By MARK STEVENSON
https://apnews.com/article/travel-mexico-caribbean-342f20e2a06fe89b59099797b7141d4e
TULUM, Mexico (AP) — Unbridled development has hit this once-lazy beach town on Mexico’s Caribbean coast so hard that developers are now eager — even desperate — to build condos and hotels in a shantytown.
As police try to evict squatters so towering condos can be built alongside timber and tar paper shacks, residents are fighting back, saying they’re tired of foreign investors foreclosing locals from their own shores.
In the most recent standoff, on July 27, police escorting an excavator fired tear gas and attempted to demolish the homes of some squatters in the shadow of a new balcony condominium building. The attempt ended when the wind shifted the gas back towards the officers, who retreated under a hail of rocks.
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The contrast between rich and poor is stark: gleaming white, four-story condominiums with vaguely Mayan-sounding names and English slogans like “Live in the Luscious Jungle” and “An immersive spiritual experience” stand next to huts made of stilts, packing boxes, tarps, and tin roofs.
On a coast where uncontrolled resort development has already shut down most public access to beaches — there are few public access points along the 130km stretch known as the Riviera Maya — residents of the squatter camp may have reason ask whether poorer Mexicans are allowed here at all.
Officials in Quintana Roo state have vowed to relocate or remove about 12,000 residents of the 137-acre Oct. 2 settlement. It was established in 2016 on very valuable and once public land a few blocks from the city’s Main Street and about 1 1/2 miles from the waterfront.
Such land invasions are common throughout Mexico. Many are quickly wiped out. But others are gradually integrating into their cities. Up to 250,000 people are believed to live in squatter communities on the outskirts of Cancun.
Officials claim the “invaders” created a semi-lawless enclave that has tarnished Tulum’s reputation for growing violence and threatened its vital tourism industry.
Squatter leader Jose Antonio León Méndez, a welder who has lived in Cancun and Tulum for about three decades, says he — like many of the squatters who work as cooks, gardeners and bricklayers in nearby condos and hotels — says he’s sorry was knowing he could never afford a home in cities increasingly populated by foreigners.
“How can a Mexican be an ‘invader’ in his own country? That makes no sense. It’s like saying someone steals something that belongs to them,” said León Méndez. “These people are not thieves; They are Tulum’s workforce.”
“We have no personal problems with the foreigners, but they should respect our rights,” he said, adding that October 2 represents a last stand for Mexicans to be driven off their own shores.
The development is part of a larger, 200-acre public lot that was sold by city officials to mostly foreign developers in the 2000s.
Condos on the outskirts of camp — and some far inside — are now selling for $100,000 to $150,000 and are advertised in dollars — as are entrance fees at many beach resorts. In the Tulum area, $20 a day is considered a good wage. So the average Mexican worker would have to be paid for decades to buy one.
Quintana Roo Attorney General Oscar Montes de Oca vows to evict squatters “We even have the court eviction orders,” said Montes de Oca. “It’s just that every time we’ve tried, everyone immediately gets together and blocks the streets.”
Many of those roadblocks are still in place: mounds of rocks, tires, and scrap wood piled on the streets, ready to be lit.
Mateo Cruz, who is renting a room for himself and his two children in the development, shows the angry bruise on his thigh, where he says he was hit by a police tear gas canister.
“They came and said we had to get out and take our stuff,” Cruz said of the July 27 eviction attempt. The lot he lives on is directly under a new four-story apartment building.
“What were they thinking, firing tear gas at so many people?” Cruz said.
According to Montes de Oca, officials plan to relocate the squatters: “We will offer them plots of land outside of this area, which will be provided by the state government. … The businessmen will contribute money to build houses.”
“This will result in 70% of these people leaving voluntarily, knowing they have a decent place to live,” said Montes de Oca. When asked what would happen to the other 30%, he replied, “Other means will be used.”
León Méndez declines such an offer.
“We will not allow them to keep selling the land to foreigners while they send us locals who have lived in Quintana Roo for 15, 20 or 30 years to live 20 kilometers away in the woods,” he said. “This is non-negotiable.”
Given the cost of tourist-focused taxis and bus routes, commuting from a new settlement could cost workers a quarter of their daily wages.
But officials have a different argument.
Street-level drug trafficking is behind many of the murders at the October 2 camp — just like the rest of Tulum. In October, two tourists — one an Indian-born Californian travel blogger and the other German — were caught in the apparent crossfire of rival drug dealers and killed at a restaurant along Tulum’s Main Street.
According to state police chief Lucio Hernández, government surveillance cameras have caught many of Tulum’s drug dealers using the squatter camp as a hideout.
Rafael Hernández Juárez, leader of the squatters, admits that violence in the area has increased, with drug sales and killings recurring.
“We try not to get involved with them,” said the affable former tourist shuttle driver, noting that it would be dangerous for him to report drug sellers.
Victor Reyes, a Tulum resident who works in real estate, estimates that about 70% of condo investments come from foreign developers, and the condos are valued in dollars “because they need to get their investment back in dollars.”
It reflects some locals’ distrust of the squatters. “Their groups became mafias,” Reyes said. “These organizations gather people together… and they use women and children as cannon fodder” to avoid displacement. “They won the lottery” for occupying such valuable land, he says.
The squatters are obviously a political group – currently linked to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s Morena party – and in a way many see their humble shacks as lottery winners.
Many have built second sets of rooms and rent out their original cabins to locals. Some squatters have sold their spacious 10 by 20 yard lots for $8,000 to $12,000. Apparently they progressively invest all their available money into building rooms—sometimes out of brick, sometimes out of wood—as they save enough on materials.
But none have running water or sewage connections, although the condos built in the same camp all have one; Some of the condos even have swimming pools. Squatters manipulate their electricity connections, making do with wells and crude septic tanks drilled into the rocky ground, the combination of which is problematic.
For the vast majority of squatters, daily life remains a struggle even though they live on expensive real estate.
Lenin Solís Vega, a construction worker, builds his own house, concrete block by block. He has been evicted twice from previous properties in the development – one 20 meters from his current home where a new condominium building is to be built.
“Now they’re saying, ‘Why are you building?’ and they want to kick us out,” he said. “But how? We are Mexicans and we have nothing.”
Some of the squatters have even taken advantage of the wealthier neighbors who come to buy cheap meals from the residents.
Originally from Campeche state, Lorena spent years cooking for tourists in hotels and restaurants where she was once forbidden to speak her native language, Maya. She requested that her last name not be used to avoid problems with authorities.
And since she built her hut out of wood and tarp — she planted trees and built a goldfish pond in the back — she’s been able to set up her own street food stand in front of her house.
She’s even learned to recite in English the “beef, chicken, pork” empanadas that she sells to tourists coming in from the condos.
“All investors are welcome,” Lorena said, “but they must not discriminate against us or look down on us just because we are poor.”