Rosa Burgos, 74, outside her home in the community of La Cuchilla, Antiguo Cuscatlán.

A granddaughter of Rosa Burgos plays with a barrel of water the family uses for washing and bathing. The water is piped to a communal spigot via a PVC pipe spanning a ravine.

Directly the southbound section of the Panamerican Highway from La Cuchilla, the Multiplaza shopping mall features many fountains and water displays.

Local workers bring firewood into the home of a resident of La Cuchilla. Visible in the background, through the doorway and past the traffic, is Multiplaza, one of the largest and most luxurious shopping malls in all of El Salvador.

In the foreground, La Cuchilla as seen from the northbound lanes of the Panamerican Highway. In the background, Multiplaza and Grupo Roble's new high-rise apartment complex, under construction. According to news reports, an agreement reached between developers and authorities of the metropolitan area of San Salvador proposes that a "green area" associated with the construction would be placed in the present location of La Cuchilla, necessitating the community's relocation.

Community leader Ricarda Villanueva listens as Guillermo Menjívar, who has spent his entire life on the El Espino plantation, recounts the complicated history of the estate. Along with fellow community members, Villanueva formed a Junta Directiva a community government opposed to the proposed relocation.

Directiva member Isabel "Chabelo" in his home.

Directiva member Isabel "Chabelo."

Ricarda Villanueva reads the Bible in her home. Since 2006, Villanueva claims, she has been victim of a series of repressive measures including calumny, criminalization and intimidation, intended to coerce her into stepping down from her role as a leader in the struggle for land rights. In 2006, she says, she spent eight days in jail, along with her husband and her daughter, after being accused of fraud and, on April 13, 2007, was arrested by agents of the National Civilian Police force who, she alleges, forcefully entered her home and confiscated documents pertaining to the work of the Junta Directiva. She was sent to prison once again, where she remained until June 20. She accuses Antiguo Cuscatlán’s mayor Milagro Navas of having initiated the measures against her person.

Ricarda Villanueva's Bible.

The Junta Directiva led by Ricarda Villanueva meets to discuss community matters.

Ricarda Villanueva and Salvador Cantor, also of La Cuchilla's Junta Directiva, study the Constitution of the Republic of El Salvador, while a newspaper headline reads "Alcaldesa confirma desalojo en La Cuchilla," or "Mayor confirms eviction in La Cuchilla." The proposed displacement of the community, they say, violates their constitutional rights.

Ricarda Villanueva visits a neighbor in the community of La Cuchilla.

Built over the site of a now-closed landfill, Las Victorias, Soyapango, is among the largest of San Salvador's extensive landless communities and, like La Cuchilla, faces the prospect of eviction. Aguas Calientes, a neighboring community, was forcibly evicted in late May, 2009.

A man frames a house in the Las Victorias community of Soyapango. Constructed over the site of a recently-covered garbage dump, the Las Victorias community sprang up primarily over the course of 2008. The community is comprised of some 1,400 shacks, of which, according to Junta Directiva Comunal member Santos Estrada, over 1,000 are continuously inhabited. While the majority of residents are of El Salvador’s dispossessed poor, individuals who could not make ends meet and who lost their homes elsewhere, there are others who have homes but opportunistically take advantage of the needs of the majority, staking out plots in the community in the hopes that the properties will one day be legalized.

A view from the community of Las Victorias, Soyapango.

Israel, of the 15 de Marzo community near Comunidad Las Victorias in Soyapango, sits in his home preparing a soup from scraps of food he has salvaged from trash piles along the Boulevar del Ejército, the main thoroughfare leading East from San Salvador. The 15 de Marzo community, according to residents, sprang up almost overnight directly following El Salvador’s presidential elections as people without homes elsewhere flocked to an empty lot near the Amatepec hospital in hopes that the new administration would grant them land rights. This March 15, the Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN) broke the right-wing Alianza Repúblicana Nacionalista (ARENA) party’s two-decade hold on the executive branch of the government.

Under the shade of a plastic tent near the entrance to the community which serves as a community center, children from the 15 de Marzo community gather together for an impromptu reading session.

While primary education is a free service provided by the Salvadoran state, many families cannot sustain the costs associated with buying school uniforms, shoes and other supplies. The newly-elected Funes administration has promised a subsidy to assist El Salvador's neediest families in defraying such costs.

A resident of the 15 de Marzo community mounts a banner on bamboo poles in front of a community member's home. The banner, translated, reads: "These are the houses that President Saca promised to give to single mothers." On Thursday, May 28, 2009, members of the 15 de Marzo community staged a demonstration in order to make the needs of the community more visible and to place pressure on the newly-elected FMLN government. In late May, in a controversial late-night session held just before newly-elected president Mauricio Funes would assume his post, the right-wing voting block composed of the PDC, PCN, and ARENA parties came together and approved Legislative Decree 23. The Decree establishes a process whereby a Justice of the Peace, having received a denunciation from a landowner or government prosecutor, can execute within ten days the displacement--by force, if necessary--of an illegal squatter community.

For several minutes on Thursday, May 28, demonstrators of the 15 de Marzo community blocked one busy lane of the Bulevar del Ejército to better attract the attention of passers-by.

A resident of the 15 de Marzo community stands holding a sign on the Bulevar del Ejército, in Soyapango. For several minutes on Thursday, May 28, demonstrators of the 15 de Marzo community blocked one busy lane of the Bulevar del Ejército to better attract the attention of passers-by.

On Friday, May 29, 2009, representatives of the Las Victorias, 15 de Marzo, Romero and La Cuchilla communities staged a demonstration at San Salvador’s historic Salvador del Mundo park to demand a respect for their rights in the face of repressive measures and the threat of displacement. The gathered communities also called on the incoming administration, of the Frente Farabundo Martí­ para la Liberación Nacional, to commit itself to the nation's poor communities and to make good on President-Elect Mauricio Funes' promise to take the preferential option for the poor as the central axis of his government.

On Friday, May 29, 2009, representatives of the Las Victorias, 15 de Marzo, Romero and La Cuchilla communities staged a demonstration at San Salvador’s historic Salvador del Mundo park to demand a respect for their rights in the face of repressive measures and the threat of displacement. The gathered communities also called on the incoming administration, of the Frente Farabundo Martí­ para la Liberación Nacional, to commit itself to the nation's poor communities and to make good on President-Elect Mauricio Funes' promise to take the preferential option for the poor as the central axis of his government.

On Friday, May 29, 2009, representatives of the Las Victorias, 15 de Marzo, Romero and La Cuchilla communities staged a demonstration at San Salvador’s historic Salvador del Mundo park to demand a respect for their rights in the face of repressive measures and the threat of displacement. The gathered communities also called on the incoming administration, of the Frente Farabundo Martí­ para la Liberación Nacional, to commit itself to the nation's poor communities and to make good on President-Elect Mauricio Funes' promise to take the preferential option for the poor as the central axis of his government.

On Friday, May 29, 2009, representatives of the Las Victorias, 15 de Marzo, Romero and La Cuchilla communities staged a demonstration at San Salvador’s historic Salvador del Mundo park to demand a respect for their rights in the face of repressive measures and the threat of displacement. The gathered communities also called on the incoming administration, of the Frente Farabundo Martí­ para la Liberación Nacional, to commit itself to the nation's poor communities and to make good on President-Elect Mauricio Funes' promise to take the preferential option for the poor as the central axis of his government.

In order to garner greater attention for their press conference, members of the gathered communities blocked the streets surrounding Salvador del Mundo. On Friday, May 29, 2009, representatives of the Las Victorias, 15 de Marzo, Romero and La Cuchilla communities staged a demonstration at San Salvador’s historic Salvador del Mundo park to demand a respect for their rights in the face of repressive measures and the threat of displacement. The gathered communities also called on the incoming administration, of the Frente Farabundo Martí­ para la Liberación Nacional, to commit itself to the nation's poor communities and to make good on President-Elect Mauricio Funes' promise to take the preferential option for the poor as the central axis of his government.

Community leaders speak to the press at the Salvador del Mundo monument in Central San Salvador. In recent months, the communities of La Cuchilla, Las Victorias, and 15 de Marzo have been coordinating countrywide with similar settlements likewise facing the threat of displacement. A collaboration between indigenous, rural, and urban communities, the National Movement for the Defense of the Human Right to Land (Movimiento Nacional por la Defensa del Derecho Humano de la Tierra) has been focusing its energies on the demand for the repeal of Legislative Decree 23, which streamlines the process whereby public authorities may execute the forced eviction of communities lacking titles of possession or ownership of the land.