San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
MEXICO SAYS SOME MAYAN RUIN SITES UNREACHABLE
Gang violence, land conflicts cut off access, threatening livelihoods
Mexico’s government has acknowledged that at least two wellknown Mayan ruin sites are unreachable by visitors because of a toxic mix of cartel violence and land disputes.
But two tourist guides in the southern state of Chiapas, near the border with Guatemala, say two other sites that the government claims are still open to visitors can only be reached by passing though drug gang checkpoints.
The explosion of drug cartel violence in Chiapas since last year has left the Yaxchilán ruin site completely cut off, the government conceded Friday.
The tour guides, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they must still work in the area, said that gunmen and checkpoints are often seen on the road to another site, Bonampak, famous for its murals.
They say that to get to yet another archaeological site, the Mayan pyramid complex Lagartero, travelers are forced to hand over identification and cellphones at cartel checkpoints.
Meanwhile, officials concede that visitors also can’t go to the imposing,
towering pyramids at Tonina, because a landowner has shut off access across his land while seeking payment from the government for granting the right of way.
The cartel-related dangers are the most problematic. The two cartels warring over the area’s lucrative drug and migrant smuggling routes set up the checkpoints to detect any movement by their rivals.
Though no tourist has been harmed so far, and the government claims the sites are safe, many guides no longer take tour groups there.
“It’s as if you told me to go to the
Gaza Strip, right?” said one of the guides.
“They demand your identification, to see if you’re a local resident,” he said, describing an almost permanent gang checkpoint on the road to Lagartero. “At any given time, a rival group could show up and start a gunbattle,” he added.
The government seems unconcerned, and there is even anger that anyone would suggest there is a problem, in line with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s policy of playing down gang violence.
“It is false, biased and irresponsible to say that these archaeological sites are in danger from drug traffickers,” the National Institute of Anthropology and History said Friday. It claimed it “retains control of the sites.”
Both guides stressed that the best-known Mayan ruin site in Chiapas, the imposing temple complex at Palenque, is open and safe for visitors. But starting around December, tourists have canceled about 5 percent of trips booked to the area, and there are fears that could grow.
Things that some tourists once enjoyed — like the more adventurous trip to ruins buried deep in the jungle, like Yaxchilán, on the banks of the Usumacinta river — are either no longer possible, or so risky that several guides have publicly announced they won’t take tourists there.
In Chiapas, residents are often members of Indigenous groups like the Choles or Lacandones, both descendants of the ancient Maya, who have come to depend on tourism. The violence and land disputes put their livelihoods at risk.
“There are communities that sell handicrafts, that provide places to stay, boat trips, craftspeople. It affects the economy a lot,” said the first guide. “You have to remember that this is an agricultural state that has no industry, no factories, so tourism has become an economic lever, one of the few sources of work.”