Riviera Maya towns are running out of space in cemeteries. The reason: urban speculation

Mexico wants to boost tourism. The Mayan Train was López Obrador’s last big project: a connection between different tourist areas of the country that would also allow easier access to other areas that are perhaps not as exploited for tourism. The goal for 2024 was to receive 8,000 tourists a day in the Yucatan Peninsula alone, and the plan seems to be working. There is a problem: some of these tourists are deciding to stay, which is pushing indigenous communities away.

It is such a serious problem that there are already towns without space to bury their dead. And the blame lies with urban speculation.

Gentrification. Merida It is the largest city in the Yucatan Peninsula. It is also its capital. Its population growth seems unstoppable, and it has practically doubled its population from 520,000 inhabitants in 1990 to 921,000 in the 2020 census. It is catalogued as one of the best Mexican cities to do business and it has companies, but also many memories of past times and of the Mayan community as a tourist attraction.

Urban colonialismThe problem is that, precisely, the indigenous communities are denouncing their expulsion from the urban core. Rodrigo Alejandro Llanes Salazar is doctor in Anthropological Sciences and has denounced on several occasions that colonialism did not end with independence from Spain. As he himself points out, there is a new form of colonialism:

“It is a question of urban colonialism. Not only because Mérida is transforming the towns that surround it into colonies or subdivisions, but because its characteristics also resemble colonialism,” says Llanes. And those towns/neighborhoods that are suffering the consequences are, among others, those of Chablekal, Temozon, Caucel, Cholul either Saint Gertrude Copó.

Tug of war for traditions. Llanes claims that this type of colonialism confronts indigenous inhabitants, their natural areas and their traditions, all with the complicity of municipal authorities. DissidentsThey say that the authorities justify the attacks on towns near the capital because economic progress is being generated, but the reality is that only a few people benefit.

Leydi Eloína Cocom Valencia is one of the people in charge of the Santa Gertrudis Copó neighbourhood and says that the boom in real estate developments is causing the city’s inhabitants to have no consideration for the indigenous people. “They want to take away our traditions,” says Leydi, who also says that a few years ago, while they were holding one of their festivals, the residents of a residential area filed a complaint with the Mérida city council.

The reason is that “the people were making a lot of noise” and they argued that the rockets could cause heart attacks in their pets. Leydi says that not all the new residents have these behaviours and there are those who participate in these ancestral traditions.

ChablekalThe problem with all this is the urban development that the city has experienced due to its population growth. Leydi says that there was never a consultation to ask about the mega real estate developments that have been taking up space in the towns that were already there, commenting that her town “has been mistreated by businessmen.”

And one of those towns is Chablekal. Of a community of 5,000 hectares, now only about 1,000 remain, according to Randy Soberanis Dzul, of the Union of Chablekal Residents for the Right to Tenure of Land, Territory and Natural Resources. The village is now surrounded by luxury communities and shopping malls and the complaint is that some have sold their land due to fraud, pressure or lack of resources.

The cemetery dramaSilvia Beatriz Chalé Euán is a resident of Chablekal who affirms In the last 10 years, Mérida has taken control of the libraries, the civil registries… and the cemeteries. This is a problem that seems to be common in several of these towns, and it is causing something tragic: there is no space for the dead. What does this cause? Well, there are families who have to bury their dead in cemeteries that are far from their home.

There is no place for the deadIn Mexico, we can read This is anecdotal, but it shows the current reality of these villages. In Chablekal, two or three people die every year, but in 2023, two people died on the same day and at the same time. It was a strange event, but the drama for the relatives continued after the death: in the village cemetery there was only room for one of the two bodies.

Following a dispute, the person born in the village was buried in Chablekal. The other person was buried in a nearby cemetery, but the problem is that the cemetery could easily be expanded if it were not for the fact that the owners of the land do not want to donate it because they prefer to sell it for urban development.

Scheduled exhumationsAnd if there is a need to make room for new dead, others who were already buried are exhumed. It seems that the Mérida city council has a list of people to be exhumed every three years to make room for new deceased. The problem (one more) is that many bodies are not decomposed when the date arrives, so they are reburied due to religious reasons.

When a body is exhumed and not reburied, the family cremates it, something they have had to get used to because it was not in their beliefs. And the big problem with all this is that the Chablekal Pantheon has 45 vaults for a population of 5,000 people. This is going to continue for a long time.

Mayas against gentrification“We do not want to be a colony of Mérida, we want to continue being a Mayan town,” He stated Silvia Beatriz, a land defender, is not referring only to the fact that institutions and cemeteries are controlled from Mérida, but also to the fact that the local authorities elected in these towns and villages are increasingly less important in politics.

“Now it is the municipality that decides what time the dead person is buried and the administrative procedures for death are carried out in Mérida. This takes away authority from the representatives that we elect. Little by little and quietly they are removing some things and damaging many things in the town, as if we were, in fact, a colony,” says Silvia, who goes on to affirm that the city council is exercising this “control, the power of decision-making, of saying: I say what, when and at what time, on behalf of this municipality.”

That is why there are groups like Silvia’s and Randy’s who are fighting to have more autonomy and say in the decisions surrounding their community, hoping that Mérida will stop seeing them as a colony and at least be able to have the certainty that they will rest eternally in their town.

Images | Ivan Alexis Huerta Reyna, Kprateek88

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