E/CN.4/2004/80/Add.2 page 8 Commission concludes that agrarian affairs suffer from a systematic failure to enforce and dispense justice, delays in procedures for resolving conflicts, slow court procedures and rulings with ingrained defects, seriously affecting the right of communities to land and increasing the risk of a socially explosive situation. Violence and human rights In the Huastec region, according to an observation mission, the fight by the indigenous communities for recognition and title to their lands have left dozens of people dead over the last three decades. Another report states that out of a total of 32 violations of the collective rights of the Indian peoples registered in 2002 and affecting the Zapotec, Mixe, Mixtec, Triqui, Huichol, Tarahumara, Yaqui, Cucapá, Cochimí, Kumiai, Kiliwa, Tzeltal, Chol, Tojolabal, Maya, Mazahua, Otomí, Tepehuano and Tlapaneco peoples, 19 cases in 12 States involved violations of the collective right to land and territory and the use of natural resources. In Guerrero, several indigenous communities complain of encroachment on and expropriations of land they own, the arbitrary detention and torture of a number of peasants by army personnel and dozens of deaths in connection with a conflict over a piece of forest land. In the Sierra Sur, Oaxaca, the main disputes over land boundaries between communities have led on several occasions to violence, resulting in deaths and injuries. The Minister for Agrarian Reform told the Special Rapporteur during his visit of 13 agrarian “hot spots” in Mexico involving indigenous communities, some of which are being resolved by negotiation between the parties. 20. In some areas the indigenous communities have no legal security of tenure, as a result of the slow pace and corruption typical of agrarian procedures and the interests of various individuals. The Special Rapporteur was told of cases involving indigenous peoples including the Yaquis of Sonora, the Huicholes of Jalisco, the Tarahumaras of Chihuahua and the Huaves of Oaxaca. The Programme for the Certification of Ejido Rights (PROCEDE), set up to resolve these problems, has not helped to improve the tenure situation, according to the reports received. Two emblematic cases typifying some of these points are described below. 21. The Special Rapporteur visited the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve in which, under a presidential decree of 1972, a small number of Lacandona families were given over 600,000 hectares of tropical rainforest, thus creating the “Lacandona Community”, a large part of which was licensed to logging companies and cattle farms. Numerous settlements of Choles, Tzeltales, Tzotziles, Tojolabales and others remained outside the Community, however; they were the result of the spontaneous colonization of the forest from the 1950s onwards, encouraged at the time by the Government itself. In 1978 the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve was created, taking in part of the Lacandona Community, and these settlements were deemed illegal. On the pretext of conserving the environment, the communities have been threatened with removal from the Reserve. The lack of clarity in the Government’s policy has given rise to