the national, provincial and municipal authorities to let the neighbors know the aforementioned rights and start looking for solutions always respecting the law and never endorsing the taking of land ”.
We have an internal debt with our most humble people that has not yet been paid and in the XXI century it is urgent. We are still in the midst of trying to achieve it. Hopefully we get it. Nothing is easy, but neither is it impossible.
* Former President of the Nation.
Journalistic production: Silvina L. Márquez.
