"Mexican Traditionalists Fight Wal-Mart Close to Pyramids"

Knight Ridder News

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 last May of Wal-Mart'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 entranceway 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 charge "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 Mexico's 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 Democratic
Revolutionary Party, filed charges with the federal attorney general's
office to block the store. He charged that Wal-Mart damaged archaeological
relics during construction, a crime subject to imprisonment, and accused
government officials of illegally fast-tracking the project.

Last week, 63 prestigious artists and intellectuals, in a letter published
in Mexican newspapers, 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 is already Mexico's largest retailer, with 664 stores in
66 cities 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 700 A.D., Teotihuacan was called "the place
where the gods were created" by the Aztecs, who re-encountered 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 said 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.

The permits required that inspectors from the archaeology institute be on
site during construction. The store's height was limited to avoid
obstructing the view of the nearby domes of the 1548 Church of St. John the
Baptist.

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, ochre-colored building.

"I make good money here at Wal-Mart and live well," guard Jose Garcia said.