Independence fete leaves some Mexicans cold (Feature)

By Helen Livingstone Sep 14, 2010, 3:07 GMT

Mazunte, Mexico - The red, white and green bunting has zigzagged above Mexico's streets for weeks and every central plaza in the country sports a proud array of flags and arms. But not everybody is looking forward to Mexico's 200th anniversary of independence celebrations.

'What do we have to celebrate?' asks Jaime Ziga, a guide at a government-sponsored turtle centre in Mazunte, a small village in Mexico's far south, on the Pacific coast in southern Oaxaca state.

'The majority of us are still poor,' he says. 'To make any money in Mexico you need to be a drug dealer, a priest, a politician, a mafioso or a cacique (head of a community). And we're not independent, we're rentable by the United States.'

The 40-year-old sells hamburgers in the evenings with his wife to augment his sparse government salary of about 600 dollars a month.

His comments echo the feelings of many Mexicans who feel neglected by the government, and frustrated by the lack of economic opportunities and endemic corruption. Mexico ranked 89 out of 180 countries on Transparency International's corruption index last year.

On Wednesday and Thursday, Mexico is marking the moment when its independence movement took off in 1810. Spain finally recognized independence in 1821.

In Mazunte, tourism is one of the main sources of income after the government banned hunting turtles for meat - then the mainstay of the village's economy - in 1990. Since then, the government has opened the turtle centre where Ziga works, as well as successfully encouraging other forms of eco-tourism.

Visitors can take boat tours to swim with sea turtles, and visit their spawning grounds as well as a lake full of crocodiles and a natural beauty products shop that The Body Shop helped set up.

The village has become something of a hippy paradise, not yet so touristy that it has lost its original charm. Small thatched cabanas and palm trees line the beach front, restaurants sell fresh seafood and exotic fruits and locals sell jewellery made from coconut shells and dried seeds.

The village's main road is paved and pothole free - unlike many of the roads in Oaxaca state - and work is under way to tarmac the two main roads to the beach. There are more tourists every year, the villagers say.

But walk past the beautiful beach front to the back streets where the locals live and you will see rundown houses with plastic roofs and bumpy roads. There are often problems with the water supply. When it rains, the electricity is frequently cut off.

'To even get electricity to my house, 100 metres back from the main road, I had to buy the cable and dig the line myself,' Ziga tells the German Press Agency dpa. 'I have a meter in my neighbour's house, under her name, so that I can pay. But I want to have my own meter, under my own name.'

He has already sent a petition to the leader of the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) in Oaxaca state, who he hopes will oust the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in state elections in December.

The PRI lost its majority in Congress in 1997, then lost the presidency to Vicente Fox in 2000 - the first non-PRI candidate to become president in more than 70 years.

Yet mistrust of the government, now led by President Felipe Calderon, remains widespread.

'Around four years ago, before Calderon became president, he visited Mazunte and I guided him around the centre,' Ziga recalls. 'Before he left I said, 'If you ever get into power, don't forget - we're Mexicans too.' But I don't think he remembered. He's never been back.'

Last week La Jornada newspaper, which is critical of the government, accused the political establishment of lying about unemployment figures, citing a report by the National University of Mexico (UNAM) putting the rate at 15.3 per cent - not 5.3 per cent as claimed by Calderon's government.

Outside Mexico, the news focusses on the more than 28,000 who have been killed since December 2006, when Calderon declared war on drug traffickers. While most of hte violence is in northern Mexico, eight people were murdered last month in the nearby town of Loma Bonita.

Edgar Vasquez, 23, who paddles tourists around the crocodile lakes, points to a four-metre-long specimen beside the boat. 'In 12 years this crocodile hasn't killed anyone,' he said. 'But in four years, Calderon has killed thousands.'

Hugo Rodriguez Matias, 26, and his wife Brenda, 25, who run an internet cafe in Mazunte also have more everyday problems on their minds. Their 5-year-old daughter Dafne attends the local school, but not all the village children do.

'Many of them can't afford the materials they need,' Brenda says. A uniform costs about 200 pesos (15 dollars), a notebook and pen another 30 pesos.

Almost every villager has a medical horror story. There is only one local doctor, for minor ailments, and the nearest hospital in Pochutla - a 20-minute drive away - is not well-equipped, they say.

For many in Mazunte, this week's celebrations are for those who profit from the status quo.

'But there seems to be a big upheaval in Mexico every 100 years,' says Vasquez, pointing out that 2010 is also the hundredth anniversary of the Mexican revolution. 'Maybe this year there'll be another - people are ready to die again.'