Indigenous people from Pisté, Xcalacoop, San Felipe and other communities surrounding the archaeological zone of Chichén Itzá announced this Tuesday the takeover of the facilitiess, as of Wednesday, from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) in the Mexican city of Mérida, capital of the southeastern state of Yucatán.
“The measure was decided because there were no agreements with the representative of the federal government, Juan Cristóbal Orozco,” the Pisté commissioner, Armando Dzul Mex, confirmed to EFE during the second day of blocking the roads leading to the world-renowned archaeological zone.
Although the demonstration on the roads is costly for the peasants, tourist guides, merchants and artisans, “because we are not working,” they pointed out that the mobilization that emerged on Monday to remove the director of the Chichén Itzá site, Marco Antonio Santos Ramírez, “continues stronger than ever.”
“This Wednesday we will demonstrate the support that ejidatarios from other communities give us, we can no longer tolerate the abuse of power of that character that violates the Mayan culture and our ancient customs, such as speaking our mother tongue and planting the milpa,” he asserted.
For his part, Juan Cristóbal Orozco told EFE that he tried to approach the protesters to establish a dialogue table to end to the conflict that begins to generate millionaire economic losses to the INAH and to the administration of Governor Mauricio Vila, through the Board of Cultural and Tourist Services Units (Cultur).
“There were no conditions for dialogue and there is no date for a next meeting,” he commented at the end of the talk he held upon his arrival in the Mayan community of Pisté.
The peasants accuse the official of holding meetings “in the dark” with the director of Chichén Itzá, authorities of Pisté and artisans who were not involved in the protest, “they want us to confront each other, but there is union among indigenous people so that we can recover the archaeological zone ”.
Millionaires loses
The closure of the Valladolid-Mérida highway, at the height of Xcalacoop and Pisté, affects tourists, although the archaeological zone of Chichén Itzá remains open and guarded by 50 National Guard agentswho arrived at the place to prevent the indigenous people from taking the main access to the thousand-year-old Mayan city that keeps architectural treasures inside.
“We know that tourist services (restaurants, hotels, taxi services, trucks and merchants) are collapsing economically, but so are we, because if we don’t work, we don’t eat,” Arturo Ciau Puc, Yucatan’s secretary of Indigenous Affairs, told EFE.
In Chichén Itzá, whose access fees for foreigners amount to 576 pesos (about 30 dollars), 258 pesos (about 13.3 dollars) for Mexicans and 90 pesos (4.6 dollars) for natives of Yucatán, the daily losses due to the blockade would be 2.6 million pesossince on average 3,000 to 10,000 people enter.
“This 2022, we received 2.63 million visitors in the archaeological zone of Chichén Itzá,” José Arturo Chab Cárdenas, director of the INAH Yucatán Center, explained to EFE, who denied rumors of the alleged suspension of the person in charge of the archaeological zone, declared a World Heritage Site. in 1988 by Unesco.
Members of the peasant movement minimized the presence of the National Guard in the place that protects the Castle of Kukulcán, named in 2007 as one of the new wonders of the modern world“we will not enter into conflict, but we will not let tourists through either.”
“Our social struggle will continue, despite the economic losses, which is why today we closed a dirt road access that the INAH opened for national and foreign visitors to enter,” they assured.
Tourist servers from Quintana Roo and Yucatan who could not enter the archaeological zone of Chichén Itzá for a second day, diverted to another site that shows the splendor of the Mayan culture: Ek Balam.
EFE International news agency based in Madrid and present in more than 110 countries.