Wal-Mart unit near shrine is jeered, lauded



By Hugh Dellios Tribune foreign correspondent

Of all the arguments in the global battle over Wal-Mart superstores, Emmanuel D'Herrera and his band of protesters may have found the most cosmic.




Mexico's newest Wal-Mart-owned hypermarket, inside the outer archeological zone around the famous Teotihuacan pyramids, will destroy the spirituality of a sacred site, they say.


The pyramids, 200 feet tall and 2,000 years old, are where thousands gather on the first day of spring to experience their "energy," where tourists speak softly out of reverence, where some Mexicans bury the umbilical cords of their children as an offering to the almighty.


"This is a trampling of the cultural patrimony of humanity. This business comes to threaten values that are transcendentally spiritual and traditional," said D'Herrera, who is on a hunger strike to protest the store.


Most of the town's shoppers couldn't agree less. After months of protests, the store finally opened Thursday, to the glee of hundreds of bargain hunters massed in the parking lot so they could be the first to rush through the doors.


"I brought my [shopping] list!" said Adrianna Hernandez, 31, who heard on the grapevine about the store's tightly guarded opening and already knew how much she would save on diapers, shampoo and ready-to-eat meals.


"Last week, there was a line of cars out here, but they wouldn't let us enter."


Such are the sentiments surrounding Wal-Mart's latest foray in Mexico. In recent years, the corporation has grown into the country's largest private employer with its 655 stores and restaurants, even as familiar complaints about its low wages and competition-busting style are intensified by protests decrying it as asymbol of globalization and American greed.


Location triggers protest


Wal-Mart Mexico's choice of location for its latest supermarket, under the name of its Bodega Aurrera subsidiary, has raised eyebrows. A group of 63 artists and intellectuals, including the prominent painter Francisco Toledo, sent a letter to President Vicente Fox (news - web sites), asking him to stop the project.


Wal-Mart officials scoff, as do most residents of this town of 15,000 northeast of Mexico City. They say the protests about harming the pyramids' ambience are an exaggerated facade for the opposition of "six or seven" local merchants who fear they will lose their business.


The site is within an archeological zone established by presidential decree in 1988. But the National Institute of Anthropology and History approved the location after determining there was little evidence of pre-Hispanic structures underneath. A United Nations (news - web sites) antiquities council also signed off.


At one point, construction was temporarily stopped after archeologists found remnants of an ancient altar at the edge of the parking lot. Work was resumed after the piece was removed and preserved, but it fed opponents' claims that there is corruption, lying and a cover-up behind the store's approval.


The site is less than a mile from the Pyramid of the Sun and next to other businesses at the edge of town. It is not directly visible from the pyramids, but the village's skyline is, including a church dome, a garish billboard and the steel towers and cables of a nearby power distribution complex.


"There are no ruins here, only by the pyramids," said Petra Onofre, 45, another homemaker waiting for the store to open. "Now all we lack is a cinema, and if we had a hospital, we would be completely happy."


Mingling with the shoppers, Raul Arguelles, a Wal-Mart Mexico vice president, said the company chose the site because of its 60,000 nearby inhabitants and the fact that the closest supermarket had been a 30-minute drive away.


He refused to say how much the new store's 185 employees will earn but said the company received 2,160 applications for those posts and 400 temporary construction jobs. "I would say that there wouldn't be 108,000 of us Mexicans working [with Wal-Mart nationally] if the salaries weren't good," he said.





The protesters acknowledge they are a minority and are concerned about local merchants going out of business. But they say they also want to make sure that commercial values and Wal-Mart's seductive prices aren't the only things considered in such government decisions.

D'Herrera, a local teacher and former diplomat, said it would be a travesty to have such a symbol of mercantilism inside a site that predated the Aztecs and was known to them as "the place where men became gods."

Communing with ancients

"When I pass by the pyramids, I always ask myself what they are trying to tell me, and what these Teotihuacanos wanted to tell us, these people who made possible their dream of eternity by building these things," he said.

Despite last week's opening, the opponents haven't given up hopes of having the store closed or relocated. They still occupy their protest tent at the ruins' entrance and have planned a Sunday meeting to discuss additional protest methods.

"We're going to fight on," said Emma Ortega, 59, another protester, even though she has owned a restaurant within the archeological zone for years. "All they care about is money. That's their god now."

It's amazing. They are willing to put a Wal-mart any and everywhere... Except New York City.

TheJourney4all7 said:

new york city is wal-mart-less ??

THAT blows my mind

Mach said:

5 boroughs, 8 million people ... no Wal-mart. I've only been to a Wal-mart once, while I in Pennsylvania. An executive told my father once that they wouldn't put a Wal-mart in NYC because they don't like dealing with the labor unions.