By IPS Correspondents
MEXICO CITY, Oct 14 2004 (IPS)

With permits in hand and even approval from UNESCO, the U.S.-based retail giant Wal-Mart is overcoming local resistance and preparing to open a store less than two km from the ancient Teotihuacan pyramids of Mexico.

But opponents of the new superstore say they will not give up the fight.

“Our country is making a fool of itself in front of the international community by allowing a transnational corporation to set up shop in an area that is part of humanity’s heritage,” Jaime Lagunez, spokesman for the Civic Front for Defence of Teotihuacan Valley, a coalition made up of local residents and shopkeepers, told IPS.

Construction of the new store, which will carry the name “Bodega Aurrera”, a Mexican chain that belongs to Wal-Mart, is almost complete.

It is scheduled to open Nov. 15, say Wal-Mart representatives, who have turned a deaf ear to the Civic Front’s protests and the complaints of numerous Mexican artists and academics, who say the massive structure will stick out like a sore thumb in the world famous archaeological zone.

The warehouse-style store is located near the ancient citadel, within the limits of San Juan Teotihuacan, a town that has grown steadily over the past 20 years, to its current population of more than 45,000.

A recent report by the Mexican chapter of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), an adviser to UNESCO (U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation), states that the Wal-Mart store meets the requirements outlined by international treaties.

But, the report adds, local authorities should take a close look at urban planning in the area, where it says there are already “serious alterations” of the landscape due to urban sprawl.

Wal-Mart won municipal permits and authorisation from Mexico’s National Institute of Archaeology and History to build the new discount store.

In response to demonstrations and protests by local residents, which included the occupation of the construction site by activists in August to try to bring work to a halt, the government of Vicente Fox and local municipal officials agreed to review the permits – and endorsed them.

“UNESCO and the government are wrong,” said Lagunez, whose group has even held hunger strikes. “What is happening here in Teotihuacan is an affront to Mexico’s culture, and we will not allow it.”

“You just wait and see, the store will not open, because we are prepared to do whatever it takes,” warned the Civic Front spokesman.

His confidence can perhaps be explained by past achievements by the coalition. In 1993 and 1997, the incomplete construction sites of two shopping centres were demolished not far from the new Wal-Mart store, after the Civic Front filed complaints and authorities investigated.

Some of the Civic Front’s members acknowledge that while the group was set up principally to defend Mexico’s cultural heritage, the survival of their small family-owned businesses in San Juan Teotihuacan is also at stake.

In an open letter, Mexican artist Francisco Toledo and writers Homero Aridjis and Carlos Monsiváis added their voices to the chorus of protests and demanded that the store be demolished.

Wal-Mart has become the biggest retailer in Mexico. Its 652 stores in this country of 102 million people sold more than 12 billion dollars in retail goods last year and served a total of 600 million customers.

“For the ancient inhabitants of Mexico, Teotihuacan was the place where humanity became divine, the precise spot where the sun rose into the heavens,” wrote Toledo, Aridjis and Monsiváis.

“And for Mexicans today, Teotihuacan is our grandest cultural monument, the utmost expression of our history and our identity as a people. We cannot allow an eyesore at the centre of our very roots.

“The struggle for Teotihuacan is a war of symbols: the symbol of ancient Mexico against the symbol of transnational commerce; transgenic corn against the Feathered Serpent (the Aztec god Queztalcoatl) and Mexico’s traditional foods; the Day of the Dead against Halloween; skeletons against jack-o-lanterns,” the letter added.

The huge new ochre-coloured building, which is less than 10 metres high, will not be the only business in the area around the archaeological site, although it will be the largest. The store, parking lots and grounds cover a total area of 1.5 hectares.

The store, which has hired its future employees among local residents in San Juan Teotihuacan, is located near a hotel and a narrow street packed with small shops and stalls, brightly coloured signs and street lights with snarls of electrical wiring attached.

The unplanned urban settlement cropped up on land where an indigenous group with rich knowledge of architecture and astronomy lived hundreds of years ago. Archaeological objects have been found under houses and businesses in the area, including the Wal-Mart store.

“Yes it’s true, this street is not exactly picturesque and has nothing to do with the pyramids,” Laura Villagrán, who owns a small pharmacy less than 500 metres from the new Wal-Mart store, told IPS. “But that doesn’t mean these people can just show up here with all their power, to steal our customers.”

Her viewpoint contrasts with that of her neighbours Mario Jaime, Gustavo Salgado and Guadalupe Nativitas, who said in a conversation with IPS that the new store was bringing jobs and “progress” to San Juan Teotihuacan. “We’ll finally have access to a store with quality products,” said Salgado.

But Lagunez complained that Wal-Mart “has brainwashed a lot of local residents, convincing them that the store will practically amount to a social service.”

Along the streets of San Juan Teotihuacan can be seen signs in which Wal-Mart offers jobs and claims to be a “friend” of the town.

The buildings and roads built in the last 20 years in the area where the original city of Teotihuacan was located only left the 263-hectare ceremonial centre and part of a 200-hectare “buffer zone” surrounding it intact.

The original extension of the archaeological complex was estimated to be 3,500 hectares.

Archaeologists lament that much of the enigmatic citadel of Teotihuacan, which last year received 2.1 million visitors, will keep its secrets forever now, under the cement of the growing urban sprawl.

They predict that only the ceremonial centre of Tollan Teotihuacan, an indigenous name that means “Where Men Become Gods”, will be left in 20 years.

Teotihuacan is the name given the spot by the Aztecs, who discovered the abandoned buildings around the year 1300. No one knows the original name of the religious citadel, which was built by another indigenous group at the dawn of the Christian era.

The city reached its peak of splendour between the years 450 and 600 AD, when it was home to as many as 200,000 people. But by the year 700, the inhabitants had left the area for reasons that scholars have failed to unravel.

The Aztecs were so impressed by what they found, they thought the pyramids had been built by giants with the help of the gods, historians report.

The main ceremonial complex is made up of the pyramids of the Sun and the Moon, and numerous temples and houses along the Avenue of the Dead, which is five km long and between 50 and 100 metres wide.

The Pyramid of the Sun is as high as a 20-story building and 215 metres square. It is the third largest pyramid in the world and the largest at Teotihuacan.

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