Posted on 02/28/2003 1:59:09 PM PST by knak
SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico - Scores of Zapatista rebel supporters seized an American-owned tourism ranch in the southern state of Chiapas on Friday.
Rebels denouncing foreign influence have said they want to drive out the American owners of the Rancho Esmerelda, and since mid-December residents of the rebel village of Nuevo Jerusalem had blocked roads leading to the ranch.
At about 7:30 a.m., about 100 intruders arrived and threw out the two caretakers who were the only people left on the 26-acre property, said Ellen Jones, who owned the ranch with her husband, Glen Wersch.
"This is a robbery with two months of advance, written notice," she said. "We just had our lives destroyed, our home taken from us, our business ruined and our life savings evaporate."
The intruders had machetes, but were not violent and did not harm the employees, she said, adding that police were summoned but that they declined to enter the property to confront the invaders.
Local reporters confirmed the takeover. The office of state Government Secretary Emilio Zebadua also confirmed the takeover but said it had no details.
The leftist Zapatistas have mingled calls for Indian rights, local autonomy and socialist economics since emerging from the jungle canyons of rural Chiapas on Jan. 1, 1994.
Recently they have begun to denounce foreign investment and tourism projects such as Rancho Esmeralda — the sort of programs that federal and state officials have encouraged in hopes of overcoming Chiapas' poverty.
The Zapatistas had told reporters they had no plans to seize the ranch, but hoped to force the Americans out. Wersch, however, said their employees had been told the rebels planned to take the property.
Since the road was closed by residents of Nuevo Jerusalem, the Americans had closed their guest ranch operation and moved to the nearby town of Ocosingo, but kept caretakers on to look after their tropical flowers, coffee plants and macadamia groves.
Jones said state officials, apparently wary of prompting a bloody clash with rebels, had told her and Wersch last week that they would not intervene to open the road.
The seizure Friday occurred a few hours before President Vicente Fox (news - web sites) arrived in Chiapas to inaugurate a program called the "National Crusade for Legal Security in the Countryside."
"He picked a bad day," Jones said.
Wersch and Jones came to Chiapas in 1993 after a two-year stint in the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic inspired them to mix environmentally friendly agriculture with a tourist getaway. They set up cabins where guests could see coffee grow — and drink it as well.
I wonder how the Mexicans would react if a bunch of white Americans got together and started seizing property of Mexican nationals here in the U.S.
Post of the day!
Who really wants to seize a beat up school bus with bad brakes and a milk jug filled with tepid water?
Hmmm, he obviously needs to do a better job.
There is strict rules here about the places where you may or may not operate a tourism house, just to not hurt your vicinity.
Friends of mine own a ranch in Chiapas and never had nor expect any problem. They rule their ranch in accordance with what they feel about their neighborhood.
People who act like if there is no rule in Mexico and start inviting guests in a ranch should have thought about that they are themselves guests in Mexico.
If your guests start inviting unknown people for money, are you really willing to invite them again ?
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