Pat: Is Wal-Mart Ruining the Aztec Ruins?

http://www.newsday.com/business/ny-bzcov1

Is Wal-Mart ruining the Aztec ruins?





Photos



Wal-Mart expands in Mexico (Newsday Photo / Letta Tayler)
Nov 8, 2004



Wal-Mart expands in Mexico (Newsday Photo / Letta Tayler)
Nov 8, 2004



Wal-Mart expands in Mexico (Newsday Photo / Letta Tayler)
Nov 8, 2004



Wal-Mart expands in Mexico (Newsday Photo / Letta Tayler)
Nov 8, 2004



Wal-Mart expands in Mexico (Newsday Photo / Letta Tayler)
Nov 8, 2004



Wal-Mart expands in Mexico (Newsday Photo / Letta Tayler)
Nov 8, 2004








By Letta Tayler
Latin America Correspondent

November 7, 2004, 6:45 PM EST


Clad in a long embroidered, native blouse, Emma Ortega knelt at a shrine adorned with skulls and geraniums at Teotihuacán, the ancient pyramids revered by the Aztecs as "the place where men became gods," to utter an unusual prayer.

"Save us from Wal-Mart!" Ortega beseeched the deities of her pre-Hispanic ancestors.

Nearly a half-millennium after the Spaniards captured this fertile valley that contains some of the grandest pyramids on Earth, some residents are battling what they view as a new invader: Wal-Mart, Mexico's largest retailer and private employer, which Thursday opened a discount superstore on the outskirts of the Teotihuacán ruins.

Though many locals welcome the store, which is a Wal-Mart subsidiary called Bodega Aurrera, mounting opposition has turned this wildly popular tourist attraction and the sleepy neighboring village of San Juan Teotihuacán into a national battleground over globalization.

Opponents camp out

For weeks, hundreds of foes in indigenous gowns or face paint, loin cloths and feather headdresses have camped at the entrance to Teotihuacán and outside the National Institute of Anthropology and History 35 miles south in Mexico City.

They pound on drums, stomp Aztec dances and chant, "Out with Wal-Mart!" and "Our sacred city won't be sold to imperialism!"

The opponents, some of whom have launched a hunger strike, contend Wal-Mart is smearing Mexico's indigenous heritage by placing the store in an area of San Juan Teotihuacán that's a mere 11/2 miles from the ruins. Not only do they consider the store an eyesore, they claim valuable artifacts may have been destroyed beneath the alfalfa and cornfields that bulldozers razed to make way for the structure.

Backing them are scores of leading intellectuals and artists, including Laura Esquivel, author of the book and 1992 movie "Like Water for Chocolate," and activist poet Homero Aridjis, who slammed the store as "nailing globalization's stake in the heart of old Mexico." In addition, the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party has a lawsuit pending that seeks to close the store for alleged construction violations.

Opponents contend far more is in jeopardy than the view from the top of the majestic Pyramid of the Sun, from which the ochre-colored superstore is barely visible amid a jarring commercial development that already encircles the historic ruins.

"This is a fight against all outside forces threatening our cultural heritage," said Ortega, a co-leader of the Teotihuacán Civic Front, which has vowed to continue protests -- including sporadic blockades of the entrance to the pyramids -- until the store closes. "It's about genetically modified corn replacing our pure corn and Halloween replacing our Day of the Dead ceremonies. It's about television programs that impose the U.S. vision of the world."

But most local residents are ecstatic over the store's array of cheap goods and its 185 jobs, desperately needed in a town of 60,000 with few prospects. At Thursday's opening, many shoppers chanted, "Next we want a movie theater!" "We need to live in the present, not the past," said Wal-Mart shopper Lorena Camacho, who used to ride 40 minutes by bus to shop at the nearest supermarket. "Wal-Mart means progress."

The Bodega Aurrera store sits within the United Nations World Heritage Site for Teotihuacán, the seat of a 2,000- year-old empire where rulers had the streets aligned with the planets and stars.

Construction green light

Preservation groups, including the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, raised no objections to construction, noting that the land is surrounded by commercial development and appeared to contain no valuable artifacts. But protesters contend the anthropology institute never properly surveyed the site and that residents found several relics in a dumping area for construction debris once workers began clearing the ground for the store.

Institute spokesman Rubén Regnier adamantly denied those accusations -- though he confirmed the institute was still working on final documents freeing the land for commercial use an hour before Wal-Mart opened. He said the institute had monitored the project constantly, even briefly suspending construction in July because workers had delivered machinery and material without having a government archaeologist present, as required by law.

The institute last month also suspended construction of a Wal-Mart store in an archaeologically protected area of Amecameca, another area outside Mexico City containing pre-Hispanic ruins, after workers began removing soil without supervision.

But Regnier acknowledged that institute archaeologists had discovered several artifacts since construction began in San Juan Teotihuacán. Archaeologists removed 17 tiny clay pots and five graves containing skeletons from the site, and preserved the base of an earthen altar that was found beneath the superstore parking lot, he said.

'Not a cultural blight'

Wal-Mart also denied any improper procedures. "This is not a cultural blight. We have gone the extra mile to do everything right," said Bill Wertz, director of international corporate affairs for Wal-Mart Inc. in the United States.

Mexico has been flooded by U.S.-led chains since the enactment a decade ago of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which dismantled trade barriers between Mexico, the United States and Canada. Leading the pack is Wal-Mart, whose 664 superstores, clothing outlets and restaurants in Mexico employ 106,000 people and registered sales of $12 billion last year.

Critics note the chains have pushed thousands of smaller, Mexican-run stores out of business, many of them family-owned. On a recent day, many merchants braced for a similar fate at the bustling San Juan Teotihuacán market -- the antithesis of a Bodega Aurrera with its shoppers in traditional straw hats, its stray dogs and cats, and its pungent, colliding scents of newly butchered meats and newly picked flowers.

Cheaper, but is it fresh?

"My cheese arrives fresh every day. At Wal-Mart, [cheese will] sit around for a week, but it'll sell at half the price. How can I compete with that?" asked Enrique Gonzalez, 45, who has been selling farm cheeses and sausages at the market since he was a boy, working alongside his father.

Mexico's "globofobicos," as foes of multinationals are known here, scored a victory two years ago when they forced McDonald's to drop plans for a fast-food outlet in the historic central square of Oaxaca, a city famous for its colonial architecture, indigenous influences and culinary specialties such as fried grasshoppers.

But the globofobicos failed to stop the discount giant Costco from razing an historic hotel filled with valuable murals and surrounded by forest to make way for a shopping center last year in the picturesque city of Cuernavaca. After massive protests, Costco agreed to salvage some of the murals and put them in a mini-museum -- inside the asphalt shopping complex.
108,0,7173026.story?coll=ny-business-headlines

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