Jesus Pobre celebrates 20 years of 'independence'

Jesus Pobre used to be a suburb called 'Mongolia' - after the Montgó mountian behind it

A VILLAGE once considered a ‘suburb’ of a town nearly half an hour away by car celebrated the 20th anniversary of its ‘independence day’ this week by hanging up banners bearing a local poem.

Formerly called ‘Mongolia’ – after the Montgó, not the vast east Asian country – when it changed its name in 1936 after being ‘Benissadeví’ since the 18th century, Jesús Pobre rechristened itself again on February 16, 1999, when it became a village in its own right.

Still under the jurisdiction of Dénia council, despite being closer to Jávea than to the Marina Alta district capital, it has been a separate municipality for two decades and is run by a parish committee – a smaller version of a local council and one with more restricted powers and funding.

Major decisions and cash injections continue to come from the local authority in the ‘mother town’, home to 43,000 inhabitants, but everyday matters are handled by Jesús Pobre itself and by its parish leader Javier Scotto, who – curiously – is public safety councillor in Dénia town hall.

February 16 in Jesús Pobre was no July 4 – instead of fireworks to celebrate its ‘independence’, a banner was draped from the town hall balcony featuring the words of local poet Vicent Andrés Estellés in his verse Per Sempre Poble (‘Village Forever’).

A talk in the town hall on Saturday briefly covered the history of how Jesús Pobre seceded from Dénia with months to go before the third millennium.

Its first ‘mayor’ Vicent Pérez, in charge from 1987, was deposed by Dénia’s mayor Pedro Pastor in 1995 leading Jesús Pobre without a leader.

And as the national government signed the decree that would make Jesús Pobre – and Dénia’s other tied hamlet, La Xara – into separate villages, Pastor voiced concerns that Dénia itself would be ‘reduced to just a piece of Mediterranean shoreline’ without these satellite residential areas.

But current mayor of Dénia Vicent Grimalt was among the guests of honour at Jesús Pobre’s low-key independenceday commemoration, along with Scotto, La Xara’s mayoress Maite Pérez Conejero, and as many of the village’s old leaders as could make it.