March 13, 2003
Memo From Mexico, By
Allan Wall
Americans In Mexico: Turnabout Not Fair Play
I
don’t always defend Americans who get into trouble in
Mexico. Some of them
deserve it. But other Americans come here with good
intentions and wind up getting a raw deal. Nothing much
is ever done to help them – despite George W. Bush’s
celebrated claim that the U.S. and Mexico have “common
values and a shared culture.”
A
recent example: American married couple Glenn Wersch and
Ellen Jones, who just
lost their eco-ranch, worth about half a million
dollars, in the eastern Mexican state of Chiapas.
As Ellen put it: “We just had our lives destroyed,
our home taken from us, our business ruined and our life
saving evaporate.” [“Zapatista
Supporters Take U.S.-Owned Land,” By Alejandro
Ruiz, Associated Press, Feb. 28]
In 1993, Glenn and Ellen, having completed a two-year
Peace Corps stint in the Dominican Republic, moved to
Chiapas. They used their life savings to purchase and
develop Rancho Esmeralda, a 26-acre spread they
converted into an eco-ranch with 10 cabins. (See photos
here and
here.)
By all accounts, the couple was popular with the locals,
some of whom they employed. And their ranch was
classified by the
Lonely Planet Mexico Guide as one of the 10 top
places to stay in Mexico. It was beautiful: visitors
could stay in a cabin surrounded by tropical flowers,
coffee plants and macadamia trees. Nearby excursions
included whitewater river trips, Mayan ruins and
horseback riding.
Zapatista peasant activists, however, were not pleased.
So in December 2002, they began a
blockade of Rancho Esmeralda, calling for the couple
to abandon their property with all its improvements.
Welcome to the murky world of
Mexican property law. This problem is certainly not
unique to
Rancho Esmeralda. All over Mexico, the squatter
mentality reigns. In urban areas, squatters called
“paracaidistas” (literally “parachutists”)
take over vacant property, hook themselves up to
electrical lines and settle in. Eventually the municipal
government legalizes the property. I’ve seen it happen.
The Mexican Constitution is not much help on property
rights. Article 27 states that
“The property of the
lands and waters included within the limits of national
territory belong originally to the Nation, which has had
and has the right to transmit their control to private
owners, constituting private property.”
(“La
propiedad de las tierras y aguas comprendidas dentro de
los limites del territorio nacional corresponde
originalmente a la Nación, la cual ha tenido y tiene el
derecho de transmitir el dominio de ellas a los
particulares constituyendo la propiedad privada.”)[full
text - in
English ]
In other words, according to the Mexican Constitution,
private property is considered an indulgence granted by
the “Nation”, i.e., the State.
You may recall the case of the evicted gringos in
Baja California. They thought they had rented their
property from the rightful owners. They sank retirement
money into building homes. Years later, they were told
that those they had rented from were not the rightful
owners. In 2000, they were forcibly ejected from the
homes they had built - with nary a peep from either
government.
Needless to say, this sort of thing is also a problem
for Mexican landowners, and an impediment to Mexico’s
prosperity.
In the state of Chiapas, since the
Zapatista uprising began, hundreds of thousands of
acres have been appropriated, i.e. stolen, and turned into
communal-property “autonomous communities.” From
1994-2000, 2,700 ranches, with a total of 617,500 acres
were grabbed. The government has let them keep most of
it, about
2000 ranches totaling 494,000 acres. It’s a cowardly
way of
land reform, in other words.
Nearly all of these properties were taken from Mexican
owners. But now it was the gringos’ turn.
From mid-December 2002 to mid-February 2003, the
Zapatista peasant mob blockaded the entrance to Rancho
Esmeralda. They threw rocks. They disconnected water and
power lines. They made it clear in no uncertain terms
they wanted Glenn and Ellen to abandon their
property.
The land-grabbers also threatened the ranch’s Mexican
employees. They detained employee
Ernesto Cruz. Like the activists themselves, Cruz is
a Tzeltal Indian. But he’s an unPC Indian, not a
Zapatista activist. So he was detained for 6 hours, and
according to Cruz, beaten.
The Zapatistas claim to be a movement fighting for
indigenous rights. To the activists though, some Indians
are more equal than others.
They also captured - and extorted money from - a group
of
French and Canadian kayakers. (Among some anti-Yanqui
Mexicans, Europeans and Canadians are considered “good
white people.” What complicates the matter – and ticks
off some Canadians – is that ordinary Mexicans don’t
distinguish between Americans and Canadians, calling
them both “gringos.”)
They sent a message to Glenn and Ellen that read:
“We don’t want you
here anymore.”
Zapatista spokesman Gerardo put it this way:
“We don’t want any
more gringos. They treat us like animals in their
country.”
And another spokesman for the land-grabbers summed it
all up when he
said that
“No
queremos turistas estadunidenses...No queremos ningún
turista.”
[“We
don’t want American tourists. We don’t want any
tourists.”]
Hmmm – isn’t that xenophobia?
Perish the thought! The Zapatistas, you see, are
indigenous people defending their home and way of life
from foreign encroachment. So they’re justified in
taking property, making threats and roughing people up.
But when American citizens oppose immigration that
threatens their
way of life, they are called “racists” and
“xenophobes”.
Go figure.
After two months of this treatment, Glenn and Ellen
abandoned their ranch. At the entrance to Rancho
Esmeralda, the Zapatistas put up a picture of a menacing
machete-wielding personage, his head covered in a
ski-mask, with the slogan “Land cannot be bought or
sold because it’s our patrimony and we will defend it.”
When the end finally came, it was almost anti-climactic.
On the morning of February 28th, 150
machete-wielding Zapatistas entered the ranch, evicted
the two remaining employees and took possession at last.
The police drew near to the ranch, but did nothing -
because they had received
no orders to do anything!
Despite everything, Glenn and Ellen wish to stay in the
area and start up another business, in town this time.
I
wish them well.
Of course, the whole ugly business is a blow for the
Mexican tourism industry - one of Mexico’s biggest
revenue-earners. Mexico is a tourist bonanza - every
kind of natural ecosystem you could imagine, spectacular
pre-Hispanic ruins, exquisite Spanish colonial
architecture, great beach resorts. I
live in Mexico, and try to visit other regions every
chance I get.
But I haven’t made it to Chiapas yet. And given the
situation there, I probably won’t in a long time.
And notice the contrast between the two governments. The
U.S. government did speak up, rather mildly, in behalf
of the American couple. The Mexican government did
nothing. Fox never mentioned the situation.
The Chiapas governor
first blamed the Americans themselves. More recently, he
and the state secretary general claimed that the Chiapas
government couldn't act alone, since any issue involving
Zapatistas requires federal participation.
Meanwhile, in the U.S.A., our officials
bend over backwards to accommodate Mexican illegal
aliens.
American citizen Allan
Wall lives in Mexico, but spends a total of about six
weeks a year in the state of Texas, where he drills with
the Texas Army National Guard.
His VDARE.COM articles are archived
here; his
FRONTPAGEMAG.COM articles are archived
here. Readers can contact Allan Wall at
allan39@prodigy.net.mx
