Radio Workshop

Gringos, Go Home (Transcript)

by Gretchen Wilson

Rancho Esmeralda is listed in the Lonely Planet travel book series as one of the top ten places to visit in Mexico. It is a 26-acre haven in the highlands of the southern state of Chiapas. Hundreds of international tourists stay in rustic cabins and enjoy organically-grown local produce. Some tourists have been drawn to visit the region after the Zapatista rebellion here in 1994.

The owners of the ranch are two former Peace Corps volunteers from Idaho. Since early December, they have received threats from local Zapatista sympathizers who say the land rightfully belongs to the community, not to foreigners. The residents blockaded roads to the ranch, demanding the owners abandon the property. On February 6th, the owners of Rancho Esmeralda announced they would leave.

Elsewhere in the state, a group of French and Canadian kayakers were detained by others who say they supported Zapatista rebels.

Two weeks ago, the U.S. State Department issued a new travel advisory for select areas of Chiapas.

Todd Haskell works in the U. S. consulate in Mexico City. He says that since the Zapatista uprising in 1994, the Mexican government has not provided adequate police presence in parts of Chiapas.

TAPE: Well, to the extent that it deters from Mexican tourism has a lot to do with the people who, uh, who decide whether to deploy police or not. I guess people don't want to go to places where if something bad happens the police say things like, "Well, we're not going to send police there." (:15)

Despite the political unrest in Chiapas, conflicts between foreign visitors and local communities have been rare. Maya Bamer is a representative of the Mexico Tourism Board.

TAPE: I know that people traveling to Chiapas do need to be a little bit more careful. But mainly the conflicts that have been heard about in the state of Chiapas are just internal and usually they don't bother the tourists. (:15)

Violence like this will certainly have some impact on the Mexican tourism industry, the third largest source of revenue in a country where 40 percent of the population is below the poverty line.

TAPE: Tourism is a very big part of the Mexican economy.

So big, that last year, the Mexican government invested $250 million dollars in developing the so-called eco-tourism industry. The owners of eco-tourism businesses often claim that small-scale ventures ultimately benefit local residents.

Tamara Brennan is head of the Sexto Sol Eco-tourism Project in Chiapas.

TAPE - BRENNAN: We're working to promote eco-tourism as an alternative to, you know, coffee and other commodities that are not sustainable for people and that despite this problem which is very lamentable, we hope people will continue to look to this region as a place to explore. (:18)

Still, drastic economic disparity exists between tourist areas like Rancho Esmeralda - which the owners estimate was worth half a million U.S. dollars - and the shacks of local residents in the surrounding countryside.

But Brennan stresses that isolated incidents of tension between longtime residents and newcomers in not unique to Chiapas.

TAPE: Where there's poverty, there's conflict, you can take that for sure. And there's always conflict over land tenure in places where people try to make their living growing food. (:09)

Brennan says that tourists and foreign investors should not be scared away from Chiapas.

If they are, local governments will be less likely to support the industry. And impoverished areas will need to find another way to survive in a global economy.

For Columbia Radio News, I'm Gretchen Wilson.