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Hound Dog

Dec 20, 2009, 3:13 PM

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Things Are Rarely As They Seem in OZ

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Highland Chiapas is always on edge. In Chicomuselo, near the border with Guatemala, a Canadian mining company headquatered in Alberta extracting barite in an open-pit mine in Chiapas is, as reported in the Canadian and Mexican press, reportedly "bribing" a local official or local officials to assure that mining activities are not disrupted by local anti-mining activists claiming environmental degredation and who the hell really knows what that means except that, in the midst of that controversy, three local employees of the Canadian mining company known as Blackfire Exploration, LTD. gunned down and killed the presumed leader of the protests, Mariano Abarca, in front of his home in broad daylight and I will tell you this; much unpleasantness will come of this and I do not wish to prejudge anyone but let´s hope the days when imperialists could go into a desperately poor place such as Chiapas and extract vital minerals with no regard for the health and welfare of impoverished locals living adjacent to open pit mines are over. Don´t bet on it, however. As this unfolds, nothing good will come of it for anyone.

I, of course have my opinion as to whom are the irresponsible parties here and I must tell you it is all of those involved on all sides. There will be no winners when the dust settles.

Keep you eyes on Chiapas news to see where we go from here.

(This post was edited by Hound Dog on Dec 20, 2009, 3:17 PM)

wendy devlin

Dec 20, 2009, 5:00 PM

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Re: [Hound Dog] Things Are Rarely As They Seem in OZ

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Slow day, trollistically speaking, Dog.

People can follow this story, by the day, in the Canadian media like:

http://www.thestar.com/...y-in-mexico-escalate

Perhaps, your predication that more people, lose than gain, tends to be born out, by history in the region. Blackfire in its defense, claims that it paid more than $17,000 to the Mayor of Chicomuselo, for him, to 'appease' his local constituents. Did any of this money trickle down?

Blackfire claims to have followed environmental guidelines. Have they?

As it's said, "It depends, on whose ox is gored."
All sides have a dog in the fight.

Remember the protests in Chiapas, in January 2004 over NAFTA?
And the international monetary repercussions ala, the Chase Manhattan bank and El Crisis?

Especially in regards to ejidos being able to 'sell' their land, especially to foreign investors and while we're on this topic, drug lords. These kinds of unresolved use of land and their socio-economic issues, never tend to go away. Unless the majority and minority stake-holders get down to the nitty-gritty baseline of striking compromises.

500 hundred years of history is a difficult baseline to negotiate. And IMHO, not getting any easier.

Hound Dog

Dec 21, 2009, 10:29 AM

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Re: [wendy devlin] Things Are Rarely As They Seem in OZ

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Yes, Wendy, the longer I live in Chiapas the more I am confronted with my ignorance of this mysterious region. Ditto Oaxaca State. We avoid politics like the plague down there but we are also surprised by the number of seemingly naive folks who show up from foreign lands and stick their noses into complex issues they simply cannot comprehend. We´ve lived half of each year down there since early 2006 and the longer we are there the more comples local issues appear to be to us.

We leave Lake Chapala soon for San Cristóbal and had planned a leisurely drive down the Pacific Coast from Lázaro Cardenas , Michoacan but think we´ll try that new arco rorte autopista that skirts Mexico City on the Chapala to Puebla leg of the journey. If my calculations are correct, avoiding the drive through Mexico City will save us considerable time from Jalisco to Veracruz State. I´ll report back on how that goes when we get to San Cristóbal.

By taking the direct route to Chiapas instead of the Pacific Coast, we´ll have time to enjoy an extended visit to the Yucatan including; finally, that trip to Calakmul and adjacent ruins we had to cancel before. For those of you unfamiliar with Calakmul, there is a thread hereabouts discussing these isolated ruins.

It will be exciting to get back to beautiful Southern Mexico. I hope not too exciting as all factions are stirring the pot down there at present. Forget who´s right or wrong. A couple of years ago as we drove through the town of Palenque, we drove, in the middle of the day, into a gun battle between narcos and the military. We found we were less interested in who the good guys were than the directions of bullets from either side.

wendy devlin

Dec 23, 2009, 2:04 PM

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Re: [Hound Dog] Things Are Rarely As They Seem in OZ

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Surprised you didn't jump on my factual error, writing 1994, instead of 2004.

'You must like me. You must really, really like me.' Better maybe than Sally Fields:)

Years ago, around 1999, I brought down a VHS of a CBC(Canadian Broadcasting Company) documentary about Chiapas to an amigo in Jalisco. In the video, several sides, including Zapatista supporting spokespeople, including various indigenous leaders AND wealthy Chiapaneco land-owning mestizmos were interviewed as to the current conflict. Needless to say, the viewpoints represented opposite ends of the political spectrum. I could read some bias into the documentary from the justice over culture perspective, but my Mexican friend, had already pre-judged the video's contents as in, if foreigners created it, the video could in no way, have any validity.
Years later, he returned it to me, in what I think, might have been pristine(as in unviewed) condition.

Ditto the same attitude for other Mexican friends. The situation for them, in Chiapas, was as foreign. As say, another country. Which indeed was their attitude.

Ditto when I approached the subject of the spreading influence of drug lords among the disenfranchised in the years to follow. Our Mexican friends and extended family relatives, all thought, the 'bad people', the malos, the drug-users etc. had nothing much to do with 'them', their lives.

Warned, uselessly, it would seem in retrospect, that it might some day, have 'everything' to do with them, their lives. Maybe that day has not yet arrived. Maybe it has.

Of course, I hope that you and Bridgette have a safe and pleasant, southward migration. Northward as well in the future. There is such a thing as being in the wrong place at the wrong time. In 1993 arbon and myself were buying fish on a remote Baja beach..............lets just say.

It was the wrong place. But it wasn't yet. Our time.

(This post was edited by wendy devlin on Dec 23, 2009, 2:06 PM)

geri

Dec 24, 2009, 7:31 PM

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Re: [Hound Dog] Things Are Rarely As They Seem in OZ

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You got that right, political protests are VERY complicated in southern Mexico. During Oaxaca's 2006 "problem" months, if you asked most Mexicans what was going on they would answer: muy complicado. The taxi drivers, of course, hated the teachers who they blamed for the blockades. Yet, in spite of my trying hard to figure out who the winners and losers were, there were foreigners and human rights groups who KNEW. They came here with little historical background knowledge and took sides. It must make life much easier to see things so vividly in black and white. My vision of my beloved Oaxaca is fogged with so many shades of gray it's dizzying. Maybe that's why I like it. I can never figure it out. Lots of unpredictability and conflicting ideas.

I'm saddened to hear that the mining interests are in Chiapas also and that "bloodshed" has already started. This isn't just popping up suddenly. I've been following news about it for about 5 years and felt in my gut that there would be rebellion because, even though the mining companies have no doubt paid for their rights, probably the keepers/workers of the land haven't seen much compensation.

Hey, this is the holiday season. Fireworks are going off. Oaxaca City is jam-packed with visitors from all over the world, drawn here by its traditions and mystique. Peace to all of you in the coming year.

Geri

Hound Dog

Dec 25, 2009, 8:10 AM

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Re: [geri] Things Are Rarely As They Seem in OZ

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Good points, Geri:

During the 2006 "problems" we drove up from San Cristóbal to stay at a very nice hotel 1/2 block from the Oaxaca zocalo and we had no problem getting a room as the tourist business was in the toilet. The area around the zocalo was blockaded and protesters were camped in the zocalo and surrounding areas. The staff and management of the hotel were furious at the teachers union protesting that teachers had it made and they were the ones suffering as business had ground to a halt. This is the same type of deep resentment bordering on hatred we see in my wife´s native France between civil servants and private business working stiffs. Some time after we returned to San Cristóbal, the municipality shut off the water to everyone because so many water users were not paying their water bills. Everyone seemed to be blaming the densely populated indigenous ghettos surrounding the town but, as it turned out, it was "fat cat" hotel owners who were not paying for their water. As Jack Nicholson famously said; "You want the truth? You can´t handle the truth." So we simply keep our distance parked in neutral until things settle down as they always do until people on one side or the other decide to vent again on down the road.

(This post was edited by Hound Dog on Dec 25, 2009, 8:15 AM)