A new Wal-Mart store ignites fight in Mexico

[El Pelon]

This could be a DP on the grand opening. I bet there are a few scuffles to contend with before it is all said and done.


Posted on Sat, Oct. 23, 2004

A new Wal-Mart store ignites fight in Mexico

The outlet, near the primordial city of Teotihuacan, is set to open any day. But some natives see a clash of cultures.

By Susana Hayward

Knight Ridder News Service


SAN JUAN TEOTIHUACAN, Mexico - A Wal-Mart store rising near the 2,000-year-old pyramids of the Teotihuacan Empire has ignited the wrath of Mexican conservationists and nationalists who say the U.S. retailer is destroying their culture at the foot of one of Mexico's greatest treasures.

Since news broke in May of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s plan to construct a 71,902-square-foot store near the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon 30 miles northeast of Mexico City, the entryway of the primordial city has turned into a carnival of demonstrators, most protesting the plans though some welcoming the 180 jobs the store will bring.

Demonstrators wearing long feathered headdresses, bright indigenous costumes, and loincloths dance around fires spewing incense and implore gods and the government to halt construction. Signs shout "Yankee Imperialism," "Foreign Invasion, Get Out!" and "We'll Be Here Until Victory."

The store, with 236 parking spots, is to open any day, but protests are snowballing and its future is uncertain.

On Wednesday, protesters blocked the entrance of the National Institute for Archaeology and History in Mexico City because it gave Wal-Mart its permit. They remained there Thursday, preventing employees from reporting for work.

On Tuesday, Gerardo Fernandez, a national director of Mexico's opposition Democratic Revolutionary Party, filed charges with the Federal Attorney General's Office to block the store. He said Wal-Mart had damaged archaeological relics during construction, a crime subject to imprisonment, and accused government officials of illegally fast-tracking the project.

Last week, in a letter published in Mexican newspapers, 63 prestigious artists and intellectuals asked President Vicente Fox to stop the structure. They see it as a battle pitting Mexico's heritage against encroaching U.S. influence. Wal-Mart already is Mexico's largest retailer. It has 648 stores in 66 cities there, and sales of $12 billion.

"The struggle for Teotihuacan is a war of symbols," they wrote. "The symbol of ancient Mexico against the symbol of transnational commerce; genetically modified corn against the Feathered Serpent [the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, Kukulcan in Mayan] and Mexico's traditional foods; the Day of the Dead against Halloween; skeletons against jack-o-lanterns."

Mysteriously abandoned around A.D. 700, Teotihuacan was called "the place where the gods were created" by the Aztecs, who reencountered the city in 1300. The ethnicity of the builders is unknown.

"Don't small towns have the right to have access to the same level of quality goods that Mexicans have in larger cities?" Wal-Mart asked in a statement late Wednesday. "Today, residents of Teotihuacan have to travel 15 miles to get to the closest department store."

Opponents see Wal-Mart's modern capitalism as an assault on native culture.

"Wal-Mart's aim is to destroy our identity, replace our symbols with the dollar sign," said Jaime Lagunez, 44, a molecular biologist. "The construction at Teotihuacan was made by the people who built their homes and temples with dignity."

Emanuel D'Herrera, who coordinates the Civic Front coalition, which has stopped other controversial projects, recently sued numerous government agencies for granting "an illegal" building permit.

Wal-Mart's subsidiary, Wal-Mart de Mexico S.A. de C.V., won its permit to build by arguing that the store's site lies outside the area the United Nations' chief cultural agency, UNESCO, declared a World Heritage Site in 1987. The National Institute for Archaeology and History said excavations in 1984 confirmed there was nothing of archaeological value in the area. Fox and local municipal officials reviewed the permits and endorsed them.

The permits required that inspectors from the archaeology institute be on site during construction. They also set restrictions on such things as construction materials and the color of exterior paint. The store's height was limited to avoid obstructing the view of the nearby domes of the 1548 Church of St. John the Baptist.

On Aug. 25, archaeology institute inspectors found a 3-foot-square altar a foot under Wal-Mart's parking lot. The altar was excavated and conserved on-site, but it touched off new claims that the store was destroying archaeological treasures. Nevertheless, UNESCO gave the structure its blessing this week, as did the Paris-based International Council on Monuments and Sites, which advises UNESCO.

Noting the endorsements, Wal-Mart said: "We will continue investing, generating jobs and economic development to strengthen our vision, which is to contribute to improve the quality of life for Mexican families."

From the top of the 200-foot-tall Pyramid of the Sun, visited by tens of thousands of people annually, Wal-Mart is barely visible. On the ground, the construction site is humming as workers rush to install lighting, air-conditioning, refrigerators - and shrubbery, intended to conceal the 30-foot-tall, ocher-colored building.

Martin Becerra, 50, who has worked on the store's construction and will work full time at the store when it opens, said he had a "great job, with better pay than in other places. We want to buy so many new things we haven't seen before."

[RatherNotSay]

I'd suggest Target instead.

[realrescue3]

When are they gonna learn? Walmart has tried in some Mexico locals before so Im surprised they are trying again. The one in Mexicali
didnt make it because of to much theft, shoplifting etc. place
now looks like a ghost town.

[goat balls]

When are they gonna learn? Walmart has tried in some Mexico locals before so Im surprised they are trying again. The one in Mexicali
didnt make it because of to much theft, shoplifting etc. place
now looks like a ghost town.

You got that right RR3.

Who was it..DHL? .. pulled out of Mexico because the infrastructure was so bad and they couldn't get anything to run right or on time.

I hope Mexico stays nice and laid back...I want to retire there.

[realrescue3]

might have been someone else but I dont think it was DHL as far as I know GB.... a couple of years ago, they were still the most secure way to send anything postal to Mexico.

Not quite overnight even though you would pay those rates
but SECURED it would at least get there 9 times out of 10.

DHL has been the most reliable carrier is South America
for quite a few years.

Buena Suerte for Walmart, they are probably gonna need it
despite what thier number crunching bean counters tell em....

start off with 20 meeter/greeters/security at the door
cause the mexicans will walk off with anything thats not nailed, welded or screwed down.

[goat balls]

might have been someone else but I dont think it was DHL as far as I know GB.... a couple of years ago, they were still the most secure way to send anything postal to Mexico.

Not quite overnight even though you would pay those rates
but SECURED it would at least get there 9 times out of 10.

DHL has been the most reliable carrier is South America
for quite a few years.

Buena Suerte for Walmart, they are probably gonna need it
despite what thier number crunching bean counters tell em....

start off with 20 meeter/greeters/security at the door
cause the mexicans will walk off with anything thats nailed, welded or screwed down.

Heh..heh...anything that is not nailed down?

I was standing on a tee box on a base in the phillipines about halfway through my round and these phillipinos came running out of the jungle..and right in front of me took out a bunch of tools and proceeded to steal all of the heavy cable that was holding up the power lines.

Not 2 minutes after they left these americans came running out of the jungle with their faces painted and some pretty heavy weaponry and they asked me... which way did they go?...I pointed with my three wood.

To this day I wonder what was so valuble about that cable.

[haganah]

Those pyramids will look nice with all those plastic blue Walmart bags blowing about, and don't forget the errant shopping carts.

[seektravelinfo]

The Conquistadors got nothing on Mall-Wart.

[Texas Carnie Roadshow]

[Kasca]

Those pyramids will look nice with all those plastic blue Walmart bags blowing about, and don't forget the errant shopping carts.

>>>I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

[BIG-TARGET]

Imagine Walmart in the middle of the Amazon or New Guinea?????

Blowguns, loincloths, and blue vests,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,The ultimate cargo cult!!!!!

Meet the greeter:" Greetings. welcome you our tribe. The pot we're going to cook you in, is in Isle 12. Third hut on your left!!!