As the fast-expanding capital rushes to meet the settlement, what was once a speck in the distance is now just across the railway tracks.....
Reuters reports that authorities in Madrid have vowed to raze La Canada, a squatter community that has been in existence for 40 years.
Under the plan, the worst areas of the community of 40,000 will be bulldozed to make way for a park, and only a few residents will be eligible for rehousing. The article, in typical fashion, blames all of the drug addiction in Madrid on this one neighborhood (as if organized crime control over the drug trade doesn't even exist.)
It seems absolutely outrageous for a civilized country to deny rights to people who have lived in a community for decades.
As Victor Renes, of the Spanish charity Caritas, says, "You find yourself here, where it is still possible to settle and try to survive ... at the margins where the city tolerates you ... until the city arrives and bumps into you and then after that you are tolerated no longer."
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"It seems absolutely outrageous for a civilized country to deny rights to people who have lived in a community for decades."
VERY WELL SAID! It is outlandish to its rarest form why it is so difficult for DEVELOPMENT to go hand in hand with fulfilling the human rights of a country's citizens.
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